The US, UK and other states have pledged aid and humanitarian assistance to help rescue refugees fleeing Isis in northern Iraq.  The US has launched two airstrikes against the Islamic State. The defence secretary, Chuck Hagel, announced on Tuesday that 130 troops were being sent to Iraq as "assessors", joining 450 troops already there.

The president will land in Warsaw, Poland, Tuesday morning where he will help celebrate the 25th anniversary of the solidarity movement. He then heads to Brussels for a G7 summit on Wednesday. He’ll dine privately with French President François Hollande in Paris on Thursday and commemorate the 70th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy on Friday — all while Russian President Vladimir Putin is nearby.

Internet, its online media sources and numerous digital services have become an essential part of international data exchange as well as a powerful instrument to influence public opinion worldwide. What countries are the most advanced users of the new digital tools? A research project conducted at Tel Aviv University's Department of Communications into the practice of "digital diplomacy" yielded rather unexpected results.
 

Poland’s foreign minister, Radoslaw “Radek” Sikorski, has been intimately involved in the Ukraine crisis, including in the negotiation of an agreement in February that then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych walked away from, further fueling the Maidan protest.