In the last month of President Barack Obama’s two terms, he is focused on the same foreign country when he began his presidency: Japan. [...] Eight years later, Tuesday, President Obama and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stood together at the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, to honor the sacrifices of Americans killed during the Japanese attack on U.S. warships 75 years ago. 

Fans who attended Wham!'s 1985 concert in Beijing have been recalling the historic show following the death of George Michael on Sunday. Michael -- together with his music partner Andrew Ridgeley -- became the first western pop act to perform in China after 18-months of successful negotiations between the Chinese government and Wham's agent, Simon Napier-Bell.

The year is slowly fading into darkness as per the Gregorian calendar (the most widely used civil calendar in the world today) and a new year is about to dawn. The last few days of the year are generally a time of celebrations and merriment across many parts of the world and these festivities have thrived for millennia.

Two thousand years ago, merchants and caravans began moving between east and west along the Silk Road, trading goods, philosophy and technology. Now a modern Silk Road, rekindling trade and achieving common prosperity, is in the making. The Belt and Road Initiative, proposed by Chinese president Xi Jinping, has gained traction in the last three years, scholars and officials said.

During the 2016 election campaign, Trump declared that many of America’s foreign-policy problems began with the “dangerous idea that we could make Western democracies out of countries that had no experience or interest in becoming a Western democracy.” As on a number of other issues, the president-elect’s dramatic statement broke from not only establishment views within his own party, but the dominant perspective of America’s political and foreign-policy elites.

A relationship that used to be characterised by the 1969-invoked “change through rapprochement” and “partnership on eye-level”, has seen a rapid cooling over the course of the last two years. Germany and Russia used to be close partners with vibrant exchange on the political, economic, social and cultural levels. 

Last week President Xi Jinping received President Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. The meeting, in which the two leaders reaffirmed the importance of bi-lateral cooperation, reflected the profound friendship between China and Africa. [...] China is one of Africa’s main commercial partners. 

When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor 75 years ago, museum directors across the nation had a decision to make: Should they continue to exhibit the Japanese Friendship Dolls given to the United States by the children of Japan 14 years earlier? It is thought that only one, Harry Davis of the N.C. State Museum, chose to leave the elegantly dressed, handmade wooden doll at his museum on display.