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“The appalling crisis in Syria is entering a fifth year. A crisis that continues to exact an unconscionable human cost. A crisis that the international community has failed to stop.

The annual dual sessions of the Chinese National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Committee (CPPCC), held this year in Beijing, are occurring as the Chinese economy finds itself at a crossroads, and the government charts a new course in this period of financial turmoil in the London-New York financial markets. Key elements in the new orientation for the Chinese economy are the building of a Silk Road Economic Belt and a 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, or as the Chinese say, “One Belt, One Road.”

Two PACE rapporteurs dealing with migration have welcomed the announcement by the UNHCR of proposals for European action in the Mediterranean Sea.

The desperation move by European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi, to flood the Eurozone with €1.14 billion in so-called “quantitative easing,” while excluding Greece and Cyprus from this dubious bonanza, will doubly accelerate the inevitable collapse of the trans-Atlantic financial system. The simultaneous escalation of provocations against Russia by NATO maneuvers in the Black Sea and the forward basing of NATO troops and heavy equipment in the Baltic States, up to Russia’s borders, are directly related to the impending bankruptcy of the financial system.

In January 1995, the world came to the brink of nuclear war, but war was avoided because tensions between Russia and the West were very low. The launch of a Norwegian scientific rocket, along a trajectory that coincided with that from which Moscow expected a blinding nuclear attack from U.S. Trident submarine-launched ballistic missiles would originate, set off alarm bells in Moscow, but the conditions of Russia-U.S. relations were such that Russian President Boris Yeltsin was able to hold off long enough to determine that, in fact, there was no activity by U.S. nuclear forces that were a threat to Russia.

Participants at an intergenerational dialogue hosted by UN Women.

Parliament hailed counter-terrorism cooperation between the EU and the League of Arab States in a vote on Thursday, but stressed it must not compromise the rule of law, human and fundamental rights. The recently-signed memorandum of understanding between the two organisations must be made public, it added.