Now that the dust has settled on President Barack Obama’s much-anticipated trip to Israel, it is possible to analyse the significance of the visit. The trip — the first foreign visit of his second term — carries important implications for US foreign policy. Rather than providing the breakthrough for which many had hoped, it demonstrated that Obama — unlike other second-term US presidents, who have staked their legacies on foreign policy — is interested primarily in securing a domestic legacy.

After 34 years of hostilities between Iran and the US, there is now an opportunity for settling their mutual differences. The Obama administration has reiterated its willingness to engage in direct bilateral talks with Iran. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has responded to this overture by indicating that Iran would be open to talks when America “proves its goodwill”. And even so, the next round of negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 world powers began on March 5 in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

In spite of September’s deadly attack on the American consulate in Benghazi that claimed the lives of an ambassador and three others, the U.S. Foreign Service has more applicants than ever.

Diplomats from the relatively small number of states which maintain missions in the country were asked to the Foreign Ministry and told that they would be given help to move out by next Wednesday because of the threat of conflict with the United States and South Korea.

Now that the dust has settled on President Barack Obama’s much-anticipated trip to Israel, it is possible to analyse the significance of the visit. The trip – the first foreign visit of his second term – carries important implications for US foreign policy. Rather than providing the breakthrough for which many had hoped, it demonstrated that Obama – unlike other second-term US presidents, who have staked their legacies on foreign policy – is interested primarily in securing a domestic legacy.

China is earnestly striving to become a respected world power, one that finally surpasses the United States. The day could come when its economy, even its military, is larger than America's. But its biggest problem right now, one that's much harder to correct, is the nation's “soft power.” China appears to have very few true friends in the world.

State-owned Qatari television network Al Jazeera is exploring the acquisition of Spain’s La Liga premier soccer league rights in a bid to expand its budding global sports franchise, tweak its business model in a world in which pan-Arab television is on the decline and compensate for mounting criticism of its coverage of popular revolts in the Middle East and North Africa.

eInterns (American students working virtually) are an initiative of the U.S. Department of State's Virtual Student Foreign Service. The goal, according to the State Department website, is "to harness technology and a commitment to global service among young people to facilitate new forms of diplomatic engagement." The eInterns work from their own campuses in the U.S. and are partnered with our U.S. diplomatic posts and other organizations on "digital diplomacy." The program began in 2011