Nigel Farage shortlisted for Time magazine's Person of the Year award

Nigel Farage is on the shortlist for Time magazine's prestigious person of the year award.

The former UKIP leader features alongside the likes of US President-elect Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, scientists who have developed technology to edit DNA and Beyonce among the finalists.

The American news magazine appeared to give Mr Farage much of the credit for Brexit.

Announcing the 11-strong shortlist, which was chosen by the magazine's editors, the publication said: "As head of the UK Independence Party, Farage was a face of the successful campaign for Britain to leave the European Union, positioning the referendum as the start of a global populist wave against the political establishment."

The winner will be announced on Wednesday.

Mr Farage said earlier that 2016 will be remembered as the year the "little people decided they would assert themselves and could actually beat the establishment".

He was speaking during a visit to Sleaford in Lincolnshire ahead of Thursday's by-election, in which the Conservatives are defending a majority of more than 24,000.

Asked if his party's candidate, Victoria Ayling, stands a chance of winning, Mr Farage said: "I don't know, it's 2016, why predict anything? Only an idiot predicts things in 2016 because it's been so full of upsets.

"It's a big opportunity for voters to say to the Prime Minister: We voted for Brexit, we didn't vote for hard Brexit, we didn't vote for soft Brexit, we voted for Brexit ... and would you please get on with it."

Mr Farage again highlighted his closeness with Mr Trump and reiterated his belief he could perform an ambassadorial role for the UK with the President-elect's administration.

Speaking about his plans for 2017, he said: "Trump becomes president on January 20 and his incoming administration think that I have a very positive role to play between our two countries.

"At the moment, 10 Downing Street doesn't seem to think that.

"To me, that's a shame because I genuinely think we have an Anglophile president coming in on 20 January, a big opportunity to completely reset the relationship after the Obama years."

Ban Ki-moon: South Korea's next president?

The United Nations' position on Syria has been consistent: there cannot be a military solution.

But those words now sound very hollow.

In eastern Aleppo, no one expects a political settlement. Hour by hour, Bashar al-Assad's government -backed by Hezbollah, Iran and the military might of Russia - advances.

The nearly six-year-long conflict in Syria has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and displaced millions of people.

The man who has led the UN throughout the Syrian war, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, is in the final few weeks of his 10-year term at the UN.

On Talk to Al Jazeera, Ban Ki-moon discusses the state of the Syrian war and whether there will be accountability for the war crimes committed; his thoughts on the new Trump era and the impact on the international community; and - with his home country South Korea facing political crisis - his future plans.

Come January 1, 2017, when I return to Korea, I will need to discuss with some community leaders and my friends on what and how I can contribute as the former secretary-general of the UN to my motherland Korea.
Ban Ki-moon, secretary-general of the United Nations

"It has been a sad and heartbreaking experience for me to see that the Syrian people have been suffering tremendously during the last five years. It's a collective failure of the international community," says Ban, when asked how history will judge the international community on Syria.

"The United Nations and regional powers should have helped them resolve their problems. But unfortunately regional powers and the United Nations, particularly the Security Council, have been divided. That is why we have not been able to resolve this issue. There is no military solution."

He says he has been reiterating that inclusive, Syrian-led, intra-Syrian dialogue is the only way to resolve the conflict.

When pressed that this line has become a mantra, Ban points to the efforts of UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura, US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian foreign minister Sergey V Lavrov.

We ask Ban what it means that Bashar al-Assad, responsible for such brutality and quite possibly war crimes, should continue to remain in office even after US President Barack Obama and Ban himself will have left their posts.

"Even though the justice cannot be done today, I'm confident that there will be justice," he says, adding that the priority right now should be saving human lives and delivering humanitarian assistance.

We speak to Ban about the future of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and if it loses relevance, whether Assad can be held accountable. Russia has expressed its displeasure with the ICC and African nations have been pulling out, while others are thinking of withdrawing. Ban said he believes that the ICC must be preserved.

On the issue of US President-elect Donald Trump declaring the UN weak and incompetent, Ban points to the US's long commitment to the world body, saying: "I am sure that President-elect Donald Trump will also continue to play a very important global role in working together with the United Nations in maintaining peace and security and development and human rights."

When asked whether Trump's criticisms are true, Ban says it's important that member states should bring their "global perspectives rather than ... narrow, national perspectives. That is the way why United Nations has often been criticised as inefficient and not being able to make decisions."

