The lopsided reality of Britain’s relationship with the United States was underlined at the White House this week when it was asked to react to findings from the official UK report into the Iraq war. [...] “The United States and the United Kingdom have a special relationship,” he said. “I would expect that that relationship will remain special and strong.” For British diplomats – worried more than ever about their access to power after Barack Obama’s dire warnings over Brexit – such platitudes might sound reassuring.

Aoury and her friends came to Cuba on a cultural exchange program because it is still illegal for Americans to visit Cuba solely as tourists, and the U.S. maintains the trade embargo on Cuba that has been in place since 1960.

The United States has overtaken Britain as the world’s leading “soft power”, according to a survey claiming that US President Barack Obama’s diplomatic moves in Iran, Cuba and Asia have helped to shift global opinion of the superpower. [...] The Soft Power 30 survey uses a range of polling and digital data to measure a country’s appeal on issues ranging from government, culture and cuisine to education, enterprise and the attractiveness of luxury brands.

On Thursday, May 26, the first day of the G7 Summit, Mr. and Mrs. Abe accompanied the world’s leaders and their spouses on a visit to the Shinto spiritual origin of Japan known as Ise Jingu (Ise Grand Shrine) [...] to emphasize Japan’s spiritual core at a shrine noted for its natural beauty and not national politics like that of Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo that rattles nerves throughout Northeast Asia. 

His comments not only call into question the honesty of policy statements from the White House, but they also display a fundamental disregard for the news media’s role in informing the public about what its government is doing. Performing that role requires that the relationship between press and government...

Over the past five years, Twitter has become the ultimate channel for digital diplomacy for world leaders and governments. It is the prime social network used by heads of state and government in 173 countries, representing 90 percent of all United Nations (UN) member states, according to Burson-Marsteller's Twiplomacy study, an annual global survey of world leaders on social media. 

Barack Obama is already going down in history books as the coolest president, and now to add to his list of accomplishments, he's eaten with chef and legendary foodie Anthony Bourdain in Vietnam.