The recent summit meeting in California between President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, President Xi Jinping was seen by many as an important milestone in Sino-American bilateral relations. Indeed, the informality and broad range of subjects discussed between two competitive nations led many observers to draw parallels to the U.S.-Soviet summits of yesteryear.

US Embassy discusses with the Azerbaijani government the problem of intervention into the satellite broadcast of "Radio Liberty", the press service of the United States Embassy in Baku reported, the Azerbaijani service of "Radio Liberty" says.

The Erasmus exchange scheme is to be massively expanded under new EU plans. The programme will be renamed Erasmus+, and will encompass education, training, youth and sport initiatives, as confirmed by an agreement between Parliament and the European council on Wednesday.

The situation is fraught with risk for the US president. Any visit to Mandela’s bedside risks being seen as a cynical move by Obama to boost his flagging popularity, while his speeches will be analysed for signs that he is trying too hard to link his own civil rights credentials to those of South Africa’s first and most beloved black president. Meanwhile, away from Mandela’s hospital bed, Obama faces hostile criticism of US trade policies and a “NoBama” campaign organised by South Africa’s biggest trade union.

On Saturday, after several weeks of preparation, six student poets from the D.C. Youth Slam Team and three adult poetry teachers are scheduled to leave the District, bound for Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, then on to the city of Tshwane, where they plan to participate in a two-week cultural exchange focused on poetry and social justice. The students and teachers are scheduled to meet youth poets, activists and writers in South Africa who are engaged in the movement to build a better society.

On May 30, the State Department submitted its annual report on terrorism (“Country Reports on Terrorism 2012”) to Congress, notably maintaining Cuba on the list of state sponsors of terrorism along with Iran, Sudan, and Syria. Cuba was designated as a state sponsor of terrorism on March 1, 1982. It has remained ever since on the list of states that Washington accuses of repeatedly providing support for international acts of terrorism.

The Chinese have been growing their media presence in Africa in recent years as part of a "soft diplomacy" strategy — using culture and information to spread its influence and counter what it views as unfair treatment in global media. A paper on this topic by Yu-Shan Wu at the South African Institute of International Affairs describes soft power, or ruanshili to use the Mandarin term, as an "important instrument to help a state achieve its most desired goal with the least objection".

Professor Jin Canrong with Renmin University of China said that non-governmental participation is the best way of doing public diplomacy, and Yao Ming is the most successful case of public diplomacy as he has greatly improved the image of Chinese people in the world.