This past week the Washington Post ran a story about the troubles of Russian lawmaker Dimitri Gudkov, assailed by his government for having the temerity to visit the U.S. and address U.S.-Russian relations on Capitol Hill. As the short article explained Gudkov was in the U.S.

I want to take you inside the space that public diplomacy is uniquely positioned to address – not only in the short term, but in the mid and long term. And today, I want to talk about the ways public diplomacy augments and complements our efforts to counter violent extremism, how we measure its effectiveness, and why that’s so important to our national interests.

The head of the work group on interparliamentary ties with Italy of Milli Majlis Azer Kerimli and MPs Rasim Musabayov and Jeyhun Osmanly will attend the forum ‘Azerbaijan 2020-Youth vision’. According to the news service for Milli Majlis, Azerbaijani parliamentarians left for Rome on 26 March.

The fifth summit of heads of state from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (Brics), which concluded in Durban on Wednesday, announced that formal talks would be held to launch a development bank.

In the wake of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's apology Friday to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the deaths of nine Turkish activists aboard the 2010 Gaza flotilla, the two countries have set the wheels in motion to pay compensation over the deaths, with Israel set to pay out as much as tens of millions of dollars, according to sources in Turkey.

Refaeli is the new face of an ad by the Israeli Foreign Ministry that kicks off a public relations campaign trumpeting Israel's cutting-edge technologies. But the Israel Defense Forces is not happy about it. A spokesperson for the Defense Forces says in a statement, "The choice of a representative who did not serve in the military as an official presenter on behalf of Israel, conveys the message that we ignore and forgive evasion of enlistment, and encourages identification, among youths of both sexes, with the success of those who did not enlist."

The Kremlin and Russian Foreign Ministry have released an official strategy for Russia’s participation in the BRICS association. Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ryabkov has stated that the strategy was approved by President Vladimir Putin back on Feb. 9. “The BRICS association will continue to strengthen its international reputation and influence by using soft power — i.e., through economic and social achievements of its members, as opposed to creating some kind of military alliance,”