Chinese President Xi Jinping is visiting Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran as part of a five-day trip, which has seen Beijing ink billion-dollar deals and boost ties in the Middle East at a time when Washington's presence in the oil-rich region is becoming less pronounced.

Xi's tour is largely focused on economic and energy cooperation with the Arab world, the South China Morning Post noted. But "it is also a mission to forge closer political, diplomatic and military ties with countries and to promote China's image and influence as a global power, resembling what the Middle Kingdom was 2,000 years ago," the newspaper asserted.

Xi's tour first brought him to Saudi Arabia, China's largest oil supplier, earlier this week. The Chinese president and King Salman agreed to foster energy cooperation between the two countries and oversaw the opening of a major Yanbu oil refinery, a joint Saudi Aramco and Sinopec venture.

A group of Ukrainian nationalists have threatened to cause chaos in the Netherlands if Dutch citizens will vote against the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement this coming April, the French newspaper Les Echos reported.

A video appeared on the Internet in which the alleged members of the Ukrainian ultra-nationalist organization Azov told Dutch citizens that if they want to avoid violence in the Netherlands they should not vote against the association agreement with Kiev.

"Dear Dutchmen, don't you dare to go against Ukraine, it will end very bad for you. We'll bring chaos not only in your brains, but in your very homes. You'll see to regret this,," a masked man said in the video.

The Syrian settlement is impossible without defeating terrorism, Iran's Presidential Chief of Staff Mohammad Nahavandian told Sputnik.

Finding a solution to the Syrian crisis is directly linked to the fight against terrorism, Iran's Presidential Chief of Staff Mohammad Nahavandian told Sputnik on the sidelines of the annual World Economic Forum in the Swiss town of Davos on Friday.

"Solving the Syrian problem goes hand in hand with fighting terrorism. Without a unified fight against terrorism, there will be no solution for Syria."

Nahavandian added that the peace process's foreign mediators now understood this, which he welcomed as a positive development, especially ahead of the intra-Syrian talks later in January.

Iraqi Kurdish forces are involved in a campaign aimed at preventing the Arab population displaced by violence from returning to their homes in Kurd-controlled northern areas, Amnesty International said in a damning report.

The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) and Peshmerga militias were one of the leading forces fighting against the onslaught of the terrorist group Islamic State (formerly ISIS/ISIL) in northern Iraq. While the Iraqi army fled the initial IS offensive, Kurds held their ground and became a principal ally for the US-led coalition fighting against the terrorists.

As fighting on the ground continued and territories in Iraq changed hands, some 3 million people were displaced. Lately the Kurds fended off IS fighters and asserted control over areas, where mixed Arab-Kurdish population lived before the violence escalated.

Now the KRG are burning and bulldozing Arab-owned homes and businesses in an apparent attempt to uproot the Arabs from those lands, Amnesty International said Tuesday in a report. The accusations are based on field investigations in 13 villages and towns, testimonies of eyewitnesses, satellite imagery and media reports. Arabs are also being barred from returning to their homes or travel freely in Kurd-controlled areas.

"KRG forces appear to be spearheading a concerted campaign to forcibly displace Arab communities by destroying entire villages in areas they have recaptured from IS in northern Iraq. The forced displacement of civilians and the deliberate destruction of homes and property without military justification, may amount to war crimes," said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International's senior crisis response adviser, who carried out the field research in northern Iraq.

Though pessimistic news still dominates and controls the headlines in both mainstream and alternative media worlds, a closer look at what's going on right now might reveal glimpses of profound changes occurring just below the surface echo chambers. This presentation will focus on the most visible signs reflecting the current underlying transformative metamorphosis the earth is undergoing at what appears to be the most tumultuous, dangerous and exciting time in human history.

All high seas shipping around the entire globe has come to a screeching halt. The Baltic Dry Index, the foremost economic mechanism responsible for tracking international trade of industrial commodities like grain, iron ore, coal, cement and fertilizer, has been in a state of freefall. On Monday it plummeted to an all-time low of just 369 points. On Tuesday it fell even lower, another 1.63% to 363 points, taking a nosedive in the first three weeks of 2016's first month alone to a whopping 24% drop. A latest check of Vessel Finder shows absolutely no cargo ships are in transit anywhere on the planet, clearly a historic first in modern history. Shipping companies are lamenting about the rising costs of transporting goods eating up their profits and thus keeping all cargo vessels worldwide sitting in their port docks. Brace yourself for depleted empty store shelves to start showing up in the coming weeks and months.

