The Foreign Ministry has been called on to advance its diplomatic role in promoting Islam as a tolerant religion amid growing global concern over the Islamic State (IS) organisation, which has sparked hate crimes against Muslims.  The country's soft approach has been said to have contributed to false perceptions of Islam, which holds the basic value of rahmatan lil alamin (grace for all people). 

President Barack Obama said he wouldn’t decide whether to supply weapons to Ukraine until European leaders exhaust one last diplomatic effort to resolve the conflict there, setting aside for now trans-Atlantic differences on the best way to get Russia to relent.  Mr. Obama announced his decision after a White House meeting Monday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel that followed days of sometimes testy exchanges between U.S. and German officials.

The United States will send more economic help and "other kinds" of assistance to Ukraine to help it defend itself against Russian-backed rebels, Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday. Kerry said he could not provide any details of possible military equipment that the United States might send to help Ukraine fight the rebels.

An attempt by Greece to shift the country’s debt narrative away from austerity ran into a wall of inflexibility during a two-day trip to Germany. German officials here on Thursday, like European Central Bank officials the day before in Frankfurt, offered no sign that they considered the recent change of government in Greece to be an opportunity for a fresh start.

America’s top diplomat for Europe denounced Russian state-media coverage of the Ukraine crisis on Tuesday and belittled the Kremlin’s propaganda efforts in the United States as fallacious and ineffective. “All you have to do is look at RT’s tiny, tiny audience in the United States to understand what happens when you broadcast untruths in a media space that is full of dynamic, truthful opinion,” said Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, referring to the Kremlin-backed global media company. 

Corporate Europe Observatory, a Brussels based think-tank released an enlightening research report this week entitled “Spin doctors to the autocrats: how European PR firms whitewash repressive regimes.” It reveals how often the PR industry faces ethical challenges with big money being dangled in front of us to represent controversial interests. 

On International Migrants Day 2014 (December 18), Director General of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) William Lacy Swing wrote in a New York Times op-ed that 2014 was “the deadliest year for migrants on record” characterized by “unprecedented anti-migrant sentiment worldwide.” 

President Uhuru Kenyatta on Tuesday launched the Kenya Diaspora Policy as well as a new Foreign Policy, which seek to enhance the country’s engagement with other nations. The President says the two policies will help the government put in place structures, programmes and incentives to attract and utilise qualified and skilled human resource drawn from Kenyans abroad.