Away from the xenophobic hysteria aimed at desperate immigrants are people taking steps to help newcomers and promote the good things they bring. [...] But on a local level, there are thousands of people across the continent who are braving the vitriol of their peers, and filling the void left by the politicians.

Six students from Fryeburg Academy recently returned from "singing their way through Europe" during July. The tour was run through the auspices of the American Music Abroad company, which is based in New Jersey and now in its 40th year running such tours.

The EU has always talked a good game about soft power: the civilising influence of its peaceful, rules-based example. The plight of its neighbouring regions makes that talk look increasingly cheap. As long as chaos reigns close to Europe, people will risk their lives to come here. The solution to the migrant problem lies at the source.

Israel needs a new information agency to improve its pathetically inadequate public diplomacy efforts, insists Dr. Norman Bailey. [...] Right now, however, it is badly losing a war fought with words, not bullets, but the effect of which can be just as devastating for Israel’s future.

Big meals, to be sure, are an indispensable tool of diplomacy. People who have come a long way need to be welcomed and put at ease by their hosts. They are more relaxed and friendly with good food and drink inside them. They feel under a greater obligation to be polite and cooperative. But the EU is not a club of ambassadors, or even of politicians. It is, whether we like it or not, a form of government, a bloated version of a country. It has a commission, a court of justice, a parliament, a legal personality, a passport and a foreign service.

On June 10 and 11, Kazakhstan hosted the Fifth Congress of World Religions.

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), armed with non-factual information and an anti-Russian agenda, might potentially add fuel to the fire and make the already unsteady relations between Europe and Russia even worse.

During a plenary session in Strasburg on Wednesday, MEPs came up with a tough resolution, calling the EU to re-consider its relations with Russia in the context of the Ukrainian crisis.