The new American ambassador to the Philippines, Harry Thomas, is an avid sportsman. Thomas, an African-American, used to play football, track and field, softball and baseball, considered as the United States’ national sport.

While European leaders squabbled over the right kind of deficit reduction and whose country boasts the finest football side, Barack Obama used the recent G20 summit of leading economic powers in Toronto to make a different case: that the United States is dedicated to building a closer relationship with Asia.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will arrive in South Africa with a delegation of seven ministers on Thursday for a four-day visit, the department of international relations said. Lula da Silva and President Jacob Zuma hoped to sign a declaration launching a South Africa-Brazil strategic partnership, as well as a memorandum of understanding on inter-governmental co-operation, it said.

President Obama meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tuesday at the White House. They have met on five previous occasions, but their spouses will get acquainted for the first time today, a diplomatic move that comes as the two leaders try to lessen the tensions in their sometimes rocky relationship.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden says building bridges with the Muslim world was his primary agenda as the head of the space agency raising questions about the scope of NASA's operations. In an interview with Al Jazeera Bolden said that developing congenial relations with the Muslim world would augment space exploration and that President Barack Obama had assigned him with this diplomatic responsibility.

Turkey told Israel at face-to-face talks in Brussels this week what it should do to mend ties damaged when Israeli commandos stormed a Gaza aid ship more than a month ago, Turkish officials said on Thursday.

In one of his most significant policy addresses to date, Ma Ying-jeou, president of Taiwan, hailed his country's new Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with China. Signed Tuesday, the ECFA is the most significant manifestation of a thaw in bilateral ties between Taipei and Beijing.

William Hague has said the UK must have more "global reach and influence" or face decline in a fast-changing world. In his first major speech as foreign secretary, he said the UK must be much "more clear, focused and effective" in achieving foreign policy goals.