He may be no Black Mamba like Kobe Bryant, but Vice President Jejomar Binay unabashedly dribbled around Yao Ming, as if challenging the 7’6” former Houston Rockets center to a one-on-one. A shocked Binay welcomed Yao and his Shanghai Sharks to his Coconut Palace Monday morning, gaping at the giant and looking up to shake hands with the retired NBA player.

In an article in The New Yorker two years ago, reporter Ryan Lizza famously quoted an anonymous adviser to President Obama characterizing the president’s strategy in Libya as “leading from behind.” That’s not a bad way to describe the president’s foreign policy in general. Obama takes great pains not to lead too conspicuously, not to step on toes, not to offend allies or enemies. Libya, in fact, was the ideal: Let the Europeans and the Arabs take the lead, and we’ll quietly help out. Or not.

From hosting the world's top emerging powers to enforcing the Rwanda/DRC peace agreement and monitoring elections in Zimbabwe, South Africa is looking good on the world stage. But critics from within say Pretoria's diplomacy has lost its way. Gathered in the grand Oliver Tambo Building in Pretoria, South Africa's top diplomats were not expecting fireworks when President Jacob Zuma gave his annual pep talk on 11 April.

The persistence of anti-American views in the Arab world represents an important policy challenge and an intriguing puzzle for political scientists. In the new issue of Foreign Affairs, I use Amaney Jamal's fascinating new book, Of Empires and Citizens: Pro-American Democracy or No Democracy At All?, to explore a range of competing arguments about Arab views of the United States (many thanks to the Foreign Affairs team for temporarily ungating the essay).

The 43rd Annual Washington Conference on the Americas will be held at the US State Department in Washington, DC, on coming Wednesday, the 8th of May. The event will be co-hosted by the US Department of State and the Council of the Americas.

World-renowned Guitarist Roberto Limon from Mexico will perform at St. John’s College Great Hall 60 College Avenue Annapolis on May 24, 2013, at 7 PM. Mr. Limon is widely recognized as a concert performer throughout the world. He performs regularly as soloist with numerous orchestras in both his own country of Mexico but throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas, including the Czech National Symphony, Seoul Philharmonic, and the National Symphony Orchestra.

National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Acting Chairman Joan Shigekawa recently announced thatglobalFEST (globalfest.org) is one of 817 nonprofit organizations nationwide recommended to receive an NEA Art Works grant. This is the first NEA grant to globalFEST and will support 11th edition of the organization's annual flagship festival in New York City in January, 2014.

According to a recently released report, India is among the top-10 most powerful countries in the world. This is a first-of-its-kind study of "national power" by leading strategic experts and scholars from the Foundation for National Security Research (FSNR) in New Delhi.