Category World News

It’s been a month since Bashar al-Assad was overthrown, ending more than five decades of his family’s rule in Syria and almost 14 years of civil war. Al-Assad vanished to Russia on December 8 and hasn’t been seen since.

Some Syrians believed the uprising would never occur at a concert in the capital Damascus on Wednesday night.

According to Al Jazeera’s diplomatic editor James Bays, who was reporting from Damascus, people gathered for the celebratory concert, which marked a month of relative calm and stability.

He claimed that “everyone here feels like they are exuberant exactly one month after al-Assad’s rule was overthrown.”

“Al-Assad used to have a large poster outside of this stadium, but now you can only see his forehead and hair. The remainder of it has been completely destroyed, he continued, noting that his regime, his army, and the entire apparatus have already been destroyed.

The White Helmets, a civil defense force that fought alongside the al-Assad regime to rescue civilians from the rubble during the Russian and Syrian air attacks, will receive the proceeds from the concert, according to Bays.

In Damascus, many Syrians were also looking ahead to a new country. “I hope the future will be better. There was no life under al-Assad. We were scared of him and his army”, Nada Daye, a Syrian resident, told Al Jazeera.

Owner of a bookshop Mamoun Nahlawi said the United States and other Western nations should now have lifted their sanctions. “The sanctions must be lifted. Otherwise people won’t see a positive effect. People were humiliated during al-Assad”, he told Al Jazeera.

Syria is among the most sanctioned countries in the world and the country’s new administration, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, is trying to change that. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) held its first meeting of the year on Wednesday, focusing on the matter.

Gabriel Elizondo, a journalist for Al Jazeera, reported from the UN headquarters in New York that the UNSC had pushed for the UNSC to lift sanctions.

Working on an inclusive political transition, according to UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen, will help ensure that Syria “quickly receives the economic support it desperately needs, which also necessitates a smooth end to sanctions,” according to Geir Pedersen.

Elizondo noted that Tom Fletcher, the UN humanitarian affairs under-secretary-general, also told the UNSC that sanctions should not impede humanitarian support to the country.

A national conference to discuss Syria’s transition to democracy is scheduled to take place in the upcoming weeks.

In the event that the new government offers political stability and reduces ties with Russia and Iran, US officials have also started discussions with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates about easing financial restrictions on Damascus.

The United States has withheld a dues payment of $3.6m to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) for not conducting an independent audit of operations, the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) said.

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy’s “full support” of this decision, according to USADA CEO Travis Tygart, on Wednesday, as the only way to safeguard athletes’ rights, accountability, and fair competition.

WADA said the US government owes a total of $3.625m, with WADA’s overall 2025 operating budget at $57.5m.

Following WADA’s contentious handling of positive doping tests by 23 Chinese swimmers who were later permitted to compete, the decision to hold back 2024 WADA dues is made.

The current WADA leaders, reportedly, left the US with no other choice after failing to fulfill several implausible requests, including an independent audit of WADA’s operations, to ensure that WADA is properly positioned to protect athletes, Tygart said.

Significant changes at WADA must be made to prevent this from occurring because WADA failed to uniformly enforce the international standards in place to protect the integrity of competition and athletes’ rights to fairness.

WADA confirmed the non-payment in a statement, saying that the decision would prevent US representatives from joining the organization’s executive board until 2025.

The United States government’s agreed contribution to the 2024 budget has been confirmed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which was 31 December 2024.

Public authority representatives from a nation that has not made their dues are exempt from sitting on the Foundation Board or the Executive Committee in accordance with Article 6. 6 of the WADA Statutes. Any Foundation Board or Executive Committee member from a nation who has not made its annual contribution for the previous year will automatically lose their seat on January 1 of each year.

The global anti-doping body’s selected investigator confirmed in July that WADA had handled the case involving the Chinese swimmers and reiterated those findings in September.

Since WADA’s founding in 2000, Tygart claimed that the US has been the top government participant in the budget since then. The US, Tygart claimed, is also aware that President Donald Trump has the authority to withhold payments from WADA in concert with the US Congress.

Following the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia’s state-sponsored doping scandal.

The Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act, which President Trump signed into law in 2020, was passed because of WADA’s failure during this tragic saga, which saw Russia ultimately rob hundreds of athletes from the US and other countries at the highest levels of competition, according to Tygart.

That prompted legislation allowing the US government to withhold payment from WADA if, in Tygart’s words, “it did not act in a fair, effective, and transparent manner”.

Tygart claimed that US athletes’ rights to compete in international competitions will be unaffected by non-payment of dues.

