Hours after a Sudanese court sentenced his pregnant wife to death when she refused to recant her Christian faith, her husband told CNN he feels helpless.  "The fact that a woman could be sentenced to death for her religious choice, and to flogging for being married to a man of an allegedly different religion, is abhorrent and should never be even considered," Manar Idriss, Amnesty International's Sudan researcher, said in a statement.

The Qatari government has announced several changes to its controversial labour system amid international criticism of its treatment of foreign workers.  At a joint press conference in Doha on Wednesday, Qatar's Ministries of Interior and Labour released plans to ease restrictions on foreign workers' terms of employment.

The unveiling of Peng and Cheng is notable, as Chinese leaders' wives have usually kept a low profile. They might not play the same roles and hold the same power as Clinton and her fellow ex-secretaries of state, but both the "first lady" and "second lady" have done their part in boosting China's soft power and raising its global profile.

Protesters staged one of Vietnam's largest ever anti-China demonstrations on Sunday, decrying Beijing's deployment of a deep-water drilling rig in contested waters as territorial tensions soar.  Some 1,000 people, from war veterans to students, waved banners saying "China don't steal our oil" and "Silence is cowardly" – a dig at Hanoi's handling of the dispute –and sang patriotic songs in a park opposite the Chinese embassy.

On Thursday, China’s state-owned Xinhua News Agency unveiled an ongoing feature entitled “New Silk Road, New Dreams.” The series promises to “dig up the historical and cultural meaning of the Silk Road, and spread awareness of China’s friendly policies towards neighboring countries.” The first article [Chinese] was titled  “How Can the World Be Win-Win? China Is Answering the Question.”

An international uproar mounted Tuesday over the fate of hundreds of Ni­ger­ian schoolgirls abducted by Islamist militants in mid-April, with the Obama administration preparing to send a team of specialists to Nigeria to help recover the missing girls and U.N. officials warning that the kidnappers could face arrest, prosecution and prison under international law.  A social-media campaign called Bring Back Our Girls has gained rapid traction on Facebook and other sites over the past several days.

In spite of ongoing tensions in Ukraine, which have seriously soured relations between Russia and the U.S. & Europe, Moscow has not altogether forgotten the Western Hemisphere. While Lavrov’s trip did not end in any particularly major deals between Moscow and his Latin American hosts, the visit came months after declarations by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu that the Russian armed forces require some form of overseas military facilities.