We speak to him about the UN's many failures - bringing cholera to Haiti; failing to protect people in South Sudan; and in the Central African Republic, peacekeepers were involved in the sexual abuse of children - and if he feels ashamed that the UN, instead of bringing good, has also brought harm.

Ban says he has expressed his deep regret for the cholera epidemic in Haiti. When it comes to sexual abuse and violations by peacekeepers and UN staff, he says: "I have made a zero-tolerance policies and I have taken immediate actions."

On the question of what he thinks about Trump considering scrapping achievements, such as the restoration of US relations with Cuba, the Iran nuclear deal, and the Paris climate accord, he says he has already spoken to the US president-elect about these issues but does not go into further detail.

We ask Ban about what he'll do next and whether he would consider serving his country, which is currently facing political crisis and widespread protests, if South Koreans call upon him to do so.

"Come January 1, 2017, when I return to Korea, I will need to discuss with some community leaders and my friends on what and how I can contribute as the former secretary-general of the United Nations to my motherland Korea," he said.

"Of course, I will be relieved of this huge burden, mental and physical. It has been a great privilege for me to have served this great organisation for humanity during the last 10 years. Now as a private citizen, I will still be embedded with such principles and goals of the United Nations on which I have been working, like international peace and security, sustainable development, and human rights.

"As a private citizen, I will try to continue to raise my voice and contribute whatever I can to help the United Nations. At the same time I will also think about what would be the best way for me to work for my own country."

You can talk to Al Jazeera, too. Join our Twitter conversation as we talk to world leaders and alternative voices shaping our times. You can also share your views and keep up to date with our latest interviews on Facebook.

Jeep Carrying Castro's Ashes Breaks Down During Funeral Procession

The antiquated Jeep carrying deceased Cuban dictator Fidel Castro's remains broke down during a funeral procession that marked the end of nine days of official mourning in Cuba.

Before and after the mechanical impediment, throngs of people looked on and cheered as Castro's procession passed them by.

As FoxNews.com reported:

The Russian-made jeep ferrying Castro's ashes broke down and needed to be pushed on Saturday en route to the late leader's final resting place.

The breakdown of the jeep in the midst of adoring crowds chanting "Long live Fidel!" was symbolic of the dual nature of Castro's Cuba.

While his legacy inspires fierce adulation by many of the nation's citizens, others continue to grumble about Cuba's autocratic government, inefficient bureaucracy and stagnant economy.

Since the Communist nation has been cut off from the United States and other countries since Castro unseated the previous leader Fulgencio Batista in 1959, a good portion of the island's infrastructure has somewhat frozen in time.

The jeep had to be pushed by Cuban soldiers to Castro's interment site.

Castro died late last month at the age of 90.

The Obamas Were Celebrated at Their Last Kennedy Center Honors

WASHINGTON (AP) — The longest, loudest standing ovation of the Kennedy Center Honors gala wasn’t reserved for Al Pacino, Mavis Staples or the Eagles. Instead, it went to the man sitting to their left, attending his eighth and most likely his last honors presentation: President Barack Obama.

While politics were absent from the tributes to the performers who were recognized for influencing American culture on Sunday night, the arts community’s affection for Obama — and its nervousness about President-elect Donald Trump — was palpable in the Kennedy Center Opera House.

The president and first lady Michelle Obama were introduced last, after Pacino and his fellow honorees: gospel singer Staples; pianist Martha Argerich; singer-songwriter James Taylor; and Don Henley, Timothy B. Schmidt and Joe Walsh, the surviving members of the Eagles.

After a sustained ovation, host Stephen Colbert greeted the crowd of Washington insiders as “endangered swamp-dwellers,” referencing Trump’s “drain the swamp” campaign pledge. He joked that Obama would need to receive the honor to attend again and that “unlike the Nobel Peace Prize, they don’t just give these away.”

The Kennedy Center Honors are in their 39th year, a period that has included six presidents — three Republicans, three Democrats — and all have taken time to welcome the recipients. But the 2016 election was noteworthy for the way A-list performers lined up behind Obama and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, while Trump had relatively few celebrity endorsements.

Although the president has no say in who receives the awards, Colbert joked that next year’s honorees would include Scott Baio, Gary Busey and Meat Loaf.

