What we’re watching Monday

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif speaks to the media Sunday after an interim accord to curb Iran’s nuclear powers in return for slightly loosening some economic sanctions had been reached. Creative Commons photo by Eric Bridiers and via flickr user United States Mission Geneva

Good morning. Here are some of the top stories we’re watching today:

Iran

• An interim six-month accord was reached in the early Sunday hours between Iran and the P5+1: the U.S., the U.K., Russia, China, France and Germany after intense negotiations in Geneva. In return for Iran agreeing to curb some of its nuclear activities, the country will receive about $7 billion in sanctions relief.

• France’s foreign minister said the European Union would likely begin lifting some of the sanctions against Iran beginning in December

• The New York Times has a visual breakdown of the deal. Iran will receive some financial relief, but most sanctions against the Islamic Republic will remain in place.

Syria

• More than 160 people have been killed in two days of fighting in a suburb east of Damascus as Syrian rebels struggle to break a months-long blockade by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, Reuters reports.

• 32 months into Syria’s bloody civil war, the UN has announced it has brokered peace talks for the two sides beginning early 2014. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that the Geneva conference was “a mission of hope” to end the civil war.

Thailand

• More than 30,000 protesters have taken to Thailand’s capital — including entering the finance ministry compound — in hopes of toppling the government and ending what activists say is the continued power exercised by the deposed former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra.

Sandy Hook shootings

• Just over 11 months since a gunman killed 20 children and six educators inside the Sandy Hook elementary school on Dec. 14, a prosecutor is planning to release a report on the investigation into the massacre at 3 p.m. Monday. Yet to much criticism, the bulk of the evidence will not be released and the report will not include the state police’s full accounting of the crime.

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