Hillary Clinton’s rigorous travel schedule has become the stuff of State Department legend: During her time as secretary of state, Clinton logged nearly a million miles traveling around the world. The BBC’s Kim Ghattas followed Clinton for 300,000 of those miles and has a book out this week about the experience: “The Secretary: A Journey with Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the Heart of American Power.”

Along a roughly two-mile stretch of Massachusetts Avenue exists a secret world, one with high-profile names, ritzy locations, and extravagant experiences that many can only dream about: the kitchens of Embassy Row. Amid the stoves and shelves, cookers and cutting boards, the chefs at the helms of these kitchens feed some of their country’s most important people, contributing directly to culinary diplomacy and showcasing the best their homeland can offer to an equally select audience.

“I replied to them that in my personal opinion, the further Israeli films move away from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the better they are, the more credible they are and the more artistic they are...Levy, who has apparently confused hasbara – so-called “public diplomacy” – with art, continued: “This is the reason there are so many films dealing with great relish with the Palestinian victim – uprooting of trees...discrimination and so on. But there are very few Israeli films dealing with the Israeli victim.

China should consolidate its ties with Russia and Central Asian countries amid simmering territorial disputes with its eastern and southern neighbours, a political adviser says. Xi Jinping, who will become president next week, will make his first visit as head of state to Russia this month.

Generally speaking, we would say that populations are not very well educated about the links between climate change and specific weather events, and there’s a need for more education. And by generally, I mean globally. What is certainly clear is that there’s an understanding from Syrians about how this drought has impacted their own livelihoods, given that so many of them have had to pick up and move.

The football tournament, which will be hosted by Australia for the first time, is expected to attract 45,000 visitors and have a potential television reach of 2.5 billion viewers. The Lowy Institute for International Policy, in a paper released on Friday, says the tournament will present a big opportunity for Australian businesses to network with Asian investors and consumers.

For an artifact with such an awesome legacy, the Cyrus Cylinder is remarkably unprepossessing. It looks like a small loaf of rye bread from which someone has broken off a chunk. Yet this nine-inch long piece of baked clay inscribed with cuneiform script — which begins a five-city tour of the United States in Washington this week -- has inspired religious and political thinkers from ancient times through the drafters of the US Constitution and the founders of modern-day Israel.

This week the International Council Of Museums' sold-out conference Working Internationally shows how museums are looking out beyond the shores of the British Isles. The big nationals are, of course, doing extensive international work. The V&A tours exhibitions to India, China, Japan and the USA, amongst others.