United States

Spanish stocks and the euro fell, while Spanish government bond yields hit their highest levels in over a month after Catalan secessionists delivered an unexpected blow to the government of Spanish PM Rajoy by winning the Catalan regional election. Meanwhile across the Atlantic, U.S. equity futures and the dollar rose on the last trading session before the Christmas holiday. The MSCI index of world stocks was flat.

Though at first glance it sounds straight out of The Onion, Nikki Haley has formally invited the 64 countries who either voted 'against' or abstained (or just didn't show up) for Thursday's UN General Assembly vote on the Jerusalem resolution to a "friendship" party.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Oriental Review,

The last section of the new US National Security Strategy (NSS) describes the envisaged application of the Trump Doctrine in a regional context all across the world, and it’s worthwhile to examine what storylines will most likely be advanced by the policy document’s intrinsic infowar component. This analysis is divided according to the geographic categories contained in the NSS and proceeds along that order, after which a brief summary will be presented in highlighting the most discernable global trends.

Fifty years ago, the world was a very different place.

PCs and smartphones were the stuff of Sci-Fi and numerous nations found themselves at crucial crossroads in their evolution.

While Russia and US could arguably be back in another Cold War, Pew Research asked 43,000 around the world whether life is better (or worse) now than 50 years ago.

The results may surprise you...

Congress has demanded that the Department of Justice turn over all documents related to a disturbing report from POLITICO that the Obama administration quashed a massive DEA investigation into a $200 million per month drug trafficking and money laundering scheme on U.S. soil which was directly funding Hezbollah's various terror campaigns around the world.