Austerity or not, August is vacation time in Europe. As the continent's political leadership joins millions of citizens heading to the beaches, however, the tough economic times mean most are taking care to ensure their holidays look humble. Tropical beaches and hanging with billionaire buddies are out, stay-cations and low-cost flights are in as politicians take the ritz out of the recess.

Planting K-Pop on US soil, SM Entertainment announced its plans to create the SMTOWN Museum in Los Angeles. On August 7, SM Entertainment revealed that it will be building a place for US residents to experience hallyu in Los Angeles. The new SMTOWN Museum (tentative name) will be located at 6th and Oxford in Koreatown. “We’ve been planning for a long time to create a place where residents in Hollywood could experience hallyu, but we decided that it was more meaningful to bring US residents and tourists who were interested in hallyu to LA’s Koreatown,” said the agency.

In the heat of the afternoon, especially this past month of Ramadan, downtown Tunis plays dead. Offices and shops close at 2 p.m. and life is suspended as everyone, parched and hungry, waits for sunset and the breaking of the fast. On a side street behind the Interior Ministry, the only movement is the occasional rumble of a tram, the only sound the trill of its bell warning pedestrians to step off the tracks.

Diplomacy is dead, at least according to New York Times columnist Roger Cohen writing earlier this year. His claim certainly sparked a great deal of discussion. But as someone who studies and teaches about foreign policy leaders, I would argue that the question is not so much whether diplomacy is dead, but how effectively diplomats – with their tradition of solving problems peacefully, creatively and innovatively – can collaborate with a growing number of governmental and non-governmental actors in an increasingly complex world.

As Chinese citizens are tempted by these governments to invest and relocate abroad, China has been experiencing an influx of immigrants as well – many of whom have come from Africa. Guangzhou, one of China’s largest cities and a main manufacturing hub in the Pearl River Delta, is home to over 20,000 Africans who hail from West African countries such as Nigeria, Mauritania, Mali, and Guinea.

When I was referred to a documentary film on India’s scientific greats by its maker Raja Choudhury this week, I was wondering if there’d be anything beyond what I already know about them in the hour-long film. To find this out, it also meant dedicating an hour to watch the film on YouTube with its infamous buffering time. But I was ready to endure that, partly because the title of the film was inviting — The Quantum Indians — and partly because I had not been able to take up Raja’s earlier offer to feature in this film as an ‘expert’ on India’s science.

It was only a matter of time. In the span of a decade, Korean pop music has gone from relative obscurity to sweep the entire Asian continent. Now, with a little help from Psy, K-pop has cast its eye on the potentially lucrative markets in the Americas and Europe. First came the United States, then Mexico. MBLAQ, a popular Korean boy band, arrived in Mexico this week for their first concert in Central and South America.

While in Washington D.C., the Turkish athletes played wheelchair basketball with American student athletes at local schools and organizations, including George Mason University and MedStar National Rehabilitation Network (MedStar NRH). The athletes traveled to the University of Illinois-Urbana for intensive wheelchair basketball clinics, and team building and conflict resolution activities. Throughout the program, they learned about disability sports culture in the United States.