The type of bomb used in at least one of the Boston attacks is one that many recent veterans are all too familiar with. It was fashioned out of a pressure cooker. The devices are common in kitchens around the world. Instructions for turning them into bombs are distressingly easy to find. But I hope that their misuse as devices to wound and kill won’t obscure their value for bringing people together.

The financial city will see participation of over 300 global experts, policy makers and marketing gurus all come together to deliberate on the theme “The New Economic Order and World Trade Centers” at the noteworthy event that ensues from Apr 21 to 24.

The mentor’s tone of the United States is standing in the way of the further development of Russian-U.S. relations, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said. “The present difficulties in relations stem from a number of unfriendly steps taken by the American side that provoked a furious response in Russian society,” he said at a session of the Russian Public Council for International Cooperation and Popular Diplomacy on Thursday.

Russia declared an Estonian diplomat persona non grata two weeks after the Baltic nation’s prime minister visited the country for the first time. Franek Persidski, Estonia’s consul general in Russia’s second-biggest city of St. Petersburg, has returned home, Minna- Liina Lind, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, said today in an e-mailed response to questions.

Australia should work harder on its official and unofficial diplomacy to strengthen its ties to India, after a new survey revealed Indians had a mixed perception of the two countries' relationship. The nationwide survey of 1233 Indians, conducted in seven languages, found that Indians generally have a positive image of Australia, seeing it as a good place to get an education and raise a family.

In Indonesia, smart power is also increasingly gaining in attraction and popularity. On several occasions, the Indonesian Military (TNI) elite has used the term to explain how the defense force must cope with future multidimensional threats and challenges. Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro, for example, asserted that, “the concept of smart power is principally the potential synergy of civilian and military”.

Almost 315 years after Russian Czar Peter the Great’s first visit to Holland, six Russian students and six of their Dutch counterparts are tenaciously working on a joint cultural project dedicated to the bilateral year between the two countries.

Social media have become one of the few places where young people from Armenia and Azerbaijan can meet. Yet, not without risks. While it might be nearly 19 years since a May 1994 ceasefire put the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh on hold, analysts are increasingly viewing the situation on the Line of Contact (LOC) with alarm.