Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has defended his decision to play golf in Hawaii with United States President Barack Obama at a time when his country was facing the worst flood in decades, calling it "golf diplomacy".

Beijing appointed a senior propaganda official as its culture minister yesterday, making him one of the spearheads of the government's drive to project China's soft power abroad.

Established powers' resistance to their rising counterparts' demands for a larger role in setting the global agenda fuel tensions and disrupt the existing world order. That is precisely what has been occurring lately between China and the United States, and is the impetus for China's "Asia for the Asians" policy.

Russia-watchers and Russians have spent much of the year debating what's behind Putin's adventurism in Ukraine, his meddling in eastern Europe's Baltic states, his support for anti-American dictators like Syria's Bashar al-Assad and North Korea's Kim Jong Un, and the headaches he is generally causing Western leaders.

China's top political advisor Yu Zhengsheng wrapped up his visit to Vietnam here on Saturday, during which he agreed with the Vietnamese leaders to enhance mutual trust and properly settle maritime disputes through negotiations.

According to Hamid, even the most “moderate” Islamists “want the state to promote a basic set of religious and moral values through the soft power of the state machinery, the educational system and the media.”

Turkey and its government are under siege of a massive smear campaign that began right after the Dec. 14 operation, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has said, vowing they will take necessary measures to counter such attacks through public diplomacy. 

The Core Group commends the efforts undertaken by the President of the Republic to implement the recommendation of the Presidential Advisory Commission and the work he has undertaken, together with the Presidents of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, the representatives of political parties and other political stakeholders to forge the necessary consensus for the nomination of a Prime Minister and the formation of a consensus government.