The US State Department has released their International Religious Freedom Report for 2011 which covers 199 countries including Georgia. The report reads that the Georgian Government demonstrated a trend toward the improvement in respect for and protection of the right to religious freedom.

The Olympic play-to-lose badminton fiasco took a fresh twist when China's Yu Yang quit the sport in anguish, and later on Thursday black belt President Vladimir Putin and British leader David Cameron will grapple over Moscow's position on Syria in a day of judo diplomacy. Cameron welcomed Putin, honorary president of the International Judo Federation, to Downing Street and will urge the former KGB spy to take a tougher line on the civil conflict in Syria, Russia's firmest foothold in the Middle East.

India’s policymakers have been fixated with pursuing major strategic ambitions with the hopes of one day becoming a superpower.... It has been lobbying for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council and it has been trying to raise its profile globally through public diplomacy and events such as the Commonwealth Games.

...Azerbaijan’s desire to pursue more active public diplomacy was driven primarily by the constant concerns over falling behind Armenia in the “information war” front of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which remains to be the most important issue for Azerbaijanis. Having achieved economic success, Azerbaijan is keen to use it oil revenues in order to promote its image abroad and influence foreign audiences.

In the mass media and the blogosphere,both inside and outside China,commentators have been discussing the differences between the cultural segments of the Beijing and London ceremonies as representative of two opposed political systems.