UNICEF Ambassador and National Basketball Association (NBA) star Pau Gasol, returned today to Barcelona, Spain following a visit with Syrian refugees in Iraq. More than 1.7 million people - of which around 50 percent are children- have fled the armed conflict in Syria into neighboring countries, including more than 160,000 in Iraq.

Russia is prepared to open its arms to athletes from around the world to compete in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics – as long as they leave their rainbow flags at home. If there were any doubt about how the country’s new “gay propaganda” law would affect athletes and others attending in February, Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko made clear the government’s true position today. Visitors will be accountable under the restrictions banning any positive information and communication to children about “nontraditional sexual relationships.”

USAID has been working in Nyungwe since the mid-1980s. Our work there has helped to build an eco-tourism industry through activities like trail maintenance, training park guides, and creating partnerships with the private sector to invest in things like lodging around the park. We’re also working with communities living in and around Nyungwe to help them earn steady incomes in ways that don’t deplete the park’s resources.

When Barcelona meet Brazilian side Santos in a friendly on Friday at the Camp Nou, there will be a quick dash to the airport afterwards. They’ve got places to be. People to see. Peace to spread. On Saturday afternoon Barca will be in the Middle East as part of their Peace Tour initiative, as Lionel Mesi, Neymar and a whole host of stars will visit Palestine and Israel over the weekend.

If the box office is anything to go by, Godzilla – the most famous Japanese monster of old (kaiju) – is enjoying a rebirth. Just yesterday, Guillermo del Toro’s kaiju-inspired Pacific Rim invaded Chinese cinemas and raked in record opening ticket sales of $9 million. Meanwhile, news of Godzilla redux, set for release next May, is sparking heated chatter online, following an appearance of the film’s director Gareth Edwards at Comic-Con in San Diego last month.

Since its creation in the summer of 1946, the Fulbright program has become the “flagship international educational exchange program” of the US government. Over the past 67 years, almost 320,000 students, scholars and teachers have traveled internationally as part of the program’s vast effort to improve mutual understanding between nations. Understandably, given the profound effect these experiences have had on the lives of grant recipients, the Fulbright is often seen as among the most liberal, generous, and benevolent international programs of the US state.

It might be the cleanest Mexican soap opera around. The passionate love scenes that are a staple of the genre were reduced, bowing to conservative local sensibilities, to a few pecks on the cheek and hand-holding as innocent as junior high schoolers on a first date. It was not the only accommodation made by producers of what is considered the first “telenovela,” as soap operas are known here, entirely in an indigenous language, Maya, and with a story line rooted in the community.

Although high-level diplomatic activities dominate the news, Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and Serbia are also strengthening their relations through literature and cinema. In recent years, 48 Turkish books have been translated into Bosnian, with works by writers like Orhan Pamuk and Nedim Gursel becoming best-sellers. For the first time, Bosnian publishing houses displayed Turkish books at the country's 15th International Book Fair earlier this year.