Israeli foreign ministry employees have intensified a long-running dispute over pay and conditions by declaring a full-scale strike at home and at diplomatic missions around the world. "The ministry in Jerusalem will remain closed and Israel's missions abroad will not open as of Monday morning, March 24," the ministry's website said.

Michelle Obama has embarked on a weeklong trip to China, together with her mother, Marian Robinson, and daughters, Malia and Sasha. Critics of the trip point out that the Robinson-Obama visits to Beijing (Great Wall), Xi’an (terra-cotta army), and Chengdu (pandas), will do nothing to illuminate or alleviate tensions in U.S.-China relations.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday to protest remarks by Israel’s defense minister that portrayed the United States as weak in its handling of nuclear talks with Iran and other world affairs, Reuters reported a State Department spokeswoman as saying. 

The Russian embassy in London has warned the "British side should mind its language" following a tweet yesterday by the UK embassy in Moscow on Russia's annexation of the Crimea region in Ukraine.

South Korea is open to a summit with Tokyo but demands Japan first take sincere steps on historical issues to create the right conditions for talks to produce substantial results, a spokesman for South Korean President Park Geun-hye said Monday.

India has expressed anger over the US Justice Department's decision to re-indict one of its diplomats on visa fraud charges and allegations she lied about how much she paid her housekeeper.

On a Saturday morning in late January, Russ Feingold descended a tight path in the hilly forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Kahuzi-Biega National Park to look for gorillas. The former Democratic senator from Wisconsin wore a long-sleeved safari shirt over a blue polo, a coiled bracelet to repel mosquitos, a surgical mask to protect the gorillas from human germs and two pairs of socks, with his zip-off cargo pants tucked into the outer pair to keep out ants.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Kiev on Tuesday to show support and solidarity with former opposition leaders prepping for a military standoff with Russia. Kerry pledged $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to Ukraine’s anti-Russian leadership, and had talks with Ukrainian officials to prepare the nation for elections and transition.