In Cuomo’s first major venture trying to resolve an international border disagreement – the worsening Peace Bridge situation – the governor and his team have unleashed a hardball strategy that has infuriated Canadians and aroused the concerns of federal officials in Ottawa and Washington.

Mr Michael Pelletier, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, African Affairs of the U.S Department of State, said “it shows that the institutions are working in Ghana and people have confidence in the institutions.” Mr Pelletier said this when speaking with the Ghana News Agency at the US Department of State building in Washington DC on Friday after meeting with 2013 Spring Professional Fellows to address U.S-Africa foreign policy issues.

Russian is the sixth largest edition of the online encyclopedia (measured by number of content pages, excluding redirects etc), outdone only by Western European languages. In terms of traffic, Russian is now the third most accessed (measured in views per hour), only the English and Spanish sites are busier. In both cases, Russian has outpaced world languages like Mandarin, Arabic, Hindi, and Portuguese. In Russia, wikipedia.org is the 9th most visited domain, and the site gets similar traffic levels from former Soviet states where Russian remains a lingua franca.

The central focal subject of discourse when Global Diaspora Forum (GDF) convenes on May 13 – 14, 2013 for its third annual celebration of the contributions Diaspora communities make to their countries of origin is “Where Ideas Meet Action.”

Olivia Companies, the lesbian luxury travel company, announced last month that it joined forces with a coalition of government and nonprofit organizations to form a new LGBT Global Development Partnership. “We are thrilled to be a part of this historic partnership with the U.S. government and the four other founding partners, and to once again reinforce our 40-year commitment to the LGBT movement,”

Relations between Bahrain and the United States reached a new level of volatility this week as the kingdom's cabinet approved a parliamentary proposal to, as Information Minister Samira Rajab said, "put an end to the interference of U.S. Ambassador Thomas Krajeski in Bahrain's internal affairs."

On the face of it, the Browder vs. Russia match is uneven: One Man Against the Kremlin is almost a comic book title. In fact, it leveled out last December when the U.S. Congress, after heavy lobbying by Mr. Browder, adopted the so-called Magnitsky list, which imposes sanctions on 18 Russian officials alleged to have been complicit in the lawyer’s mistreatment.

Canada is seeking to restore diplomatic relations with Iran — but not the old-fashioned way. Instead of ambassadors and attaches, the Foreign Affairs Department is aiming to connect with Iranians directly, via social media. They're working with the University of Toronto's Munk School to host two days of discussions that will be live-streamed online in the hopes of reaching and inspiring Iranians ahead of June's presidential elections.