GENEVA- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on all countries on Wednesday to show solidarity and accept nearly half a million Syrian refugees for resettlement by 2018. Ban, kicking off a ministerial conference hosted by the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR in Geneva, said: 'This demands an exponential increase in global solidarity.' Referring to UN-led efforts to end the five-year conflict that has killed at least 250,000 and driven nearly 5 million refugees abroad, mostly in the region, he said: 'We have a cessation of hostilities, by and large holding for over a month, but the parties must consolidate and expand it into a ceasefire, and ultimately to a political solution through dialogue.'
(photo credit: The Jerusalem Post)Updated: