Together O’Neal and Canales became the first official U.S. Department of State Basketball Sports Envoys to Cuba, taking U.S. diplomacy to new heights by forging positive ties with the people of Cuba through the unifying power of sports.  

The Olympics brings together athletes from countries with vastly different attitudes and laws for LGBT people. The event has in recent years become a site for diplomacy around global LGBT rights. The increasing number of athletes who are comfortable publicly discussing their sexuality is an indication of how successful that campaign has been.

We write on the occasion of the forthcoming 13th Australia-Vietnam human rights dialogue, scheduled to be held in Vietnam in August 2016. Australia should raise pressing human rights issues in an unambiguous manner, set clear benchmarks for improvements, and make the outcome of the discussions public.

To implement smart diplomacy, Cambodia needs to invest more in nurturing smart and professional diplomats and think tankers and develop smart power consisting of hard and soft power. As a small country, Cambodia needs to stand firm on rules-based international order. International laws and institutions best protect the interests of a small state. 

The five founding members of Ithaca Welcomes Refugees might be the human embodiment of the “COEXIST” bumper sticker. They are: two protestant pastors, a Muslim American, a Jewish social studies teacher, and an aid worker who married into a Hindu family. [...] With the current Syrian crisis in mind, the city’s Common Council unanimously voted in June to declare Ithaca a welcoming community for all refugees.

Young overseas Chinese can now go on an (almost) free two-week trip to China. Since 1999, the Office of Overseas Chinese Affairs (OOCA), an office of China’s powerful State Council, has organized annual trips, called “root seeking camps,” to help Chinese children growing up abroad stay in touch with their national heritage. Many of these camps used to charge tuition and fees. 

The top human rights body of the United Nations voted on Thursday to appoint an independent monitor to help protect gay and transgender people around the world from violence and discrimination. The U.N. Human Rights Council, based in Geneva, creates an “independent expert” charged with identifying the root causes of violence and discrimination against people based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, and then talking with governments about ways to protect them.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau vows to keep the promotion of LGBT rights abroad as a central plank of Canada’s foreign policy. [...] “It’s not just the head of government, it’s all of our representatives, challenging our representatives to look for ways not just to put pressure on the individual governments, but to be active on social media, to talk to civil society, to get out and engage with the communities in a way that is diplomatically respectful,” Trudeau says.