United States

The US government’s claim of killing thousands of terrorists in the fight against ISIS is the “stuff of fairy tales” and far removed from reality, according to former American diplomat, J. Michael Springmann. Springmann, who had been a high-ranking US diplomat in Saudi Arabia, made his remarks after a senior American military official said that the US-led coalition conducting airstrikes in Iraq and Syria had killed terrorists in the two countries since 2014.

• Crude Soars as Output Deal Weighs on Bonds; China Shares Tumble (BBG)
• 10-Year Treasury Yield Above 2.5% for First Time in Two Years (WSJ)
• The New Reality of TV: All Trump, All the Time (NYT)
• Fed May Struggle to Signal What Comes After December (WSJ)
• China warns Trump against ignoring its Taiwan interests (Reuters)
• China’s Stocks, Bonds, Yuan Slump in Unison on Liquidity Concern (BBG)
• Sovereign funds pulled cash from world markets for third year running (Reuters)
• Trump Adds To Criticism Of Companies (WSJ)

On Sunday morning, Trump reignited the diplomatic spat with China when during an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday the President-elect said that his support for the "One China" policy which has underpinned U.S. behavior toward Taiwan since the 1970s,  will hinge on cutting a better deal on trade, in other words it will be a "barter chip" to extract future concessions from Beijing.

In a Sunday interview with Chris Wallace, President elect Donald Trump did the unthinkable: he refused to cow tow to the One China policy, drawing a hard line in the sand with China that resulted in harsh rebuttals from both Chinese government officials and state run media.
 

According to a former Icelandic minister, Iceland sent a “planeload of FBI agents” back to the USA after they attempted to frame Julian Assange. In 2011 the Obama administration infiltrated Iceland with FBI agents under the guise of helping Iceland’s authorities to tackle a fake hacking threat. According to Ogmundur Jonasson, in June of 2011, Iceland politicians became suspicious when the U.S. became unusually eager to “help” with a hacking problem they had never heard of. “U.S.