Eight-year-old Kaya Van Hoesen has been anxiously awaiting the arrival of her new sister. Her mom and dad, Erika Mazza and Todd Van Hoesen, have also been excited to meet the 5-year-old girl they’re adopting from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The couple has been planning and saving for this since before they were married 10 years ago. They both have worked with children and have known they wanted to help one of the many who need a good home. Some estimate there are up to 200 million orphaned or abandoned children in the world. But each country’s adoption policies are unique.

Iran, whose relations with Ankara have been strained due to the Syrian crisis, aims to punish Turkey by dealing a blow to Turkish soft power in Lebanon, as Ankara has suspended its cultural and commercial activities in Beirut after a Turkish Airlines (THY) captain and co-pilot were kidnapped by gunmen last week. Turkey's contact with the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, a key ally of Tehran, on Thursday as part of efforts to secure the release of the two Turkish pilots, raised question marks in some minds over an Iranian link in the pilots' abduction.

It’s high time for the United States to cut off its $1.3 billion in aid to Egypt as the military regime cracks down violently on protesters, Sen. John McCain argued Sunday. The Arizona Republican added the U.S. has lost its credibility in the region after failing to follow its own law that requires suspending aid to states overtaken by a military coup–though the U.S. has not officially described the recent regime change in Egypt as a coup.

Britain and Spain are supposed to be NATO and EU allies. You wouldn’t think so now, as a petty dispute over concrete blocks planted in the sea off Gibraltar to protect marine life morphs into a serious cause of friction. Far from fizzling out, as former spats over Gibraltar did usually, this conflict is in danger of escalating to the point of no return.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is taking a new approach to defectors who have fled his impoverished and repressive state, promising they will not be harmed if they come home, and even offering cash rewards, according to some in the exile community. For some who return from South Korea there's even the chance of a stage-managed performance on state television, although what happens to them after their prime time appearances is not known in a state where 200,000 people are imprisoned in gulags and where punishment extends to three generations of a family.

Just a few years ago, the luxury hotel business was booming in China—a steadily rising economy was producing droves of deep-pocketed business travelers, and government officials were quaffing top shelf Bordeaux wine and running giant tabs in hotel banquet rooms. All that has changed with Chinese president Xi Jinping’s “four dishes and a soup” austerity plan, as government officials facing public shame or worse for spending public funds on lavish banquet room entertainment, or even wine with lunch.

Opinions among lawmakers remained split on Sunday over whether the US should cut off or suspend aid to Egypt. The US spends roughly $1.5 billion a year on assistance to Egypt with much of it going to financing the purchase of US military equipment. Calls to cut off or suspend this aid has been growing since the Egyptian military's crackdown against supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi. The violence has so far killed more than 750 people.

The first same-sex weddings have taken place in New Zealand after the country became the first in the Asia-Pacific region and 14th in the world to legalise same-sex marriage. Thirty-one same-sex couples had been due to marry on Monday, according to the Department of Internal Affairs. It comes after New Zealand's parliament passed a bill in April amending the country's 1955 marriage act.