China's top political advisory body concludes standing committee session

The 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China's top political advisory body, closed the 15th session of its standing committee on Monday in Beijing.

Wang Huning, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the CPPCC National Committee, presided over the closing meeting and delivered a speech.

Over the past year, the CPPCC National Committee has carried out its duties, taken on responsibilities and acted proactively, achieving new progress across all its work, said Wang.

He called on political advisors to focus their suggestions and proposals in 2026 on the implementation of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) to build consensus and pool wisdom to secure a strong start to the plan.

Wang also urged full efforts to prepare for the fourth session of the 14th CPPCC National Committee, which will start on March 4 in Beijing.

The meeting adopted the draft agenda and the schedule for the annual session, a work report of the Standing Committee of the 14th CPPCC National Committee, and a report on how the proposals from political advisors have been handled since the third session of the 14th CPPCC National Committee.

These documents will be submitted to the fourth session of the 14th CPPCC National Committee for review.

The meeting voted to adopt the list of the secretary-general and deputy secretaries-general for the fourth session of the 14th CPPCC National Committee.

The meeting also passed decisions concerning several CPPCC National Committee members' qualifications.

China's top political advisory body concludes standing committee session

China's top political advisory body concludes standing committee session

Travelers in Iran have diverted to neighboring Armenia as Iran's air travel remains heavily disrupted following a joint military strike by the United States and Israel.

Armenia's Agarak Checkpoint is one of those seeing an influx of international travelers from Iran.

"This time I was, for a business trip, flying from China to Iran, but somehow due to the war situation, I had to left Iran suddenly. I haven't finished my business trip yet, but I hope the war will end soon and I can come back and continue my business trip," said Wang Zhongyang, a Chinese businessman.

"I was just for visiting families and friends. Then I wanted to fly back to Canada. I'm stuck because of the security issues in Iran. Then I tried to pass this border to get another plan to get back home," said Mo Aghazadeh, a Canadian Iranian.

"My flight was from Tehran to London yesterday. I was in the airplane. I was supposed to leave, but then the airspace was closed, so I had to come back, take a car, come across the border and go to Yerevan to the next airport to find a flight back to London," said Abbas Soleimany, a tourist from London.

"Traffic leaving Tehran was quite, quite high, but traffic towards Tehran was very low. So there was a long queue of the cars trying to leave Tehran," he added added.

Israel closed its airspace to civilian flights on Saturday, according to local authorities.

The Israeli public was asked not to travel to Ben Gurion International Airport and other airports until further notice.

Travelers divert to Armenia as Iran's flights disrupted by US attacks