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Last Friday, Israeli jets bombed a Syrian military facility near Palmyra, where Russian troops and equipment are based, in response to what Israel views as a growing threat on its northern border with Syria, in the Golan (DEBKAfile, March 18, 2017). The attack also allowed Israel to debut a new missile defense system (ibid.).

On January 27, a number of national and international events took place as part of the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. It was on that day in 1945 that over 7,000 prisoners were liberated from the Auschwitz concentration camp in southern Poland.

“The number of children maimed, killed or recruited to fight in the Syria conflict has increased dramatically over the past year, with children as young as seven forced to act as frontline fighters, prison guards, suicide bombers and executioners,” according to a UNICEF report (The Guardia

“UN humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien said that more than 20 million people faced the threat of starvation and famine in Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan and Nigeria. Unicef has already warned 1.4m children could starve to death this year” (BBC, March 11, 2017). The crisis has been called the “largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the United Nations” (ibid.). According to Mr. O’Brien, if the disaster is not averted the world will witness “Children stunted and out of school.

As China persists in its claim of islands in the South China Sea, “Japan plans to dispatch its largest warship on a three-month tour through the South China Sea beginning in May… in its biggest show of naval force in the region since World War Two” (Reuters, March 14, 2017). “‘The aim is to test the capability of the [carrier] Izumo by sending it out on an extended mission,’ said one of the sources who have knowledge of the plan. ‘It will train with the U.S.