A month after arriving in Hong Kong, the United States’ consul general is getting a crash course in the city’s linguistics. In his first Facebook post introducing himself to local residents, Clifford Hart—a veteran diplomat who has served multiple tours in China—declared that he was thrilled to be the U.S.’s consul general in the former British colony, and was “look[ing] forward to finding out the things that make us alike, rather than different.”

A Facebook post said to be written by the 11-year-old son of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and “liked” or commented on by several people who appear to be the children and grandchildren of other senior members of Mr. Assad’s government, may offer a glimpse into the mindset of Syria’s ruling elite as the country braces for a potential Western strike in response to a chemical weapons attack on Aug. 21.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has said he was ready to start negotiating peace with the country's second-largest rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), "as soon as possible". The announcement comes a day after the ELN released a Canadian hostage it had been holding for months, Gernot Wober. Santos hailed the rebels' release and said "the government is ready to start a dialogue with the ELN as soon as possible," in a statement released by his office on Thursday.

Colombia's government and protesting coca farmers have reached an initial agreement that could provide a starting point for crop substitution measures being discussed in peace talks with the FARC, but which is unlikely to succeed unless followed by long term solutions.

Getting the Israelis and Palestinians to the peace table wasn’t easy, and keeping them there is proving a challenge for a very determined Secretary of State John Kerry. His greatest worry has to be that both sides may be looking for a blame-avoiding excuse to take a walk. That may have been part of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s decision to announce he was calling off the fourth session of secret talks, which was to have been held Monday in Jericho.

A U.S. Embassy staffer in Malta left the country on Wednesday after a video showing him going bonkers on another driver in the middle of a narrow road went viral. The American employee, apparently, confronted a Maltese driver who refused to pull over and let his car through. As traffic built up behind the driver, the American finally backs out of the road. And then, off camera, he continues to yell at the driver as traffic finally moves again.

The case of a U.S. citizen jailed in North Korea is a human rights issue that has no connection to long-stalled talks over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons, the State Department said on Wednesday. Robert King, U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights issues, is slated to travel to Pyongyang on Friday. The State Department on Tuesday described his trip as a “humanitarian mission” aimed at winning the release of ailing Kenneth Bae, a Christian missionary and tour operator.

It seems to have taken an apparent chemical weapons attack killing hundreds in Syria to bring human rights into the foreign policy debate of the Australian elections. Until these horrific events in Syria, human rights have been a glaring omission from the foreign policy agendas of both the Labor Party and the Coalition.