Angela Merkel has become the first German chancellor to visit Niger, one of the world’s poorest countries. She has promised money and military vehicles to help the country fight human trafficking and the militant threat. She is on the second leg of a three-country African tour which started in Mali and will finish in Ethiopia.

A cultural exchange show promoting the beauty of Vietnam’s land and people took place at the Vietnamese Embassy in Japan on the evening of October 8, drawing great public attention. The event featured performances of Vietnamese traditional dances and songs sung in Japanese. Hoang Thi Minh Ha, the wife of the Vietnamese Ambassador to Japan, introduced the cuisine of her home country. 

In late September, 2016, Premier Li Keqiang paid an official visit to Canada, the first trip by a Chinese premier in a long lapse of 13 years. It was also a reunion for Mr. Li and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shortly after the latter’s visit to China. During Mr. Li’s visit, the two sides reached broad consensus on strengthening bilateral co-operation in politics, economy and trade, and people-to-people exchanges.

Ahead of tomorrow’s International Day of the Girl, children’s rights charity Plan International is lobbying the Government to target more of Ireland’s foreign aid budget at empowering young girls. "In a developing country, girls are the most excluded group of all and by focussing on getting girls into education and offering them an adult life beyond the domestic, they can effect enormous change in their own countries and communities,” 

What the EU and Iran need is a strategic and structured dialogue. Strategic here means that it must reach beyond the list of specific (usually contentious) issues, look at the larger picture and set more long term goals for what kind of relationship the two parties want to have. Structured, in that it is underpinned by regular interaction on civil servant and technical levels dealing with a variety of sectors...

The Committee of the Whole that adopted 22 guidelines worth considering had its marathon meeting here under the Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani has also suggested that Pakistan should re-establish a Public Diplomacy Office at the Foreign Office. This will function as the Foreign Office’s public diplomacy and soft power office and an inter-ministerial space for projecting cultural, economic and trade outputs.

The Public Diplomacy Council of Catalonia (Diplocat) has been invited by the National Council for Human Rights, to monitor the parliamentary elections [...] The general secretary of Diplocat, Albert Royo, stressed that this mission "makes Catalonia visible as an international committed, serious and responsible actor, in a natural space of action as is the Mediterranean area".

Dubai’s leading entities are joining forces to stage an event in China highlighting the city as a global gateway offering the world’s largest exporter opportunities for economic development and cultural exchange. [...] will celebrate the thriving bilateral relationship and create connections for future mutual growth.