United States

In an unexpected reversal, President Obama declined to sign a renewal of existing sanctions against Iran but let it become law anyway, in an apparent bid to alleviate Tehran’s concerns that the U.S. is backsliding on the nuclear agreement. The White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Obama had decided to let it become law without his signature. Press TV reports: The US Senate passed a 10-year extension of the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) on December 1, sending the measure to the White House for Obama to sign into law.

Throughout the campaigning cycle, Trump sent a very clear message to businesses looking to move manufacturing operations offshore by repeatedly saying that subsequent imports would be hit with a massive 35% tariff.  Here is a December 4th tweet storm from the President-elect on the topic:

The U.S. is going to substantialy reduce taxes and regulations on businesses, but any business that leaves our country for another country,

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016

The U.S. Department of Education has just released it's latest ranking of international education systems (Program for International Student Assessment - "PISA") and performance of U.S. students just continues to deteriorate on both absolute and relative terms. 

And just like that the narrative of Russia hacking the presidential election has escalated to the highest possible level, and has officially jumped the shark.

President Bashar al-Assad has accused the US of sponsoring terrorist groups in Syria by labeling them ‘moderate opposition’. In an interview with the Russian TV channels, Russia 24 and NTV, the Syrian Presided said the United States tried to promote the idea of so-called moderate opposition in Syria.