Globe Trot: Mattis clashes with Trump transition team

UNITED STATES: With less than 48 hours until Inauguration Day, the president-elect has named few of his 4,000 political appointees, particularly those crucial to national security. At the Pentagon, key second- and third-tier posts will soon be empty because Gen. James Mattis, Donald Trump’s pick to be defense secretary, is clashing with the transition team over his wish to appoint several Never Trumpers (remember, Henry Kissinger was a Nelson Rockefeller guy before Richard Nixon tapped him as national security adviser).

Trump’s call for all politically appointed ambassadors to resign before he takes office is risky, leaving key posts vacant. Consider the Korean peninsula, where North Korean mischief could erupt with South Korea in the hands of an acting president and U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert on a plane back to the United States.

An amazing play-by-play of what the five craziest hours (we hope) at the White House, aka “moving day,” look like.

BRITAIN: Parliament still has to approve the details, but in yesterday’s speech Prime Minister Theresa May announced plans for a hard Brexit, which will remove England from Europe’s single market, take it out from European Court of Justice jurisdiction, and end border control cooperation with Europe.

IRAQ: Iraqi forces, with support from the United States, say they are in “full control” of east Mosul. With the offensive, about 185,000 residents have been moved to temporary displacement camps, and about 40 percent of the city remains under ISIS control.

Iraqi forces have retaken the Tomb of Jonah, a site mostly destroyed by ISIS.

Worries include the potentially hundreds of thousands of children in Mosul brainwashed by ISIS, and other ongoing trauma, and Jordan, which has gone on high alert in anticipation of ISIS forces crossing its borders in retreat from Iraq.

In Qaraqosh (or Hamdaniyah) outside Mosul, they are painting over the anti-Christian and other slogans left by ISIS (see above), plus see remarkable photos here of Assyrian youths fanning out to clean up retaken Christian towns.

ZIMBABWE: This is a critical season in drought-stricken parts of Africa, between last year’s failed crop and new plantings that have yet to produce a yield. (Roger Thurow’s The Last Hunger Season is an excellent account of these challenges for hard-working Africans.)

A pastor who says he received a prophecy, saying Robert Mugabe will be dead by October, is in jail. The president, who is 92, is in Singapore on an extended Christmas holiday.

CLINTON FOUNDATION: This week the Clinton Foundation filed papers with the Department of Labor announcing layoffs expected as the Clinton Global Initiative shuts down April 15. The reasons are obvious: With the Clintons not heading to the White House, the money for the pay-to-play charity is drying up.