Years of hate and mistrust are thawing in some of Rio’s most violent slums. Pushed to alleviate security concerns before the city’s double-billing on the international stage — the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games — Rio officials have embarked on an ambitious plan to wrest control of the slums, or favelas, from ruthless drug gangs who ruled for years with big guns and abject terror.

The State Department announced today that it had completed a key component of its strategic framework for public diplomacy, with the selection of Deputy Assistant Secretaries for public diplomacy in the Department’s six geographic bureaus and a Deputy Assistant Secretary for international media engagement in the Bureau of Public Affairs.

There are four official languages in Singapore: English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil. When the country gained independence in 1965, the government decided to keep English as the main language in order to maximise economic prosperity. Mandarin, however, has always been an important language too.

After decades of peace and growing prosperity, the strategic environment in Asia is increasingly marked by tension and rivalry. China's rise as an economic and military power has forced its neighbors to reassess their relative standing.

Distinguished journalist Christian Caryl will lead RFE's efforts to step up news coverage from the nation's capital as he assumes the role of Chief Editor of RFE's Washington, D.C. bureau. Caryl is a regular contributor to Foreign Policy and the New York Review of Books and is a Senior Fellow at MIT's Center for International Studies.

China's Minister of Culture Cai Wu, who was on a first-ever visit to Taiwan in early September, said cultural exchanges should be immediately stepped up and the two sides should sign a cultural cooperation agreement.

Britain's armed forces, diplomatic network and even the BBC World Service are all likely to face cuts in the coalition government's spending squeeze, weakening Britain's influence on the world stage.