President Obama urged the world Wednesday to help Ukraine as it faces economic challenges, Russian threats and separatist violence in the eastern and southern regions. "We're confident that Ukraine can, in fact, be a thriving, vital democracy that has strong relationships with Europe and has strong relationships with Russia," Obama said after his first face-to-face meeting with Ukraine President-elect Petro Poroshenko.

The president will land in Warsaw, Poland, Tuesday morning where he will help celebrate the 25th anniversary of the solidarity movement. He then heads to Brussels for a G7 summit on Wednesday. He’ll dine privately with French President François Hollande in Paris on Thursday and commemorate the 70th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy on Friday — all while Russian President Vladimir Putin is nearby.

A number of Turkish artworks have been presented during a cultural exhibition held in Tehran’s Saba Art and Cultural Institute.  Turkish Ambassador to Tehran, Umit Yardim, President of the Yunus Emre Cultural Institute, Hayati Develi, and the Director of the Iranian National Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), Ahmad Mohit-Tabatabaei, attended the opening ceremony of the festival.

Much current analysis of Russian influence in its neighbourhood focuses on its use of ‘hard power’ tools. However, analysing Russia’s soft power efforts is no less important for understanding the full nature of Moscow’s power strategy in its neighbourhood.

Visitors from the Middle East have topped a ranking of tourist spending in the UK, with the average family likely to shell out a staggering $42,000 per trip.  People from the UAE, Egypt and other regional countries spend more in the UK than all other foreign nationalities, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.

When David Cameron was here last week to call on Scots to reject independence from theUnited Kingdom, he did it by promising more powers for the devolved Scottish parliament. Scots could have the “best of both worlds,” the prime minister argued. 

Christine Cumming of the New York Fed joins Andrés Rozental from the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations to discuss current economic trends and the role of the Fed in the financial regulatory system. Cumming expresses her concern that the financial system is failing in its mission to efficiently allocate capital to the most productive investment opportunities. She is optimistic about future growth prospects in the United States and explains why the current gradual approach to the tapering of monetary stimulus is appropriate.