According to Tygart, “The non-payment will not have an impact on the US’s current anti-doping program, and USADA will continue to vigorously implement its WADA Code program to ensure that all US Olympic and Paralympic athletes’ rights are protected.”

We need a strong, independent WADA, and we will continue to cooperate with all stakeholders to ensure that the world’s athletes’ promises of clean sport are fulfilled.

Tygart also cited significant US-related events as possible future events, including the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

At least six people were killed and dozens injured as a crowd gathered in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, one of the country’s most visited Hindu holy sites.

When the crush occurred on Wednesday night, a sizable crowd gathered to collect free entrance tickets to the town’s Sri Venkateswara Swamy Temple.

Six devotees have died as a result of the unfortunate incident. I pray to God to give peace to the departed souls”, Prem Kumar Jain, spokesman of the state’s ruling Telugu Desam Party, told reporters.

Devotees from all over India have been gathering for the temple’s 10-day festival, which begins on Friday, since early on Wednesday.

According to the state’s chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s office, the crowd pushed and yelled at the authorities, who had set up counters to distribute free tokens starting on Thursday to visit the nearly 2, 000-year-old temple.

In a post on X, Naidu said the deaths “grieved me intensely”.

The families of the deceased were expressed condolences by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

His office wrote on social media platform X that “my thoughts are with those who have lost their close and dear ones.”

Due to poor crowd control and safety practices, fatal accidents occur frequently at places of worship in India during major religious holidays.

Up to 121 people were killed in Hathras, a town in northern Uttar Pradesh, in July of last year during a Hindu religious gathering.

In a temple in the state of southern Kerala, a fireworks display that was prohibited for the Hindu New Year caused a massive explosion that claimed 112 lives in 2016.

Authorities in the United States have reported that a Japanese crime boss has admitted to conspiring to sell nuclear weapons to Iran along with drug and weapons trafficking.

Takeshi Ebisawa, 60, a member of the yakuza, entered a guilty plea to six counts in federal court in Manhattan on Wednesday, the US Department of Justice said in a statement.

On April 9, he will be sentenced.

In 2020, he claimed to have cleared a large amount of thorium and uranium from the DEA and a DEA agent, according to prosecutors.

According to the prosecution, the undercover agent agreed to assist Ebisawa in brokering the sale of the nuclear materials to an associate who posed as an Iranian general in response to his repeated inquiries.

Ebisawa then offered to supply the undercover associate with plutonium that would be even “better” and more “powerful” than uranium for making nuclear weapons, according to prosecutors.

The Justice Department said a powdery yellow substance that Ebisawa’s conspirators showed to covert agents was later discovered to have detected trace amounts of uranium, thorium, and plutonium in a laboratory analysis.

According to prosecutors, Ebisawa also plotted to arrange the purchase of US-made surface-to-air missiles and heavy-duty weapons in Myanmar in order to pay for the weapons, as well as to accept large quantities of heroin and methamphetamine as part of the arms.

According to US officials, law enforcement partners in Indonesia, Japan, and Thailand collaborated to carry out Ebisawa’s arrest and prosecution.

According to Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, “Today’s plea should serve as a stark reminder to those who violate the fullest extent of the law by trafficking weapons-grade plutonium and other dangerous materials on behalf of organized criminal syndicates.”

According to the government, one member of the security forces also died in the gun battles, and at least 18 of a group of 24 armed men were killed in the failed assault on the president’s office on Wednesday evening.

“There were 18 dead and six injured” among the attackers “and we suffered one death and three injured, one of them seriously”, Chad’s foreign minister and government spokesman Abderaman Koulamallah said.

Koulamallah said in a video that “the destabilization attempt was put down,” surrounded by soldiers and wearing a gun to his belt.

Wang Yi, the foreign minister of China, made an official visit to China during the attack.

Hours before the shooting erupted, Wang Yi had met with Chad’s President Mahamat Idriss Deby and other senior officials. Deby was in the presidential complex at the time of the attack, according to Koulamallah.

Deby seized power after rebels killed his father, longstanding President Idriss Deby, in 2021. Deby had been in power since a coup in the early 1990s, which was more recent.

The attackers were identified as Boko Haram members, according to a security source who later claimed they were “probably not” rebels, referring instead to drunken “Pieds Nickeles,” a phrase used in a French comic featuring hapless crooks. Koulamallah later later said they were “probably not” rebels.

A security official added that the incident was likely an “attempted terrorist attack” and that a security official was aware of it.

