Gary Hart has become the latest in a line of U.S. Senators and diplomats to wend their way to Northern Ireland to serve in the role of adviser, negotiator, and conscience-in-chief to the political process in Stormont. 

This isn’t fusion cooking so much as look-what-happens-when-we-all-get-along cooking. Skipping across continents, he takes the food of his native land as well as its less-friendly neighbors, leaps to southeast Asia, and returns to host an informal brunch or an impromptu dinner party.

“[ISIS] is not only decapitating individuals, they’re trying to decapitate civilizations,” says Richard Stengel, the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. “They are purposely destroying monuments and relics, and trying to destroy some of the important symbolism of Islamic unity going all the way back to the 7th and 8th century.”

President Obama is in China for less than three days this week, but he is seeing a great deal of President Xi Jinping.  Mr. Obama will spend far less quality time with the broader Chinese population. There are no town-hall-style meetings, televised interviews or major speeches on his schedule.

Walking up to the embassy of the most closed nation on Earth and finding the door wide open is a strange feeling.  But last week the Acton-based embassy of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, better known as North Korea, was open to the public for an art exhibition.

U.S. Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Richard Stengel said free information was the key to defeating Islamic State. (...) He said it was vital to stem the flow of foreign fighters heading to join militants in Syria.