He may be no Diesel, but Russia has given France a new puppy following the death of the seven-year-old police dog during a terror raid in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis last month. "The puppy you are giving us today will replace Diesel and proves your friendship," said French ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert, during a ceremony at the French Embassy in Moscow on Monday.

The former British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan once commented that the most difficult thing about politics was "events, dear boy, events." Events can be helpful or unhelpful coincidences for statesmen. [...] The West needs to engage seriously with Turkey. 

Cameroon exchange student Nouredine Mama was given two days’ notice before he was flown to Alaska this fall. The 16-year-old was already settled in Washington, D.C., and had started school when the exchange program he was with found him a host family. Two days later, he moved across the country and started school at Homer High School.

The Moscow Ballet works hard to let cities all over the U.S. experience a Christmas classic, the Nutcracker. [...] "You know, they just love seeing the cities in the U.S. and what life is like here. That cultural exchange is just, you can't get it any other way," Talmi added.

Cotton recommends we deploy “prosecutorial resources on Putin’s worldwide corruption racket”; “craft laws in the tradition of the Helms-Burton Act and the Alien Tort Claims Act to open U.S. courts to victims of Russian aggression, theft, and war crimes”; and utilize “public diplomacy and information strategies … [including taking] the lead in funding translation services to make Western media available in Russia.”

The Belarusian-Russian twin-town relations create a unique environment for productive trade and economic cooperation and the development of public diplomacy as well as make up a spiritual component part of the brotherhood of the two nations, [...] public organization Twinned Towns Boris Batura said at the 8th meeting of Belarusian and Russian twin towns in Podolsk on 27 November, BelTA informs.