U.S. General Mark A. Milley met with Taliban negotiators in an unannounced visit on Tuesday to help facilitate a peace agreement between the Taliban and the U.S.-backed Afghan government. He also met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani yesterday.
 
It was Milley’s second time meeting (Defense One) with Taliban representatives. He is the first known chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to have met with the militant group, which the United States has been fighting for nearly twenty years. Milley told reporters traveling with him that during the meeting, he emphasized the need for reducing violence (AP), as the Taliban has continued attacks throughout Afghanistan despite ongoing peace negotiations with the Afghan government. However, a drawdown of U.S. troops continues as scheduled, Milley said. Since signing an agreement with the Taliban in February, the Donald J. Trump administration has withdrawn thousands of troops from Afghanistan. It announced last month that it would reduce U.S. troop levels to 2,500 by mid-January.

China became the third country, following Russia and the United States, to bring back rocks from the moon (NYT) after its unmanned Chang’e-5 probe returned to Earth today. China’s most successful mission to date, it could mark the beginning of a new era of space competition.
 
China: A World Health Organization team plans to visit China (FT) in January to investigate the origin of the coronavirus pandemic. The United States has criticized China’s lack of transparency about the early days of the outbreak, and Washington and Beijing have spread competing theories about the virus’s origin.
 
In this roundup, CFR experts reflect on issues, including the pandemic, that defined the U.S.-China relationship in 2020.

The United Nations’ special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Ahemed Shaheed, joined the growing criticism (Al Jazeera) of the Sri Lankan government’s policy of cremating anyone who dies of COVID-19. The practice is forbidden in Islam. Shaheed expressed concerns over an announcement that the Maldives government would consider burials for Sri Lankan Muslims, saying the move could further marginalize that community.

CFR looks at how the pandemic has affected end-of-life rituals and grieving.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said there is “no doubt” that U.S. President-Elect Joe Biden’s administration will rejoin the 2015 nuclear agreement (WaPo), which the Trump administration withdrew the United States from in 2018. His statement came after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei appeared to endorse resuming Iran’s commitments under the deal if it would bring relief from U.S. sanctions.
 
For The Water’s Edge blog, CFR’s James M. Lindsay writes that Iran will likely provide an early test for Biden.
 
Palestinian territories: Though Israel is set to begin COVID-19 vaccinations next week, millions of people living in the Palestinian territories will have to wait for vaccines (AP) to be distributed by the Palestinian Authority. Officials in Gaza have warned that the health-care system there is at risk of collapse (Haaretz) due to a sharp increase in COVID-19 patients.

The European Union will delay sending (AP) $109 million in aid it pledged to Ethiopia. The bloc wants full humanitarian access to the northern Tigray region, where Ethiopia’s federal government is embroiled in a conflict with regional forces.
 
Kenya: U.S. prosecutors charged a Kenyan man (NYT) with planning to hijack an airplane and crash it into a building in the United States. Prosecutors said he was an operative for the Somalia-based terrorist group al-Shabab and that he trained to be a pilot in the Philippines.
 
This CFR Backgrounder explains al-Shabab.  

French President Emmanuel Macron tested positive for COVID-19 (Guardian) after showing symptoms, the government announced today. A statement said he will continue working remotely, but his upcoming trips, including a visit to Lebanon next week, have been canceled.
 
France: A French court found fourteen people guilty (France24) of acting as accomplices to Islamist militants who attacked the Charlie Hebdo newspaper and a Jewish supermarket in 2015. Three of the defendants were tried in absentia.

More than seventy thousand new COVID-19 cases (Reuters) were reported yesterday, a daily record, as Brazil suffers from a worsening outbreak. Over 180,000 people have died from the virus. Only the United States has a higher death toll. Scientists have blamed the second wave on a relaxation of restrictions and decreased mask wearing.
 
Uruguay: The government announced that it will close the country’s borders (MercoPress) between December 21 and January 10 in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19. It will also restrict the number of passengers on long-range transportation and encourage people to limit gatherings to fewer than ten people.

Congressional leaders said that an agreement on a roughly $900 billion economic relief package could be reached (WaPo) by the end of the week. The package, which would come eight months after the last COVID-19 stimulus legislation was signed, is expected to include a second round of stimulus checks, aid for small businesses and unemployed people, and funds for vaccine distribution and schools.