The US House of Representatives has passed a bill to recognise Nanjing City of China as a "Model for International Cooperation" in order to award the city's active involvement in cooperation with the United States in education, innovation and entrepreneurship, and this was the first Chinese city to win such an award, Li Jiansheng, executive chairman of the US-China Partnership Committee said.

As everyone knows, BP is enveloped in a massive environmental and PR disaster, which is doing serious damage to its reputation, not only in the US but across the world. But by relentlessly kicking the firm while it’s down, in what appears to be increasingly brutal and vindictive fashion, the Obama White House is generating significant animosity in a nation that is traditionally pro-American.

Now it is India’s turn to complain that Obama is too much the Pacific president and not enough the Indian Ocean president. Whereas the Indian government is not officially complaining, what might be called the Indian foreign policy establishment of business leaders, strategic thinkers, journalists and former diplomats are.

...there has also been a fresh awakening to the areas where Australia and Israel's interests overlap - and, just as importantly, where they diverge. The two countries, though friendly and democratic, are not automatically in sync. Recognising that actually bodes well for more mature ties in the future.

So like a debtor who decides that it's easier to ask for a raise than chop up his credit cards, Team Obama decided to focus on boosting American power, not reducing American obligations. The Bush Administration, they reasoned, had leveraged only military power. Obama would deploy "soft power" too, the power to attract rather than coerce.

The Russian delegation, headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Serguei Ryabkov, offered Nicaragua a generous package of aid in the areas of transportation, budget assistance and technical support..the Russian government agreed to provide Nicaragua with $10 million in budget support, a new fleet of inner-city buses and a shipment of LADA vehicles, as well as reinitiate a twice-weekly commercial flight from Moscow to Managua, via Cuba.

U.S. and Pakistani defense officials wrapped up a four-day session in Pakistan today aimed at expanding the two countries’ defense relationship to address current and future threats. The Pakistan-U.S. Strategic Dialogue Defense Working Group, known as the Exchange on Defense Planning, met at Pakistan’s Joint Staff Headquarters in Rawalpindi as part of the strategic dialogue process, embassy officials in Islamabad reported.