In a symbolic move, the Chinese government would appear to have made their conquest of Tibet nearly complete. Hongai village, the exiled Dalai Lama’s ancestral home that rests on a mountain peak, is receiving a 2.5 million yuan makeover in the form of redevelopment. The house where Tibet’s spiritual leader grew up is not to be spared. The structure is now surrounded by a three-meter high wall and is being watched by security cameras. The Dalai Lama’s boyhood home is the final physical spot in the mainland dedicated to the man whom Beijing calls a “wolf in monk’s robes.”

To mark the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech on August 28, the networks of the Broadcasting Board of Governors will provide special programming including live reports from Washington, DC, topical original features on human rights and civil disobedience in the United States and abroad, and interviews with key figures in the U.S. civil rights movement.

As calls for military action in Syria grow louder some people are pointing to NATO'S 1999 intervention in Kosovo as a model. However others say the Kosovo model should not be applied to Syria as it's a different conflict and military intervention would be a bad idea. So where may the answers to ending the Syrian conflict lie?

As a regional middle power perched on the crossroads of the Indo-Pacific region, Australian diplomacy has entered a more challenging era.

Peace talks to end Colombia's half century of conflict resumed today following a brief but tense suspension amid complaints from leftist rebels that the government moved too quickly on some of the thorniest issues the two sides must tackle. Delegates from the government of Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) met this morning in Havana, Cuba, despite a surprise “pause” in negotiations declared by the FARC on Friday.

As a committed advocate for soft power and public diplomacy, I look for ways other than military force to address even the most pernicious international behavior. Usually, talking is better than fighting and wise use of political power can make unnecessary the reliance on “kinetic action,” as military thinkers refer to combat. But there are times when a state’s actions are so outrageous and have so little chance of being altered by peaceful means that soft power measures should be set aside. On occasion, blowing things up is essential.

Colombia's police are already strategizing for the end of the country's conflict with Marxist rebels, even as the task of combating the guerrillas is increasingly falling to the police instead of the military. With talks between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) now almost a year old, General Jose Roberto Leon Riaño, who was director of the Colombian National Police until earlier this month, declared "the new model of service [for the police] is anticipating a post-conflict scenario, a scenario of peace."

Adeso is a humanitarian and development organization that has emerged to change the way people think about and deliver aid in Africa—that is, from within. Formerly known as Horn Relief, Adeso has expanded from one community to other parts of Somalia, South Sudan and Kenya. As a current implementing partner of US foreign aid in the Horn of Africa, Ali agreed to sit down with me to take a look at foreignassistance.gov, where USAID, MCC, and the Treasury Department released new data last month. What would she be able to find out about her own organization’s programming there?