The paper derided Julie Bishop as a "complete fool" using a term that defies neat translation but could be construed even more harshly. The personal attack raised eyebrows in the diplomatic corps in Australia and abroad, where Ms Bishop is widely considered to be the most competent Australian foreign affairs minister since Gareth Evans.

It is hard to think of two countries that have more in common than Australia and Britain. We share a language and a rich history – and, in the main, a sense of humour. We are both maritime trading nations. Australia inherited many fine British institutions including parliamentary democracy and the common law. Yet, as a recent Lowy Institute poll demonstrates, too often the relationship is focused on the past rather than the future, on sentiment rather than shared interests. More than eight in 10 Australians see the Australia-Britain bilateral relationship as important. 

Over the past decade or so, something disturbing has been happening in the Chinese community media in this country. The Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda bureau has been buying up radio stations and newspapers across the country and channelling the voice of Beijing into them from editorial offices in China. Increasingly, topics on which press discussion is forbidden in China have vanished also from the Chinese language media in our own country.

The Australian Embassy in Seoul on Tuesday launched the “Australia-Korea Friendship Tree” art project to celebrate 125 years of contact between South Koreans and Australians. The project will explore the connection between the two nations through old and new artistic mediums. Smartphone users will be able to scan posters around Seoul to access a digital model of a tree, where they can view 125 images of Australian-Korean friendships, watch music videos from both countries, and even upload their own selfies. 

France has gone so far in the debate over .wine and .vin as to demand an overhaul of how ICANN is structured and run. TheFinancial Times reported over the weekend that Paris planned to call for an international "general assembly" to oversee ICANN with a "one country, one vote" policy at a meeting on Monday. The French have also said that proceeding with the domain names could "imperil" talks on a transatlantic trade deal between the EU and the U.S.

Dozens of young Australians are showing their support for fighters in Syria and Iraq by liking images, creating online groups and adopting the black-and-white flag used by a terrorist group on their  social media pages.

Beijing’s investments in Australia’s Chinese language media have had negligible impact on the broader Australian public, but they are earning high dividends among the Chinese-Australian communities targeted through an active public-diplomacy program that is highly strategic, clearly focused, and generously supported. 

Relations with our Indonesian neighbours have been a touch awkward of late, ever since the Australian government got busted committing the international espionage equivalent of eavesdropping over the back fence.