Mohammed Abazeed, the finance minister in Syria's caretaker government, said on Monday that the country's foreign debt was around $20 billion to $23 billion, in comments in a televised interview with Qatar's Al Jazeera Mubasher TV.

The Hind Rajab Foundation, responsible for the arrest warrant of an IDF veteran in Brazil, is seeking lawyers to represent their cause and persecute IDF soldiers and veterans visiting Thailand, according to a Ynet report on Monday.The Hind Rajab Foundation allegedly filed its first lawsuit against an IDF veteran residing in Thailand last week, according to the same report.

Pro-Palestinian protestors gathered outside of NYU Tisch Hospital on Monday, according to footage published by Within Our Lifetime, the organizers of the demonstration, on their X/Twitter account. Currently outside of NYU Tisch Hospital at 550 1st Avenue in Manhattan. Join healthcare workers, medics and New Yorkers as we take to the streets for Gaza and to demand the release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and the 450+ healthcare workers who have been abducted by israeli… pic.twitter.com/kMSAtcF8bS— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) January 6, 2025The protesters, including healthcare workers, demanded the release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, a hospital director in Gaza arrested by the IDF on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activities.

The United States on Monday issued a general license for Syria that authorizes transactions with government institutions and certain energy and personal remittance transactions, the Treasury Department website showed.

Venezuela's government said in a statement on Monday it will break diplomatic relations with Paraguay and remove its diplomats from the other South American country, a day after Paraguayan President Santiago Pena expressed support for Venezuela's opposition.The break comes days before Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is set to be inaugurated for his third term, after a contested July election that both he and former opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez claim to have won.Pena, who is among several world leaders, including US President Joe Biden, who consider Gonzalez to be Venezuela's president-elect, posted on X on Sunday that he had spoken with Gonzalez via video call and is committed to helping to restore democracy in Venezuela.

US President Joe Biden said on Sunday he thought it was awful that President-elect Donald Trump was trying to do away with birthright citizenship in the United States.Speaking to reporters at the White House, Biden said the transition to Trump's government seemed to be going smoothly.Asked ahead of the anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol whether he still thought Trump was a threat to democracy, Biden said he thought what Trump did was a "genuine threat to democracy."Trump falsely claimed he had won the 2020 election and urged his supporters to go to the Capitol that day.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is increasingly likely to announce he intends to step down, though he has not made a final decision, a source familiar with Trudeau's thinking said on Sunday.The source spoke to Reuters after the Globe and Mail reported that Trudeau was expected to announce as early as Monday that he would resign as leader of Canada's ruling Liberal Party after nine years in office.The source requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.Trudeau took over as Liberal leader in 2013 when the party was in deep trouble and had been reduced to third place in the House of Commons for the first time.