1.5 million children die each year from diseases which could be prevented by a simple vaccine.

he United Nations and the European Union have forged an agreement today to fund the restoration of cultural heritage in Timbuktu that was destroyed by extremists after fighting broke out in 2012 between Malian Government forces and Tuareg rebels.“This is vital for Mali and is important for the rest of the world because World Heritage is common to us all,”said UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova.

Oscar-winning Bosnian director Danis Tanovic will be adding another prize to his trophy cabinet after this year’s Cannes Film Festival.Tanovic was presented with the EU’s Prix Media (Media Prize) for his film project entitled, “What are you looking at?” He shares the award with co-scriptwriter Predrag Kojovic and producer Amra Baksic Camo. The EU Media Prize given to the best new film project eligible for support from the Creative Europe Media programme. The award provides funding for script development, casting, initial marketing and pilot production.

As the last of the thirty-seven participating countries weighed in (Israel, the Netherlands, Iceland, Slovenia), a dark-horse winner emerged: Conchita Wurst. A glamorous drag queen, the Austrian candidate was decked out in a long, glittering dress and sported a full beard.  “It’s a firm and clear rebuke against Putin’s anti-L.G.B.T. legislation and people who support it,” William Lee Adams, the editor-in-chief of WiwiBloggs.com, the Internet’s most-read Eurovision Web site, said. 

The soft-power age has almost ended. The key players of global politics no longer use their soft power to influence other states, nor the general route of international politics. Worse, there are not many actors with the ability to perform decisively at the international level.

Poland’s foreign minister, Radoslaw “Radek” Sikorski, has been intimately involved in the Ukraine crisis, including in the negotiation of an agreement in February that then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych walked away from, further fueling the Maidan protest.

The sign outside the new visitor centre reads simply “The Battle of Bannockburn” as though one had rolled up in time for the fight, instead of 700 years too late. The approach to the site goes through the dull suburbs of Stirling, via a northerly spur of Scotland’s patchy motorway system.