The French national assembly has voted to recognise Palestine as a state.The foreign minister argued that recognising a Palestinian state - as Sweden's recently done - makes sense in the context of a broader peace deal. But there's no deal in sight, not even talks. Instead, since the last round of U-S-brokered negotiations collapsed, there's been another war in Gaza and increased attacks by extremists on both sides. Will the outside world's pressure help break the impasse?

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The P4 laboratory, on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, in Wuhan, in China's central Hubei province. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)