And to the surprise of absolutely no one, the event kicked off with a joint declaration full of the usual mealymouthed dipolomatic gobbledygook that was immediately hailed by the members' state-run media mouthpieces as the start of the group's second "golden decade" and (say it with me) "paving the way for a new world order."

Yay.

But, buried in among all the feelgood diplobabble were a few nuggets of significance, as predictably undigestible as those nuggets may be.