Less than a month after President Obama testily assured reporters in 2009 that Pakistan’s nuclear materials “will remain out of militant hands,” his ambassador here sent a secret message to Washington suggesting that she remained deeply worried.

Those looking for skullduggery won't find very much, although of course as they will remind us, that is because all the skullduggery is hidden behind much higher layers of secrecy. As Timothy Garton Ash writes, "from what I have seen, the professional members of the US foreign service have very little to be ashamed of."

Governments around the world have tended to downplay the United States' embarrassing problem over the ongoing release of hundreds of thousands of its confidential diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks.

In my book Guerrilla Diplomacy, I argue that if development is the new security in the age of globalization, then diplomacy must displace defence at the centre of international policy. More recently, in a short article on science diplomacy, I observe that when it comes to assessing the role of science and technology (S&T) in international relations, one is confronted by a significant paradox.

Yet with all these problems, the most severe threat to Yemen’s future is its water crisis. Yemen is running out of water fast. Experts say that Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, is likely to run out of water by 2020. This kind of water scarcity breeds conflict and instability...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was wicked mad over WikiLeaks. "This disclosure is not just an attack on America's foreign policy interests," she declared Monday. "It is an attack on the international community."...But look on the bright side: The leaks have shown the world that somewhere within the U.S. diplomatic corps lurks literary genius.

Diplomats and government officials around the world lamented Monday the massive leak of U.S. diplomatic cables, and many predicted it would undercut their ability to deal with the United States on sensitive issues.

More revelations certainly await as the world combs through the more than 250,000 US diplomatic cables released Sunday by WikiLeaks, but already it is clear that the US is facing a monumental embarrassment and has vital questions to resolve about its trustworthiness and data security.