The soft-power age has almost ended. The key players of global politics no longer use their soft power to influence other states, nor the general route of international politics. Worse, there are not many actors with the ability to perform decisively at the international level.

Governments worldwide are increasingly facing a fundamental question: how to deal with the causes of violent – often religiously motivated – extremism. They are not short of advice – and from a wide range of sources.

McDonald's has suspended work at its three Crimean restaurants following ongoing diplomatic tensions in the region. The company said that it would try to support staff, and hopes to re-open its restaurants as soon as possible. The firm is the second in the Crimea to alter its operations after heightened tensions between Russia and the west.

A few weeks ago, Afghanistan’s attorney-general ordered the Kabul police to arrest a fugitive wanted for cheating a business partner and embezzling millions of dollars out of the country. The police quickly tracked down the fugitive, who was hiding inside a residential compound heavily guarded by a private militia.

Authorities in Colombia’s capital Bogota have agreed to not remove graffiti as long as the street art is performed “in a responsible way,” following a meeting with graffiti artists who previously had claimed they were being persecuted.

Mexicans don’t trust law enforcement agencies, which creates a toxic environment for combating cartel violence, according to research released on Thursday. Roughly 90 percent of Mexicans have little or no confidence in municipal police. 

Turkey has blocked access to YouTube just hours after the leak of a recording allegedly depicting a security meeting on Syria. Google, YouTube's parent company, had previously refused government requests to remove other videos alleging government corruption. #TurkeyBlockedYouTube began trending immediately across the country, with many sharing screenshots.

Juan Manuel Contreras, a church singer and laid-off electrical supply worker, had been honking his car horn and shouting through a megaphone out of the window for half an hour when he turned to me with a question one might only address to a newly arrived foreigner in Mexico.