The Kremlin surprised nearly everyone when it unleashed its media machine on the world after the pro-Moscow president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, was chased from power in February 2014 and Ukraine fell into division and conflict. Moscow's version of events was available on television, radio, and in print media in dozens of languages in dozens of countries and the selective storytelling of these outlets succeeded in raising doubts in some peoples' minds as to who was telling the truth about events in Ukraine: Western media or Russian media.

On June 10 and 11, Kazakhstan hosted the Fifth Congress of World Religions.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has come up with a clever and unexpected move of extending a new $2 billion line of credit to Bangladesh. It will make China sit up and ponder deeper over its chequebook diplomacy. It will also send a message to smaller neighbours like Maldives which is playing a teasing game with India and refusing to free former president Mohammed Nasheed.

Hans Morgenthau’s Politics Among Nations, originally published in 1948, is the bible of the realist school of international relations. A less well-known work, Truth and Power, is a collection of essays that he wrote during the 1960s which includes a 1968 piece entitled “The Far East,” wherein Morgenthau applied his realist approach to the balance of power in Asia and envisioned a world where China is the most powerful nation on earth.

Recent years have brought many prominent examples of political mobilization online, but most future growth in Internet users will come in countries with repressive and authoritarian regimes. Some democracies are attempting to mobilize soft power to reinforce real security concerns about less-than-friendly regimes around the world, and especially in Asia.

Japan and China agreed to boost people-to-people exchanges on Thursday during the first talks between their consular officials in three years, the Foreign Ministry said in Tokyo. The two countries also agreed during the talks in Tokyo to expedite visa processing for Chinese tourists visiting Japan who are growing in number.

The first-ever Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Festival drew its curtains to a marvelous close yesterday at the Katara Esplanade providing visitors a window into the cultural identity of each of the seven participating Asean countries via a blend of performances, cuisine, handicraft and tourism products.