“For the past eight years, the White House has given us a leader who’s passionate, intelligent and dignified,” Colbert said, and the crowd rose for another prolonged ovation, prompting Obama to stand and wave.

“Sir, I don’t even know why you stood up. I was talking about Michelle,” Colbert said.

Earlier, at the White House, Obama welcomed the honorees at a reception and said participating in the gala was “one of the perks of the job.”

“The arts have always been part of life at the White House because the arts are always central to American life,” Obama said. “That’s why over the past eight years Michelle and I have invited some of the best writers, musicians, actors and dancers to share their gifts with the American people and to help tell the story of who we are.”

Kennedy Center chairman David Rubenstein also thanked the Obamas, noting that the president isn’t required to attend the honors or host a reception. He offered them a “golden ticket” good for free admission to any event at the center.

“Parking is extra,” Rubenstein said.

Another standing ovation went to Bill Clinton, who made a surprise appearance on stage to talk about how Taylor’s music resonated with him and the American public in times that tested the nation’s resolve.

“Our nation was reeling from the pain of Vietnam,” Clinton said. “James was there to satisfy our hunger for both intimacy and authenticity.”

Politics aside, the honors proceeded as usual, with musicians and actors taking the stage to pay tribute to the honorees, who stood on a balcony, waving and applauding as they wore the event’s signature rainbow-colored garlands. The ceremony will be broadcast Dec. 27 on CBS.

The tribute to Pacino included remarks by Sean Penn and recitations of Shakespeare by Laurence Fishburne and Lily Rabe. Chris O’Donnell and Gabrielle Anwar re-enacted the tango that Pacino danced with Anwar in “Scent of a Woman,” the 1992 movie that won Pacino his long-overdue Oscar.

Kevin Spacey gave a virtuoso tutorial on how to impersonate the actor whose passionate delivery has helped create some of the most memorable lines in American cinema. The keys are to look surprised and exhale loudly, Spacey said.

“Al seems to have a lot of air,” he said.

Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow and Darius Rucker performed medleys of Taylor’s music. Yitzhak Perlman played violin and Yuja Wang played piano to honor the Argentine-born Argerich.

Staples’ songs were performed by Elle King, Bonnie Raitt and Andra Day, and actor Don Cheadle spoke about the civil rights legacy of Staples and her family, who were close to Martin Luther King Jr. and performed at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration.

“She’s still fighting. She’s still singing freedom songs,” Cheadle said.

The Eagles were originally selected to be honored last year, but the band opted to delay participation because of founding member Glenn Frey’s poor health. Frey died in January at age 67, making the event a bittersweet one for the surviving Eagles, who were joined by Frey’s widow, Cindy Frey. Henley has said the band will never perform again. Bob Seger, Vince Gill and Kings of Leon performed the Eagles’ music on Sunday.

“I want to dedicate this evening to our brother Glenn,” Henley said as the band accepted its honors Saturday night at the State Department. “He was so much a part of our success. He was the driving force in this band. He believed in the American dream.”

The band’s longtime manager, Irving Azoff, sobbed as he raised a glass to Frey.

“For our Eagles family,” he said, “2016 couldn’t have had a harder beginning or a more appropriate ending.”

We need to resist censorship of cyberspace

The hacking effort - aimed at prominent thinkers including New York Times Pulitzer laureate Paul Krugman , Stanford professor and former diplomat Michael McFaul, Newsweek political editor Matthew Cooper, New York Magazine writer Jonathan Chait, and others - comes after Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign emails were stolen by Russian hackers and amid a new effort to create a national "watchlist" of liberal professors. Questions have also surfaced over whether the US presidential election was hacked.

Together, these developments suggest something even more chilling: The halcyon WikiLeaks era when our chief fear was that the whole truth might emerge online is officially over. Cyberspace is rapidly becoming censored.

Although the end game of the hackers who targeted my private email account and that of other journalists and professors is unclear, several scenarios are imaginable.

Did they seek to disrupt our ability to research and write by cutting off access to our files and contacts? Do a "data dump" of embarrassing emails to undercut our authority? Foment internal feuds to divide us, as they did with the emails of Clinton campaign manager John Podesta and Democratic National Committee staffers? Intimidate us into thinking twice before criticising Donald Trump in the future? All of the above?

