The 30th session of Khartoum International Fair continues for one week until 21 January. SUNA interviewed the Jordan commercial attaché, Ahmad Arched Al-Arjan, in the Jordan section in the fair, located in a Burri suburb. Ahmad said that Jordan has participated in Khartoum Fair since its beginning in the late 70s. He asserted that their contributions were successful and opened new opportunities for Jordanian investors to enter in promised investment projects.

Freddy Balsera, founder of a Coral Gables public relations firm, has been nominated by President Obama to the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. “I am proud to nominate such impressive individuals to these important roles, and I am grateful they have agreed to lend their considerable talents to this Administration,’’ said Obama in announcing the nomination of Balsera and others to key administration posts.

As part of an effort to continue to attract smart, dynamic, capable people into the Foreign Service, the Department of State is releasing a new one-minute trailer and an accompanying short video that showcases the faces and stories of the amazing men and women who have helped make the world a better place through a career in the Foreign Service.

Japan's economy is suffering. While Japan's political parties are struggling to come up with policies to save the country, territorial disputes and the "China threat" theory ignite public sentiment. There is no doubt that newly elected Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will make use of these issues.

Apart from the comments by U.S. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland on the third consecutive day Wednesday, 16 January responding to Sri Lanka's removal of her chief justice, the State Department official web portal on its lead page gave an unusual highlight to Sri Lanka which it never gave before: 'US Aid to Sri Lanka'.

Strapped for cash, the US State Department is increasingly reaching out to private companies to help fund programs that bring Middle Eastern visitors to the US, seek to counter negative impressions of the US and promote economic development in the region.

Apart from the comments by U.S. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland on the third consecutive day Wednesday, 16 January responding to Sri Lanka's removal of her chief justice, the State Department official web portal on its lead page gave an unusual highlight to Sri Lanka which it never gave before: 'US Aid to Sri Lanka'.

In our hyper-connected world, the world has become a geospatial pinball machine, ringing and pinging with security, economic and cultural connections and implications for all of us; and that ball never stops coming around. So it is very much in our interests to engage fully, energetically, and creatively. There is no more urgent region for such U.S. engagement than the Middle East and North Africa.