“Individuals in three vehicles attacked the military camps around the president’s office, but the army neutralised them”, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Residents of the area reported hearing loud gunfire volleys.

The government praised the contested general election as a crucial step toward ending military rule, but which was marred by low turnout and fraud allegations in opposition.

The field was open for candidates who supported the president after the opposition called for voters to boycott the polls.

The former French colony, which is rich in oil resources but one of the poorest countries in Africa, hosted France’s last military bases in the region known as the Sahel, but at the end of November, ended defence and security agreements with Paris, calling them “obsolete”.

Around 1,500 French military personnel were stationed in the nation right now, with some of them reserving. After France was expelled from three Sahelian nations, Mali, Burkinabe, and Niger, military-held nations were ruled by hostile regimes.

Here is the situation on Thursday, January 9:

Fighting

At least 13 civilians were killed and about 30 others were hurt in a bombing carried out by Russia in Zaporizhzhia, according to governor Ivan Fedorov’s statement on social media.
• Two people were killed in a separate Russian attack near the front line in the Stepnogirsk village, south of Zaporizhzhia, according to Fedorov.
• Roman Busagrin, governor of the Russian city of Saratov, said two firefighters were killed while battling a blaze which erupted after Ukrainian forces hit an oil depot in the region, which is located some 500km (310 miles) from the border with Ukraine.
• The United States claimed to the UN Security Council that North Korea’s troops “significantly benefit” from their engagement with Russia and Ukraine, and that Pyongyang is “more able to wage war against its neighbors.”
• Nada Al-Nashif, the deputy UN rights chief, has told a UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva that she is “deeply concerned” by a significant increase in “credible allegations of executions” of captured Ukrainian troops by the Russian armed forces.

Military aid

• Two US officials claimed that the US is prepared to give Ukraine an additional $500 million in weapons as soon as Donald Trump becomes president.
• A day before the anticipated announcement of the new military aid package, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stated that continued support for Kyiv is crucial and that US leadership on Ukraine is “critical.”

Politics and diplomacy

• Membership in NATO is the only “credible” security guarantee Ukraine can receive against any future Russian aggression, Finland’s Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen said.
• Valtonen, on a visit to Kyiv, met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and visited the country’s largest children’s hospital in the capital, which was badly damaged by a Russian attack in July 2024.
• According to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, any future agreement to end the Ukrainian conflict must include “the necessary deterrence” to stop Russia from once more attacking Ukraine.

• Zelenskyy announced in a video message posted on social media that he would attend a US-hosted defense meeting of Kyiv’s allies.
• When illegal immigration and support for Ukraine are likely to be the topics of conversation between UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron,
• Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada, attended a memorial service held in honor of the fifth anniversary of a Ukrainian Airlines flight that had passengers from Iran, Canada, Sweden, Ukraine, the UK, Afghanistan, and Iran when it was shot down by Iran in 2020.

Regional tension

Hungary’s foreign minister Peter Szijjarto criticized Ukraine’s refusal to renew a five-year transit gas deal with Russia, prompting the country’s ministry of foreign affairs to declare that it is ready to step up to the plate in the European Union and NATO.
• Next week, Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal and Finnish President Alexander Stubb will hold a summit of the NATO countries that border the Baltic Sea in Helsinki.
• In response to the possibility of sabotage, Lithuania announced that it would increase the security of a crucial electricity cable connecting Poland to its neighbors. The EU and NATO member will decouple from Russia’s power grid next month, the culmination of decades-long efforts to reduce reliance on Moscow, along with its Baltic neighbors Latvia and Estonia.

• German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the principle of inviolability of borders applies to every country, however powerful, and suggested that expansionist comments by US President-elect Trump regarding Greenland, Panama and Canada are being met with “incomprehension” among European leaders.
• Trump’s comments that he claimed he understood why Russia did not want Ukraine to join NATO sparked Zelenskyy’s disapproval. “Don’t draw conclusions about the policy of the US right away”, Zelenskyy said.
• Robert Fico, the prime minister of Slovakia, stated that he had secured a gas supply for the country while on a trip to Moscow last month to meet with Vladimir Putin, the country’s president, just before Ukraine halted its gas exports from Russia at the beginning of 2025.
• Zelenskyy and Maia Sandu, the president of Moldova, discussed using Ukrainian coal to combat the energy crisis that has caused blackouts and a heating shortage in the separatist Transdniestria region of Moldova. Russian gas supplies are a key component of Transdniestria, a pro-Russian organization. However, after Ukraine refused to renew an agreement that would allow the passage of gas through its territory, flows to the region stopped on January 1.