Whatever the strategy, it's clear that censorship was the goal. This can also only be the aim of Professor Watchlist, the new McCarthy-like project by Turning Point USA, which asks students to report their professors for espousing liberal beliefs, so that a public registry can be formed.
Expanding Internet censorship

There's another way in which the internet has become a tool of censorship, albeit unintentionally. In 2014, Facebook changed its algorithm so that content which the platform detects that an individual user most likes shows up on our respective newsfeeds. As a result, political content that doesn't fit with a person's pre-existing beliefs is censored.

As Buzzfeed's Ryan Broderick explains, "algorithms identify that a user likes one particular page and suggest others, creating an echo-chamber effect that can lead to some pretty scary places." Broderick says this has helped radicalise Facebook users across the United States, Britain, France, Russia, and Australia, bolstering support for far-right candidates and causes.

More diabolically, The New York Times reported recently that Facebook is working on a tool to censor posts by Chinese citizens, so that it can re-enter the Chinese market, where the government currently blocks access to the site - a practice the social network has already used in Russia, Turkey, and Pakistan.

The small possibility that the US election was hacked - following attempts to hack voting infrastructure in Ukraine, Norway, and the Netherlands - would, if true, be the ultimate form of cyber censorship. We do know that hackers breached voter registration systems in at least two states and targeted more than 20 states.

All of these developments are a direct threat to the marketplace of ideas that John Stuart Mill explained are necessary to a society, so that we can arrive at, and act upon, truths through the consideration of different points of view.
How can we fix this?

First, the US government must strike back at the state-backed hackers targeting opinion leaders and Democratic operatives. It's wholly unacceptable for a foreign government to meddle in an election, just as it's intolerable for an outside state to attempt to attack the watchdogs of democracy. Although a counter-cyberattack is warranted, the US should also consider other options, such as sanctions and publicly exposing, and freezing the assets of, the state sponsors of these attacks. This response needs to begin under President Obama, but it must continue under President Trump.

The way journalists and professors should respond to this attack is simple. We should share our views even more. Sadly, in order for us to do this, we will need more help securing our communications from technology companies and from the universities and media companies that provide us with our email accounts.

Journalists and media organisations around the globe can also work together to identify and expose the hackers. This approach was recently used by the German

ewspaper, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, when it brought together reporters from 107 media outlets around the globe, with the help of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, to analyse 11.5 million documents exposing how the world's wealthiest people shield their money from taxes and commit other financial crimes.

Third, Facebook must alter its algorithms. Today. Although the current debate in the media is largely focused on how Facebook can fight fake news, combating censorship must be an equal and urgent priority. The free flow of information and the debate it generates is essential to democracy.

The renowned legal theorist Thomas Emerson argued that the First Amendment to the US Constitution contains a positive right to information because "the reverse side of the coin from the right to communicate" is "first, the right to read, to listen, to see, and to otherwise receive communications; and second, the right to obtain information as a basis for transmitting ideas or facts to others." While we also have the right not to consume news we prefer to ignore, that decision should be ours to make. It shouldn't be decided for us by executives in Silicon Valley, who decree that dissenting views be deleted from our newsfeeds. 

Finally, the US needs a publicly funded recount of paper ballots and examination of electronic voting machines in several states. It shouldn't be up to Green Party supporters or the Clinton campaign to pay for it. The US government also needs to better protect voting systems for 2020. 

We need to take the internet back, not as liberals responding to these attacks, but as citizens of every creed demanding that cyberspace not be censored. 

Kara Alaimo is Assistant Professor of Public Relations at Hofstra University and author of "Pitch, Tweet, or Engage on the Street: How to Practice Global Public Relations and Strategic Communication."

Apple reveals self-driving car plans

Apple has acknowledged for the first time that it is investing in building a self-driving car.

In a letter to US transport regulators, Apple said it was "excited about the potential of automated systems in many areas, including transportation".

It added that there were "significant societal benefits of automated vehicles" to be realised.

There have long been rumours about the firm's plans but it has not publicly admitted them.

However, Ford, which itself plans to have self-driving cars on the road by 2021, has said it was working on the basis that Apple was building one.

The tech firm has already registered several car-related internet domains, including apple.car and apple.auto.
Sharing data

A company spokesman for Apple said that the letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) was prompted by its "heavy investment in machine learning and autonomous systems" and that it wanted to help define best practices in the industry.

