Four years after briefly stopping off in Ghana on his way home from a Group of Eight (G-8) summit, US President Barack Obama lands in Dakar on Wednesday night at the start of his first extended visit in his current designation, to the continent of his Kenyan father’s birth. But he is expected to give Kenya a miss, as its president is under indictment from the International Criminal Court.

The overall measure of Australians' "warmth" towards China is captured in the Lowy Institute's "thermometer," a gauge measuring how positively people feel towards a range of countries. Last year China was ranked eighth with a warmth of 59 degrees out of a possible 100, just under Malaysia and just above India.

India’s answer to those in America who are egging on the Obama administration to get into a trade war with this country is going to be typically Oriental: New Delhi is to soon embark on a major mission to spread the country’s soft power in the US and capitalise on it.

As we prepared recently for this week’s Scottish launch of a British Council-commissioned report by Demos into the role that culture plays in the race for soft power in the 21st century, I thought back on that episode at the LHC; how culture, like the sciences, really does bring people together – even those with very different world views.

Despite Palestinians' limited opportunities for travel, the city of Ramallah, home to the PA, diplomatic missions and NGOs has become recognized as a crossroads for interaction of different cultures. The West Bank political and economic reality has spawned its own particular social reality in Ramallah. Foreign donors and international NGOs bring with them foreign national employees.

The delegation, made up of Singaporeans from 14 to 20 years old, were specifically chosen for the trip as part of a goodwill mission on behalf of the US Embassy and had the opportunity to see first-hand the structure of the youth development programs in the US. The group visited American professional women's team Portland Thorns FC,in Oregon before making their way to California to explore San Francisco and meet with faculty members at Stanford University.

The BBC's aim to broadcast in North Korea for the first time has been curbed by government cuts to its budget, the corporation's director of global news has said. Peter Horrocks said airing programmes in the secretive state is still on his "wish list" but is unlikely to happen in the next year, following the £2.2m annual budget cut announced by William Hague earlier this month.

The United States today stressed on jointly working towards increasing skills of students to face future challenges and said this can be done through exchange programmes and partnerships between India and the US.