The decision to appoint a new envoy to the United Nations comes as nuclear talks between Iran and the United States and other major powers are coming under fire from U.S. congressional critics of Iran, who are pressing for the passage of new sanctions that the White House claims will torpedo the delicate negotiations. 

The former Cuban leader and lifelong revolutionary makes it clear that he won't stand in the way of diplomacy with Washington. 

Climate change has been at the forefront of the president’s recent diplomatic agenda. It should stay there. This week, U.S. President Barack Obama made his second visit to India. As during his trip to China last year, where he signed a landmark agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, climate change ranked near the top of the agenda.

And Obama didn't just lecture on the need for tolerance of religious minorities. He spoke of the importance of women's rights in a country where shocking abuses still endure. (...) These are unobjectionable remarks, and a point of view shared by likely everyone who crowded in to hear the American president speak. But don't expect Obama to share the same message with the United States' Saudi partners, whose cooperation on matters of counterterrorism in the Middle East and energy policy are vital for Washington's interests.

President Obama, in India for a state visit, was chided by local press after he was spotted chewing gum during Monday’s Republic Day parade, which celebrates the day that India’s 1950 constitution went into effect.

India has long seemed unable or unwilling to become a major player on the world stage. But the country’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, is looking to change all that. In order to compensate for a small and weak foreign service, he is tapping into India’s considerable soft power: its emigrants, intellectuals, and yogis.

As long as the PM plays the security-political card while ignoring the country's real problems, he’s only helping his campaign – especially if he succeeds in bickering with the Obama administration. Meanwhile, a Likud-Habayit Hayehudi merger looks increasingly possible.

This past weekend, Sen. Patrick Leahy led a special congressional delegation to Cuba. It’s part of an effort to normalize relations between the two countries – relations that were severed in 1961 when Fidel Castro came to power. Leahy’s was the first congressional delegation visit since President Obama announced his intentions last month of ending the current restrictions between the United States and Cuba.