Opinions among lawmakers remained split on Sunday over whether the US should cut off or suspend aid to Egypt. The US spends roughly $1.5 billion a year on assistance to Egypt with much of it going to financing the purchase of US military equipment. Calls to cut off or suspend this aid has been growing since the Egyptian military's crackdown against supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi. The violence has so far killed more than 750 people.

As the Egyptian military continues its bloody crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood and other protesters, U.S. President Barack Obama is facing a dwindling range of options for dealing with the crisis. Obama has, so far, refused to cut off U.S. aid to Egypt's interim government. The president has made it clear that his administration is rethinking its dealings with Egypt's military.

Last week, for the first time ever, there was a panel dedicated to discussion of public diplomacy at the annual conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). Held in Washington, DC the conference, and this panel in particular, offered an opportunity for scholars to talk about the emergence of public diplomacy as a subject of study in the discipline.

Japan’s public diplomacy hovers between the ludicrous and the sinister. In recent months, the country has specialised in foreign policy gaffes that seem designed to give maximum offence to its Asian neighbours while causing maximum embarrassment to its western allies. Last week provided another example.

One of the reasons for the success of social media’s Twitter platform is its ability to summarize a major issue in a few characters, while at the same time providing a link to give more details and credibility to the few words. This week a political activist used some clever research to reveal the hypocrisy and double standards of a politician. Twitter user @bunghan11h juxtaposed two quotes of maverick U.S. Senator John McCain regarding the situation in Egypt.

Diplomacy is dead, at least according to New York Times columnist Roger Cohen writing earlier this year. His claim certainly sparked a great deal of discussion. But as someone who studies and teaches about foreign policy leaders, I would argue that the question is not so much whether diplomacy is dead, but how effectively diplomats – with their tradition of solving problems peacefully, creatively and innovatively – can collaborate with a growing number of governmental and non-governmental actors in an increasingly complex world.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe returned to Tokyo on July 27 after visiting Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines. This was his third visit to Southeast Asia since he returned to power in December. Clearly he is placing great importance on Japan’s ties with the region. Of the three countries he visited this time, Malaysia and the Philippines have territorial disputes with China. There is a strong possibility that China feels that Japan is trying to encircle it diplomatically.