The U.S. State Department on Monday said there is no U.S. government organization currently on the ground in Syria for the search of Austin Tice, an American journalist taken captive during a reporting trip in August 2012, but did not rule out the possibility.

The German news agency dpa is reporting that the German ambassador to Washington wrote in a report back to Berlin that he expects Donald Trump to largely undermine the system of democratic checks and

In the leaked cable, a German envoy said he saw US President-elect Donald Trump as a man driven by "desire for vengeance".

The EU's two leading members were reacting to the US president-elect's plans to acquire Denmark's autonomous territory.