• Decisions on a Syrian unity government must come within one to two months, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said.
• Hezbollah militant leader Samir Kantar was killed in a rocket strike near the Syrian capital of Damascus.
• The Iraqi government confirmed the accidental deaths of 10 Iraqi soldiers in a U.S. airstrike near Fallujah.
• Afghanistan's Helmand province could fall to the Taliban after months of heavy fighting, the province's deputy governor said.
• Yemeni peace talks concluded in Switzerland without an agreement to end the conflict, but negotiations will resume Jan. 14.
• Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev signed an order for counter-sanctions on Ukraine, effective on Jan. 1, in response to Kiev's implementation of EU and U.S. anti-Russia sanction regimes.
• The Central Bank of Azerbaijan floated the country's currency, the manat.
• Demonstrations involving thousands of people broke out in 20 cities across Poland protesting the right-wing Law and Justice-led government's plans to neutralize the power of the Constitutional Tribunal.
• Spain's Popular Party won the most seats in the recent legislative elections, followed by the Socialist Party, Podemos and Ciudadanos.
• A landslide hit the industrial park in Shenzhen, China, collapsing 22 buildings.
• U.S. military aircraft flew over Chinese-built artificial islands in the South China Sea's Spratly archipelago.
• Cambodian police arrested dozens of protesting garment workers and broke up the demonstration with a water cannon.
