Over the past few years, the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings has collaborated with a wide variety of U.S. metro areas to develop localized export plans and explore the importance of increased global engagement. One of the questions frequently raised by local participants revolves around the role mayors and their associated local economic development offices can and should play in global trade and investment. Some assume this is an area private sector firms can best manage on their own.

Israel has been forced to issue a formal apology to Japan over offensive comments posted on Facebook by its head of online public diplomacy. The apology followed a complaint by the Japanese ambassador to Israel, Hideo Sato, after senior government official Daniel Seaman disparaged commemorations for the victims of the 1945 atomic bombs, causing a wave of protests in Japan.

A few months ago Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos was on a roll. Two out of three Colombians approved of the Santos government—a rock-star standing by the bruising political standards of the Andes. The country’s $370 billion economy was soaring, overtaking Argentina as the fifth largest in Latin America. Foreign investors lined up as prospectors found oil, gas, and coal practically everywhere they dug. Crime, once a national scourge, was plunging. The only thing missing was peace.

Bo Xilai, a Chinese politican beloved in his hometown, was once considered a top contender for his country’s leadership; now, after a dramatic and sudden fall, he is on trial for corruption and abuse of power. He stands accused of not only taking millions of dollars in bribes, but also of covering up the murder of a British businessman by his own wife. But to one veteran China watcher, Cheng Li of the Brookings Institution, the trial says more about China’s leadership than it does about Bo.

On the face of it, the pundits appear to have got their projections for Latin America’s two biggest economies upside down this year. Mexico, which started with the most promise, unexpectedly suffered a 0.7% slump in the second quarter compared with the first three months, according to data released on August 20th, due to a slump in construction, mining and exports. Brazil, which has been the subject of much hand-wringing since China’s demand for commodities collapsed, is expected to show decent growth when second-quarter figures are published on August 30th.

Brazil’s foreign minister on Thursday denied that the government’s plan to hire 4,000 Cuban doctors to work in isolated areas has any “ideological aspect.” The decision “was taken to improve public services and has no ideological motivation of any kind,” Antonio Patriota told a congressional committee. The aim is to offer medical services in places where Brazilian professionals do not want to go, he said. “There are many Cuban doctors ready to do that type of work and perhaps not many Austrian doctors, for example, who want to do it,” Patriota said.

Metal wheelchairs colliding, balls gliding, and players falling -- sounds like some hybrid between bumper cars and football. It’s wheelchair rugby. These players who served and sacrificed their limbs for their country now play with more intensity than the best professional athletes. They are wounded soldiers brought together by ArcAngeles, a non-governmental organization (NGO).

More than 20 years after the end of El Salvador's brutal civil war, its legacy of pain and misery still lingers. Until now, an amnesty has shielded from prosecution those suspected of atrocities. But the discovery of a secret directory of death squad targets has given campaigners hope that the guilty can at last be held accountable. On this edition of People & Power, we investigate how evidence of atrocities committed by government forces during the civil war sparked efforts to overturn the amnesty laws.