After hours spent performing cartwheels, American show tunes and a series of jazzy dance routines in a cramped studio on West 28th Street in Manhattan, 8-year-old Futaba Kawakami left TADA Youth Theater camp earlier this week, clammy and slightly hoarse. She pulled off her new camp T-shirt, the one with the slogan Sing! Dance! Act! emblazoned on the back, and marshaled enough energy to ask her mother for ice cream.

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. 

By escaping from the Group of Death at the World Cup, the United States finally gave the lie to the notion that Americans were bad at soccer. Except Americans were never bad at soccer. The good soccer players just didn't know they were Americans. 

Australians retain warmer feelings to other English-speaking nations than to their neighbors in Asia, according to a new poll. But Britain rated only third, behind the United States and New Zealand, in the Lowy Institute poll, the results of which were released on Tuesday. The poll by the Sydney-based institute asked respondents to nominate Australia's 'best friend' from a list of six countries.

U.S. secretary of commerce Penny Pritzker will travel to Vietnam, the Philippines, and Myanmar with American chief executive officers in early June. Her visit is important because for Asia the heart of sustained engagement and indeed the very concept of security is economics.

The Shangri-La Dialogue styles itself as the premier forum for defence diplomacy in Asia.  Institutions and individuals whose primary function is the organised use of force are turned to the business of dialogue and communication. In a region so beset with tensions and rivalry as Asia, defence diplomacy is an important and welcome addition to the international scene.

The Cultural Office of the Bahraini Embassy to the USA took part in the "Passport DC" event, an annual celebration in which more than 50 embassies participate in order to inform the American society about their countries' civilisations, cultures and history.

Millions in South and Southeast Asia rely on these three wheelers -- known variously as rickshaws, tuk tuks or tricycles -- as an affordable mode of transportation.  But while beloved by many, the vehicles are also blamed for bottleneck congestion and pollution, spewing carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and particle matters that become trapped inside the lungs.  As concerns over air pollution and fuel dependence grow, several Asian companies are vying to become the Tesla of motorbikes to bring zero-emission, light electric vehicles to the masses.