Malaysia Airlines flight 370 (MH370) is presumed to have crashed into the southern Indian Ocean, “about as close to nowhere as it’s possible to be, but . . . closer to Australia than anywhere else,” according to Australian prime minister Tony Abbott. In response, Australia’s formidable humanitarian assistance and disaster relief/search and rescue (HADR/SAR) machine has sprung into action.

 The Philippine navy will soon return to a South China Sea island it lost to Vietnam 40 years ago to drink beer and play volleyball with Vietnamese sailors, symbolising how once-suspicious neighbours are cooperating in the face of China's assertiveness in disputed waters.

Despite a mild economic slowdown amidst China’s economic rebalancing and the U.S. Federal Reserve tapering—and despite a dip in Indonesian shares following asurprisingly weak performance by the favorites in Wednesday’s parliamentary election—the general direction of Indonesia’s economy seems clear: onwards and upwards.

Public Diplomacy: A Global Phenomenon

In 2013, at least 136 countries were active in public diplomacy, both as principals and/or receivers, and PD activity took place in every region of the world. As represented in Figure 1, the United States, China, India, Russia, Israel, and the United Kingdom were the most mentioned actors in PD stories throughout the year.

The conventional wisdom on U.S. alliances in Asia, at least in the West, Japan, and Taiwan (but not necessarily in South Korea), is that they are broadly a good thing. One hears this pretty regularly from U.S. officials and the vast network of U.S. think tanks and foundations, such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the American Enterprise Institute, and their many doubles in Asia.

As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin E. Dempsey is the top-ranking officer in the United States armed forces, the most powerful fighting machine the world has ever known. The Irish-American general married his high-school sweetheart, Deanie. They have three children, Chris, Megan and Caitlin. We even know the names of their sons- and daughter-in-law, as well as those of their grandchildren.

Mainland academics argued that China was the first to discover the disputed Diaoyu Islands and insisted this be taught in schools, days after Japan declared the contrary in its elementary school textbooks.

Having generated considerable turbulence in East Asia with his nationalistic policies, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appears to be walking back his reactionary stance on modern history—at least in public.