Iran’s government has said its citizens will be given a monthly payment equivalent to about $7 to ease economic pressures as protests spread across the country, according to reports.

The announcement was reported to have been made on Monday by the government spokesperson, Fatemeh Mohajerani, on Iranian State TV.

She said the measure was aimed at “preserving households” purchasing power, controlling inflation and ensuring food security,” per The New York Times.

The outlet also said the plan represents a shift away from long-standing import subsidies toward direct assistance for citizens.

IRAN CRACKDOWN RATTLES MIDDLE EAST AS ANALYSTS WEIGH US OPTIONS SHORT OF MILITARY INTERVENTION

Under the proposal, roughly $10 billion that had been spent each year to subsidize certain imports, will now be given directly to the public.

Eligible Iranians will get one million Iranian tomans, which is around $7, and in the form of credit that can be used to buy goods.

The labor minister said the payments would be handed out to about 80 million people, which is the majority of Iran’s population.

PROTESTS SPREAD ACROSS IRAN AS REGIME THREATENS US FORCES AS ‘LEGITIMATE TARGETS’ AFTER TRUMP WARNING

Iran’s economy has been hit by sanctions and declining oil revenues which have led to protests.

The currency has lost more than half its value against the U.S. dollar.

The Statistical Center of Iran, a state-run body under Iran’s regime, reported in December that the average annual inflation rate also reached 42.2%, according to reports.

Denmark and Mexico, also threatened by US President Donald Trump, warn that the US violated international law.

Members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), including key US allies, have warned that the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife by US special forces could be a precedent-setting event for international law.

The 15-member bloc met for an emergency meeting on Monday in New York City, where the Venezuelan pair were also due to face drug trafficking charges in a US federal court.

Venezuela’s ambassador to the UN, Samuel Moncada, condemned the US operation as “an illegitimate armed attack lacking any legal justification”, in remarks echoed by Cuba, Colombia and permanent UNSC members Russia and China.

“[The US] imposes the application of its laws outside its own territory and far from its coasts, where it has no jurisdiction, using assaults and the appropriation of assets,” Cuba’s ambassador, Ernesto Soberon Guzman, said, adding that such measures negatively affected Cuba.

Russia’s ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said the US cannot “proclaim itself as some kind of a supreme judge, which alone bears the right to invade any country, to label culprits, to hand down and to enforce punishments irrespective of notions of international law, sovereignty and non-intervention”.

Notable critics at the emergency session included traditional US allies, Mexico and Denmark, both of whom Trump has separately threatened with military action over the past year.

Mexico’s ambassador, Hector Vasconcelos, said that the council had an “obligation to act decisively and without double standards” towards the US, and it was for “sovereign peoples to decide their destinies,” according to a UN readout.

His remarks come just days after Trump told reporters that “something will have to be done about Mexico” and its drug cartels, following Maduro’s abduction.

Denmark, a longstanding US security ally, said that “no state should seek to influence political outcomes in Venezuela through the use of threat of force or through other means inconsistent with international law.”

“The inviolability of borders is not up for negotiation,” Denmark’s ambassador, Christina Markus Lassen, told the council in an oblique reference to Trump’s threat that the US would annex Greenland, a self-governed Danish territory.

France, another permanent member of the UNSC, also criticised the US, marking a shift in tone from French President Emmanuel Macron’s initial remarks that Venezuelans “can only rejoice” following Maduro’s abduction.

“The military operation that has led to the capture of Maduro runs counter to the principle of peaceful dispute resolution and runs counter to the principle of non-use of force,” said the French deputy ambassador, Jay Dharmadhikari.

Representatives from Latvia and the United Kingdom, another permanent UNSC member, focused on the conditions in Venezuela created by Maduro’s government.

Latvia’s ambassador, Sanita Pavļuta-Deslandes, said that Maduro’s conditions in Venezuela posed “a grave threat to the security of the region and the world”, citing mass repression, corruption, organised crime and drug trafficking.

The UK ambassador, James Kariuki, said that “Maduro’s claim to power was fraudulent”.

The US ambassador, Mike Waltz, characterised the abduction of Maduro and his wife as a “surgical law enforcement operation facilitated by the US military against two indicted fugitives of American justice”.

The White House defended its wave of air strikes on Venezuela, and in the waters near it, and Maduro’s abduction as necessary to protect US national security, amid unproven claims that Maduro backed “narcoterrorist” drug cartels.

KYIV, Jan 5 (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that he planned to replace the head of the country’s SBU security service, Vasyl Maliuk, as part of a wider reshuffle that has also seen a new presidential chief of staff.

Maliuk was appointed SBU chief in February 2023, having already served as acting head for months before.

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The SBU said he also oversaw a strike on a Russian submarine and three attacks on the bridge connecting Russia to the occupied Crimean peninsula, a crucial logistical node for Moscow.

Maliuk has been praised by analysts for improving the SBU’s effectiveness, after his predecessor Ivan Bakanov was dismissed by Zelenskiy in July 2022 for failing to root out Russian spies.

Zelenskiy said on X that he had asked Maliuk instead to focus more on combat operations, adding: “There must be more Ukrainian asymmetric operations against the occupier and the Russian state, and more solid results in eliminating the enemy.”

The move comes days after Zelenskiy announced military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov would become his new chief of staff, and that he would seek to appoint new defence and energy ministers.

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