Turkey remains stubbornly fixed in Western culture as a backward-looking land of doner kebabs, bazaars, and guest workers. But take population out of the equation -- an admittedly big variable -- and Turkey promptly becomes a likely candidate for future superpower.

Before watching Australia’s first World Cup game against Germany, 240 Australian students gathered Sunday for a three-day conference to prepare them for conversations about Israel back home. StandWithUs International, a nonprofit Israeli organization, has joined with a series of Australian Jewish groups to give students facts that will better equip them to defend Israel on their campuses.

Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), the ranking Republican member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations has done something remarkable: issued an honest appraisal of America's public diplomacy broadcasting.

As everyone knows, BP is enveloped in a massive environmental and PR disaster, which is doing serious damage to its reputation, not only in the US but across the world. But by relentlessly kicking the firm while it’s down, in what appears to be increasingly brutal and vindictive fashion, the Obama White House is generating significant animosity in a nation that is traditionally pro-American.

Now it is India’s turn to complain that Obama is too much the Pacific president and not enough the Indian Ocean president. Whereas the Indian government is not officially complaining, what might be called the Indian foreign policy establishment of business leaders, strategic thinkers, journalists and former diplomats are.

...there has also been a fresh awakening to the areas where Australia and Israel's interests overlap - and, just as importantly, where they diverge. The two countries, though friendly and democratic, are not automatically in sync. Recognising that actually bodes well for more mature ties in the future.

So like a debtor who decides that it's easier to ask for a raise than chop up his credit cards, Team Obama decided to focus on boosting American power, not reducing American obligations. The Bush Administration, they reasoned, had leveraged only military power. Obama would deploy "soft power" too, the power to attract rather than coerce.

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill risked turning into a trans-Atlantic diplomatic rift Thursday after U.S. threats to have BP fork out billions more for the disaster caused a precipitous slide in the blue-chip's stock, hurting retirement savings for millions of Britons.