According to former CIA officer, the US asking Sony Pictures Entertainment to find a Muslim version of Western rock musician Bob Geldof to counter Islamic State propaganda demonstrates that US President Barack Obama lacks a coherent strategy to address extremist information operations.

Seoul is an increasingly active player in the Middle East. Relying almost entirely on foreign oil imports, South Korea is economically disposed to chart a delicate political course between its suppliers in Iran and the Gulf.

F.T.R is one of six international artists chosen to take part in a two-week residency in the United States. The team has been in Chapel Hill for the week to conclude the program, which will feature a showcase concert Friday.

In a Facebook post, Ng said the Singapore Armed Forces and the Vietnam People’s Army had conducted their first joint military medicine mission, providing basic health care, dental and eye services to residents in the Binh Xuyen district of Vinh Phuc province in Vietnam.

Tehran faces a classic case of mission creep: It is being forced to commit ever-greater military and financial resources in Syria, falling deeper into the Syrian quagmire with no clear exit strategy. After four years of war, Assad’s forces are overstretched, the regime’s Alawite base is demoralized, and the Syrian economy is in a free-fall.

Speaking at a Brookings Institution event in Washington, Schaeuble described the standoff with Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "new systemic conflict" that would be won by the side with greater "soft power" and a stronger economy.

Britain is paying professional aid staff up to £1,000 a day to work in developing countries as part of a spending "frenzy" to meet a government target, a new report suggestst. Spending on consultants has doubled in the past four years to £1.4bn with the bill for outside help now eating up more than 10 per cent of the aid budget. The figures prompted anger among MPs, who described the practice as a "grotesque waste".

With the majority of radical websites and social media messages hosted on servers in the United States, US Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Richard Stengel yesterday found himself defending America’s stance of upholding the freedoms of religion and expression, including “the speech that we hate”, in response to questions on why the US authorities are not doing more to clamp down on such communications.