The five-page letter, written by Apple's director of product integrity Steve Kenner, urges the regulator to not introduce too many rules on the testing of self-driving cars, saying that "established manufacturers and new entrants should be treated equally."

It also proposes that companies in the industry share data from crashes and near-misses in order to build a more comprehensive picture than one company could manage alone, and therefore enable the design of better systems.

However, it adds that an individual's privacy should not be compromised by the sharing of such data. It suggests that the industry and regulators "address privacy challenges associated with the collection, use, and sharing of automated vehicle data", with collaboration from privacy experts outside the automotive industry.

Google is already testing self-driving cars on the roads. In October, electric carmaker Tesla announced that all the cars it now builds will have the hardware installed to drive on their own.

In the UK, an autonomous vehicle was test-driven in Milton Keynes in the summer, with further trials in London planned.

Donald Trump's growing list of secretary of state finalists

At Trump Tower, the Manhattan headquarters of the next president of the United States, Kellyanne Conway emerges from the gold elevator doors with some news.

US President-elect Donald Trump is no longer considering only four people for secretary of state, the crown jewel in cabinet-level appointments at the White House. The list is growing, according to Conway.

"It's a big decision and nobody should rush through it," says Trump's former campaign manager and senior adviser.

Up until Sunday, the talk focused largely on two contenders: Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Utah governor Mitt Romney.

Trump has paraded the two men in front of the media like contestants on his hit reality-TV series The Apprentice. But Conway's remarks open the possibility that Trump is now backing off those picks in favour of other people.

Still, many Trump supporters know who they want.

"I like Rudy," says Julie Pickering, 51, a retired registered nurse from Mississippi, hanging out in the busy lobby of Trump Tower. "He stood by Trump and deserves that position."

"You want people who will be with you through the good times and the bad times," says Angela Bounds, 53, a retired financial adviser.

"You never saw Rudy Giuliani turn his back on Donald no matter how many times the media reported negative and fake news about Donald."

That's not the case, they say, with Romney, who ran for president in 2012. Both women campaigned for him during his bid for the White House but they were "shocked" when he came out in March and denounced Trump.

"If we, the Republicans, choose Trump as our nominee, the prospects for a safe and prosperous future are greatly diminished," Romney told an audience in Salt Lake City.

"Trump tells us that he is very, very smart. I'm afraid that when it comes to foreign policy, he is very, very not smart."

It was a brutal takedown of the man who would win the election and led to a mea culpa of sorts from Romney himself last week in New York.

The Republican, who lost to US President Barack Obama, dined with the man who will replace him and emerged from dinner with a completely different tone.

"I happen to think that America's best days are ahead of us," he told reporters at Trump Tower. He said the meeting filled him with "increasing hope that President-elect Trump is the very man who can lead us to that better future".

Indeed, the choice of secretary of state will be key in this administration and anyone seeking the position got a taste recently of how challenging it truly will be under Trump.
Taiwan phonecall

On Friday, Trump broke decades of protocol and took a call from the Taiwan president, sparking a diplomatic firestorm that upset the Chinese government which lodged a formal protest.

China considers neighbouring Taiwan a province and the US has abided by its wishes for 37 years by having no formal direct government-to-government relations with Taipei in an effort to maintain good ties with Communist China.

No US president or president-elect has spoken or had direct talks with any Taiwanese president in that time.

Anthony Arend, a professor of government and foreign service at Georgetown University, calls the Taiwan exchange "troubling". He also believes Giuliani would be a disastrous pick.

"He seems to bring the 'shoot-from-the-hip' approach that Trump himself has," argues Arend. "If anything, we need a secretary who comes across as thoughtful, consistent, trustworthy and predictable."

Romney, in Arend's opinion, is that person.

"Having lived abroad for over two years when he was younger, he also know the importances of understanding different cultures and the role culture plays in international politics.

"He would also likely be able to bring into the state department many of the traditional Republican foreign policy experts that had previously indicated that they would not support Trump."

Other names that are reportedly in the mix include former CIA director General David Petraeus, California Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, Tennessee Senator Bob Corker and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, who served as ambassador to China.

Both Bounds and Pickering believe Trump will make the right choice in the end. Still, Bounds adds, "I just wouldn't trust Mitt Romney."