A well-balanced foreign policy is needed for Thailand in light of competition between major powers, mainly the United States and China, to increase their influence over Southeast Asia, said prominent scholars in international relations.

Three major countries that have been a thorn in the side of the United States are going to see diminishing influence over the coming years because of declining oil prices.

The brutal slaying of the two Japanese hostages by the Islamic State (Daesh) is a reminder, if one were needed, that the group remains impervious to universal condemnation of its methods, but also that Japan's ability to influence the group's actions is as limited as that of any other nation.

The Houthi coup and other recent developments in Yemen have raised many questions about the country's religious fabric, especially the relationship between its large Zaidi community and Twelver Shia Islam, the main religion of Iran.

The new Sri Lankan government will find that it has its work cut out just containing Chinese influence in the country, let alone fulfilling the Indian dream of eliminating it altogether. The growth of Chinese influence in Sri Lanka may slow, but Beijing is in the region for the long haul.

Australia has begun formalising the use of koalas as a "soft power" diplomatic strategy, with a 600-page manual having been drawn-up by the foreign affairs department and the marsupials increasingly being given to regional allies.

Twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall signaled the collapse of the Kremlin’s grip on eastern Europe, Russia is reasserting some of its lost influence.  That is most obvious in Ukraine, where unmarked tanks roll across the countryside in support of pro-Russian separatists.

More than a dozen prominent Washington research groups have received tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments in recent years while pushing United States government officials to adopt policies that often reflect the donors’ priorities, an investigation by The New York Times has found. The money is increasingly transforming the once-staid think-tank world into a muscular arm of foreign governments’ lobbying in Washington.