President Serzh Sargsyan received today NATO’s Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy, Ambassador Kolinda Grabar–Kitarović who has arrived to Armenia to participate at the inauguration of the President of Armenia, President’s Press Office reported. Welcoming the guest in our country, the President of Armenia spoke with her about the Armenia-NATO cooperation and programs to be implemented in the framework of that cooperation.

The Foreign Minister and I, as he mentioned, did indeed talk about Syria. And I thanked the Foreign Minister for the constant pressure that the Government of Turkey has placed on the Assad regime, which, as we both have said repeatedly, must go. Turkey has also been incredibly generous to the refugees of this crisis, and they have taken them in by the thousands, kept their borders open, done everything possible to try to respond to that increasing humanitarian crisis.

Relations between the two countries, once strong allies, have been in tatters since May 2010, when Israeli troops raided a flotilla of ships carrying aid from Turkey to Gaza. The raid killed nine Turkish citizens and prompted the Turkish government to expel its Israeli ambassador and recall its own from Israel. The countries’ two powerful militaries, once close partners, began to regard each other as hostile forces, and lucrative trade dried up. Even the number of Israeli tourists to Turkey, who once flocked there, dwindled amid fears that the country was no longer safe for travel.

It may take a few years before the Chinese fully understand soft power. Soft power, as a concept, has been widely discussed in China, the understanding of which mainly comes from the explanation of the man who first outlined it, American scholar Joseph Nye, and observations of US soft power. But China may adopt a different means to developing soft power.

The NHL is not only considering more outdoor games. It is considering more overseas games. Chief operating officer John Collins referred Sunday to a “European business plan” and ideas ranging from resurrecting the World Cup to starting something like a champions league. But first the NHL has to reach a deal to go to the Sochi Olympics, which are less than a year away now. There remain several open issues between the NHL, the NHL Players’ Association, the International Ice Hockey Federation and the International Olympic Committee. The four organizations will meet this week.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has delivered a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia 2013 in the coastal town of Boao, in China's Hainan Province. President Xi expressed his wish to work with regional leaders to build a better future for Asia and the world.

Whistleblowing website WikiLeaks today published more than 1.7 million United States records, covering diplomatic or intelligence reports on every country in the world. Much of the work was carried out by founder Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. He sought refuge there last June over fears he would be sent to the US if he was extradited to Sweden to face sexual offence claims by two women.

“Charlie Wilson’s War” – like many Hollywood films – took extraordinary license with the facts, presenting many of the war’s core elements incorrectly. That in itself might not be a serious problem, except that key U.S. policymakers have cited these mythical “facts” as lessons to guide the current U.S. military occupation of Afghanistan.