Green T-shirts flooded the State Department on Wednesday during an event that celebrated the graduation of teenage “Peace Ambassadors” from India, Pakistan and Afghanistan from a programme aimed at promoting cross-border understanding in the leaders of the future.

Pro-American sentiment in Iran is a priceless strategic asset for the US. A military attack would liquidate or at least severely weaken this asset. It would probably turn the most pro-American population in the Middle East into anti-Americans, further undermining the US position in the world's most volatile region.

The state of war between Israel and Syria, begun in 1973, prevents their citizens from meeting in person, but recently they have started to come together online. Onemideast.org is a new website that brings together Syrian and Israeli bloggers, journalists and academics to discuss the stalled peace process.

South America's largest country, Brazil is keen to play a key role in the whole of the Middle East as it enjoys "traditional" and cultural relations with the countries of the region for several decades.

Building respectful relationships with the Middle East continues to be important, and while cultural barriers and common misconceptions still exist, social media tools provide great opportunities to create and enhance respectful and long-lasting relationships.

"The idea was to explore ways to further build bridges between India and Australia and enhance people-to-people networks to recommend best practice creative partnership strategies to enhance economic and cultural ties between the two countries," said Serafina Maiorano, chief executive officer of Advance.

A group of 18 students from the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Qatar, representing 12 nationalities will undertake a 12-day tour of Vietnam starting tomorrow... The university official said there were misconceptions about the Middle East in some parts of the world and he hoped the tour would help clear some of them.