When successful entrepreneurs come together, the ideas that emerge are nothing short of amazing. And when those entrepreneurs are also women who have fought gender bias and other challenges, the ideas have the potential to change the face of commerce for a continent. This week, we welcomed to Washington small and medium-sized business owners from 27 countries in Africa who spent the last two weeks meeting with U.S. entrepreneurs and CEOs in places like Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, and Albuquerque, as part of the African Women’s Entrepreneurship Program (AWEP).

With U.S.-Russia relations getting increasingly tense, it comes as little surprise that U.S. President Barack Obama postponed his bilateral summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Some people wished he would go, if only to send the strongest possible message to Mr. Putin directly about the need to end Russia’s crackdown on human rights. On the other hand, Mr. Obama still has that opportunity when he attends the G20 Summit in St. Petersburg on Sept. 5 and 6.

In what a spokeswoman attributed to "an abundance of caution," the State Department decided late last week to close a host of American embassies in Africa and the Middle East, most of them in predominantly Muslim countries, due to concerns about possible terrorist attacks. This decision may have been prudent and was certainly based on extensive, if ambiguous, intelligence, but it should not become the norm.

One of the reasons for the success of social media’s Twitter platform is its ability to summarize a major issue in a few characters, while at the same time providing a link to give more details and credibility to the few words. This week a political activist used some clever research to reveal the hypocrisy and double standards of a politician. Twitter user @bunghan11h juxtaposed two quotes of maverick U.S. Senator John McCain regarding the situation in Egypt.

Diplomacy is dead, at least according to New York Times columnist Roger Cohen writing earlier this year. His claim certainly sparked a great deal of discussion. But as someone who studies and teaches about foreign policy leaders, I would argue that the question is not so much whether diplomacy is dead, but how effectively diplomats – with their tradition of solving problems peacefully, creatively and innovatively – can collaborate with a growing number of governmental and non-governmental actors in an increasingly complex world.

Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, the man at the center of the military takeover in Egypt, is the latest in a series of American-trained foreign officers to oust a civilian government. Just seven years ago, he was a student at the Army War College in rural Pennsylvania. At a recent military graduation ceremony in Alexandria, Egypt, el-Sissi talked about his ouster of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi on July 3.

Getting the latest news from VOA’s many language services just got easier with the launch of new mobile and tablet apps that work on iPhones, iPads, and Android devices. “Everything is available in one place now,” says VOA Director David Ensor. “This is a big step forward, and these apps open up the Internet to a new generation of mobile users.” Chinese, Russian, Swahili, Turkish, English and more – they are all there at the touch of a button on two of the world’s most popular mobile platforms.

The second round of US-brokered Mideast peace talks will be held next week, the State Department said Thursday, even as the Palestinians protested new Israeli settlement activity. In a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said Israel's latest settlement announcements were an indication of "Israel's bad faith and lack of seriousness" in the talks.