But another far more plausible explanation as to why global shipping has suddenly come to a standstill is because China for the first time as the emerging Asian powerhouse giant is now demanding all trade payment be transacted in Chinese Yuan. Over the last six months China has been steadily dumping its massive dollar reserves and ordered its banks to stop buying in US dollars. And now suddenly dozens of Chinese billionaire bankers and executives have mysteriously gone missing without a trace. With the faltering Chinese economy, the question becomes whether this phenomenon is payback for China's economic woes or whether it's part of a larger cover-up of corruption that could implicate high government officials.

Germany's southern states are confiscating refugees' valuables in order to pay for their stay, according to local authorities. It comes as Denmark moves ahead with a plan to do the same, part of a controversial bill aimed at curbing asylum seekers' rights.

"Cash holdings and valuables can be secured [by the authorities] if they are over €750 (US$810) and if the person has an outstanding bill, or is expected to have one," Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann told Bild newspaper on Thursday.

The government of Baden-Württemberg has implemented a stricter process, with police confiscating cash and valuables above €350 ($378).The average amount per person confiscated by authorities in the southern states has so far been "in the four figures," according to Bild. By confiscating the personal belongings of refugees, the states are implementing federal laws that require asylum seekers to use up their own resources before receiving state aid.

"If you apply for asylum here, you must use up your income and wealth before receiving aid," said the federal government's integration commissioner, Aydan Ozoguz, stressing that such wealth includes assets such as family jewelry.The move has been criticized by the Left party (Die Linke), with MP Ulla Jelpke telling Der Tagesspiegel that "those who apply for asylum are exercising their basic rights [under the German Constitution]."

"That must not - even if they are rejected - be tied up with costs," she said.

Fueling 'fear & xenophobia'

Meanwhile, Denmark is moving ahead on a bill which would also allow its government to confiscate refugees' valuables. Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen's minority right-wing government already has enough support for its bill to win a January 26 parliamentary vote.

Describing current levels of killing and mayhem in Iraq as "staggering" and "obscene," two United Nations agencies released a report Tuesday that recorded at least 55,047 civilian casualties between January 1, 2014 and October 31, 2015. The total included at least 18,802 civilians killed and another 36,245 wounded.

The report added that over roughly the same period, a total of 3,206,736 civilians, including over 1 million school-age children, have been driven from their homes by the violence.

The UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein said the report failed to reflect the full human toll inflicted by the conflict in Iraq. The numbers reported killed or wounded, particularly in areas under ISIS control, undoubtedly fell well short of the real level of carnage. Moreover, many more had "died from lack of access to basic food, water or medical care," he said.

The high commissioner added that the report "starkly illustrates what Iraqi refugees are attempting to escape when they flee to Europe and other regions. This is the horror they face in their homelands."

During a meeting of the Presidential Council for Science and Education in the Kremlin, one of the participants quoted a work by Russian writer Boris Pasternak, analyzing Lenin's revolution and his ability to manage his flow of thought.

"Controlling the flow of thought is the right thing, but it is necessary that this thought led to correct results, not like in the case of Vladimir Iliyich [Lenin]. Because this thought in the end led to the collapse of the Soviet Union...There were many thoughts, autonomization and so on. They put a nuclear bomb under the building which is called Russia, and it exploded. We did not need a world revolution. That's what the thought was," Putin said at the meeting.

The British investigation into the death of Aleksandr Litvinenko, a former Russian intelligence officer and Kremlin critic, who died from radioactive poisoning in 2006, is "biased" and unjustified, Russia's UK ambassador Alexander Yakovenko told RT.

"Russia is not satisfied with the way the Litvinenko case was dealt with," Yakovenko said in an interview to RT, stressing that "the key problem is... that it was not public and open to the press," so that Russia could not take part in the hearings.

"That is why we cannot accept the conclusions of that case. If it was public, we would be happy to participate [in the investigation], but, unfortunately, it did not happen," he added.

Yakovenko also emphasized that the results of the inquiry "are not justified," with the investigation itself being "very politicized" and "biased" as "the coroner investigation was open to [Russia] but later, after [the crisis in Ukraine started], the British authorities decided to switch the process to a secret investigation..."

"In order to prove something, you have to present the facts. As soon as the British side proves... their conclusions, we will be ready to consider [them]," the ambassador stressed adding that now he sees "no grounds for that," as the Russian side "did not even have a chance to study the documents [of the investigation]."

A leaked report condemning the BBC over Jimmy Savile's sexual abuse of minors has warned that another child predator could be present at the national broadcaster.

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was among those who received criticism in the report for ignoring warnings about the celebrity from an honor committee and proposing him for knighthood in recognition of his charitable work.