The UN Security Council adopted a resolution (AFP) to allow aid to reach Afghanistan for one year without violating international sanctions designed to isolate the Taliban. Washington sponsored the resolution and issued its own sanctions exemptions (NYT) for U.S. and international aid groups.
 
The moves come as analysts warn of humanitarian disaster. The United Nations cautioned that more than half of the country’s population is facing extreme hunger and that nearly nine million Afghans could face famine (Reuters) this winter. The World Bank, which had prevented Afghanistan’s access to funding following the Taliban’s takeover, has said it will transfer $280 million to UN agencies providing aid in the country by the end of the year. Washington continues to hold more than $9 billion in frozen Afghan bank reserves.

The Pillar of Shame statue acknowledged the 1989 crackdown on protests in Beijing and was removed (Nikkei) after standing at the university for twenty-four years. Its removal is part of Beijing’s effort to suppress Hong Kong’s memorialization of the protests.
 
China: Authorities locked down (SCMP) the city of Xi’an, home to thirteen million people, after sixty-three of China’s seventy-one new locally transmitted, symptomatic COVID-19 cases were reported there.

A former spokesperson for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Ashwini Upadhyay, attended an event (Indian Express) over the weekend where religious leaders and right-wing activists explicitly called for the killing of Muslims. Videos of speeches from the event became public yesterday. 

This Backgrounder examines the marginalization of India’s Muslims.

Starting in January, eight million people in Yemen will have their food rations reduced (Al Jazeera), while five million people at immediate risk of famine will continue to receive full rations, the World Food Program said.
 
This Backgrounder examines Yemen’s tragedy.
 
Tunisia: A court sentenced former President Moncef Marzouki (CNN) in absentia to four years in prison for “undermining the external security of the state.” Marzouki accused current President Kais Saied of organizing a coup in July.

Health authorities said the donations of vaccines developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford arrived with too little time (Reuters) to administer the doses.
 
Ethiopia/Sudan: Ethiopia’s civil war has caused tens of thousands of people, many of them ethnic Tigrayans, to cross into neighboring Sudan, Al Jazeera reported.

Data from Denmark, South Africa, and the United Kingdom found that people infected with the coronavirus’s omicron variant are less likely to need hospitalization (FT) than those infected with the delta variant. The researchers warned that omicron could still strain health-care systems.
 
Ukraine: Government forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine agreed to restore a 2020 cease-fire agreement (Reuters), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said.

President Luis Lacalle Pou made the statement (MercoPress) to explain that Uruguay is pursuing trade deals in addition to the one it seeks with China. Uruguay’s efforts to reach bilateral deals have been criticized by other members of the Southern Common Market, or Mercosur, a regional trade bloc that requires members’ approval for deals with outside parties.
 
This Backgrounder discusses Mercosur, South America’s fractious trade bloc.
 
Brazil: The United States added three men based in Brazil (State Dept.) to its list of designated terrorists, saying they have ties with regional affiliates of al-Qaeda. 

The suspension has been in place since the start of the pandemic and was previously set to end (CNN) on February 1. President Joe Biden cited the pandemic as the reason for the extension.