More than 100 chiefs of protocol from 77 countries gathered in Washington, D.C. on Thursday. Their summit is intended to prevent embarrassing gaffes by diplomats and heads of state. Has a breach of etiquette or diplomatic protocol ever caused an international crisis?

Hoi An City will host the annual Hoi An-Japan Cultural Exchange on August 24-26, the local culture and sport centre said yesterday. The event will mark the 39th anniversary of diplomatic ties between Viet Nam and Japan (1973-2012) and lead up to their Year of Friendship in 2013.

The large number of Colombian eyeballs glued to a new prime-time telenovela about the life and times of Pablo Escobar, highlighted by actor Andrés Parra's bravura performance, shows that the late drug narco still fascinates more than 18 years after he died on a Medellin rooftop in a shoot-out with police.

Israel has improved its ranking in the U.S. State Department’s 2012 Tracking In Person’s Report. The country was moved from a “tier 2” level, meaning it was considered non-compliant but improving, to “tier 1,” according to Haaretz.

Will Internet companies help or hinder government authorities that try to restrict their citizens from using the Web freely? And will their customers, investors or shareholders care enough to do something about it? That debate was freshly stirred on Thursday as the UNHRC passed a landmark resolution supporting freedom of expression on the Internet.

Mongolia’s coal resources have thrust the world’s least densely populated country into the midst of geopolitical diplomacy. Dealing with the current coking coal market downturn is just one concern for Mongolia’s national coal mining company, Mongolian Mining (MMC) (HKEX:0975).

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton never seems to have cooking far from her mind. She's turned the State Department kitchen into a tool of international diplomacy. Clinton put her Chief of Protocol, Capricia Penavic Marshall, in charge of what's come to be known as "food diplomacy."

They say a photo is worth a thousand words. Perhaps presidents Obama and Putin never heard of that expression. It is rare to the point of being unknown when the last time was that two world leaders showed such obvious mutual dislike of each other.