Non-governmental organizations (NGOs)are becoming ever-more significant on the international scene. They continue to exert substantial influence over many areas of public debate, often because they provide ammunition to government officials and bureaucrats, as well as to candidates and political parties supposedly coming from “objective” sources.

A long-simmering water conflict between Ethiopia and Egypt has moved a step closer to resolution, after the countries' foreign ministers announced last week they had reached a preliminary agreement on sharing Nile water.

According to the Chinese Ministry of Culture, the Chinese government invested about 1.33 billion yuan ($214 million) by the end of 2014 to build overseas China Cultural Centers and is expected to add another 360 million yuan for developing and running the institutes in 2015. That’s up 181 percent from last year!

The anti-Americanism makes it harder for American culture to make inroads through its traditional means — soft-power routes such as movies, music and education.

To trust Iran is a gamble. But ... it is a risk worth taking — as long as that country’s assertions of good faith are balanced by serious and verifiable restrictions on its behavior ... and backed by a robust regime of monitoring and inspections.

The tour included various political, economic and  research aspects that raised questions about the way the American decision maker sees Qatar’s role in the Middle East, and the size of political relations between the two countries.

 Instead of using this opportunity with the soft power of our minds and the underlying Islamic cause, we have remained stuck in archaic Turkish nationalism.

Opinion polls tell us that almost half of the British public would like the Crown to skip a generation and pass straight the Duke of Cambridge. In China this week, it felt as though it already had.