Qatar has become an example of peaceful co-existence within a multi-cultural society that hosts a large number of nationalities, a senior security official has said. As a clear indicator of this, Qatar assumed a leading position – for the fourth consecutive year - in the Global Peace Index (GPI) 2012 for Middle East and North Africa (Mena) - Qatar got the first position at the Arab level and 12th internationally, he said.

With temperatures in the 70s, over 150 participants, including Ambassador Robert Patterson, toed the starting line of the U.S. Embassy Ashgabat Turkmenistan Dick's Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon First Wave run on Sunday, March 17, 2013.

It was a St Patrick's Day celebration danced to a samba beat rather than a slip jig in Brazil last night as the iconic statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro turned green for Ireland's national holiday. The now annual 'greening' of landmarks around the world has gained further momentum.

The United States looks forward to timely, free and fair elections in Pakistan that will mark the country's first civilian-to-civilian democratic transition, the State Department said. "As you know, the Pakistani parliament is planning to complete its term tomorrow (Saturday). We look forward to timely, free and fair elections that'll result in the first civilian, democratic transition in Pakistan's history," Spokesperson Victoria Nuland said.

Does this do what it says on the tin and does it matter if it doesn't? At the start of the V&A's latest exhibition you're led to believe that the objects on display will tell a particular story. This, according to a board at the entrance, is the story of diplomatic gift-exchange between the Tudor and Stuart courts and their counterparts in Russia – then known as Muscovy.

Filming has begun on the first ever television series jointly produced in China and Burma, bringing Burmese history to television screens across China before the end of the year. The story of a Burmese prince travelling to the Chinese imperial court to perform a dance is scheduled to be aired during evening primetime on Chinese national television in the second half of the year, producers from Yunnan Television said in a statement last week.

The crisis in Syria is developing new and acute symptoms which threaten the region on more levels than were previously thought, which should be of immediate concern, not just for the region itself, but for the international community as a whole. Many readers are already aware that the ‘al Nusrah Front’, one of the dominant ‘al Qaeda’ groups currently being supported by the US and Britain in Syria, is being funded and steered by Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency.

When John Kerry took to Twitter on his first day as US secretary of state, he joined an army of diplomats using social media to reach out and connect directly with people around the world. "Exhilarating to walk into @StateDept today and get to work with remarkable team. Dad on mind! -JK," Kerry wrote in his first personal tweet. In less than 140 characters, the new US top diplomat instantly signaled he intended to carry on and deepen a commitment to using social media begun under his predecessor Hillary Clinton.