In 2009 Ben Simpfendorfer published his bestselling book titled The New Silk Road: How a Rising Arab World is Turning Away From the West and Rediscovering China. He wrote among other things: "The Silk Road is about more than a trading route. It is about the historical, geographical, and religious ties that have bound the Silk Road economies together. The rise of China, the rise of oil prices, and the events after September 11 have reinvigorated them, making the Silk Road relevant once again" (Simpfendorfer, 2009: 166-167). The historical trade route was regaining its symbolic meaning. However, at the time nobody expected that four years later the Chinese leadership would propose a resurrection of the old land route and attempt to transform it into the biggest engineering project in world history. Although this time in a very modern way, the idea is the same. Its objective is to embrace landlocked states in Central Asia, establish land connections with Western Asia, Europe, as well as African partners, and become independent from naval powers, especially the US Navy, which controls all strategic points on the maritime route connecting East Asia with Southeast Asia, South Asia, Africa, and Europe.This article focuses on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its potential impact on Iran-China relations in the long term. Various political and economic aspects related to the BRI are taken into consideration. Would both sides benefit from the cooperation in the BRI framework or would one of them maybe have the upper hand? What are the main opportunities and challenges in the case of China-Iran relations and BRI implementation?The work is based on primary sources such as official governmental documents, speeches of influential politicians, and official statistical data. Besides these sources, information from secondary sources was taken into consideration. These sources were relevant monographs, reports, and academic articles. The BelT and Road InITIaTIve: an elemenT of The chInese GRand sTRaTeGYChina has been regaining its position in the international system since 1978, namely since the introduction of Deng Xiaoping reforms and the improvement of relations with the outside world. At the very beginning of the 21 st century, China became a symbol of economic success and the rapid development. Peter Ferdinand argues that "one

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic poses a threat not only to public health and human life, but also to civil rights and freedoms. Such a claim applies not only to authoritarian states, but also to democratic political structures. Significant restrictions on civil liberties were introduced under the pretext of ensuring security in at least several member states of the European Union. One of them is Poland. The main purpose of this paper is to examine causes, developments, and consequences of the limitations to the right to freedom of assembly in Poland influencing the activities of the social protest movement Women's Strike (Strajk Kobiet) during the ongoing pandemic. The text concludes recommendations both for the Women's Strike social movement and for the government. Their implementation should reduce the current tensions in Poland and enable the opening of constructive social dialogue.

The main aim of the article is to analyse in detail roles played by various regional and nonregional state actors in two of the ongoing Middle Eastern conflicts, namely in Syria and in Yemen, in the period between March 2015 and May 2017. The year 2015 was very significant. That year the Russian military intervention in Syria began, the conflict in Yemen broke out and was internationalized simultaneously. This state-oriented study has two levels of analysis, namely regional and global. Although the global dimension can be observed and analysed in both selected conflicts, its seems to be much more noticeable and significant in case of the Syrian war especially due to the direct Russian engagement as well as the American response to it. A very limited institutionalization of international relations in the Middle East region seriously undermines opportunities for a peaceful conflict resolution in the region and therefore requires participation and engagement of non-regional actors especially of global powers which can exert either direct or indirect pressure on various regional actors. As far as sources are concerned, the study is based on selected documents, monographs, academic articles, reports, and analyses.

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