David Stern is set to retire in February 2014, after completing exactly 30 years of service as commissioner of the National Basketball Association (NBA). In transforming the NBA from a drug-addled public-relations nightmare of a league into a multi-billion dollar entity, Stern’s proudest accomplishment is growing the game globally. After investing in Europe for the better part of a decade following the fall of communism in the Eastern Bloc countries, Stern set his sights on Asia as a new frontier.

A new organisation called EMMA for Peace has been launched to support and promote music education and cultural dialogue across the Mediterranean and the Middle East. EMMA for Peace, or the Euro Mediterranean Music Academy, is supported by UNESCO. And, according to its website, the organisation aims to create a network of music institutions ‘brought together in the shared interest of music and the promotion of peace in the Mediterranean and Middle East regions.’

In his first-ever interview last week with the BBC Persian Service, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu inadvertently elicited a combination of outrage and ridicule with an offhand comment about the aspirations of Iran's population. Responding to a question about the prospects for change under Iran's new president, Hassan Rouhani, Netanyahu dismissed Rouhani and the election that elevated him as incompatible with the true preferences of the Iranian people, if they could be freely expressed.

“I would like to emphasize once more the great significance of tourism as one of the most important means of public diplomacy that can help create relations and interactions among nations and lead to cultural proximity and mutual understanding of cultures and traditions,” Iran's President Rouhani said while addressing a conference on tourism.

Boris Johnson has said forcing children to wear a burkha to school is “completely wrong” and contradicts British values and freedoms. Speaking after it emerged a number of UK secondary schools forced girls as young as 11 to wear the full Islamic veil, the Mayor of London said a burkha cannot be described as part of a school uniform, adding that he was “totally against kind compulsion in this matter”.

Muslims entertainers performing stand-up comedy is not a new concept, but a recently released documentary entitled “The Muslims are Coming,” aims to shake up the American comedy scene. Starting this week, a troupe of Muslim-American comedians will tour the United States, entertaining audiences with Islam-related jokes in a witty bid to combat Islamophobia and publicize their documentary.