Indian prime ministers have made it a practice to meet Indian communities during their foreign tours for the past two decades, but Modi has made a more concerted effort to harness the energy of the diaspora by holding public meeting like galas in major cities abroad.

With his feel-good tours of Boeing, Microsoft and a local high school complete, Chinese President Xi Jinping departs Washington state Thursday for the other Washington, where tougher discussions on cybersecurity, intellectual property protections and human rights await.

Throughout China’s history, elements of hybrid warfare have often been crucial components of its conflicts with its neighbors. [...] The contemporary analogy would be “diplomatic warfare”; neutralizing unfriendly states through public diplomacy, support for local insurgencies and pressure in international organizations. 

This is Conflict Café, a month-long pop-up restaurant that uses food as a vehicle for dialogue on conflict and peace building. Organized by London-based peace building charity International Alert, each week of the pop-up brings a new chef and cuisine from the many regions in which the organization works. 

The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the United States' government development finance institution, said it has approved funding for a $400 million solar farm in South Africa as part of new energy projects in emerging markets. [...] The company said the initiative was part of President Barack Obama's $7 billion plan to "Power Africa". Launched in 2013, the plan aims to boost electricity access in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Concerns about the closing of the American Center in Moscow appear to be overblown. Russia is still open to new ideas and the constructive role that can be played by soft power. [...] This may look like a form of paranoia, but truly speaking, the major goal is to find a fine line between culture and politics. 

America’s political, national security, and foreign policy elites continue to ignore the basics of geopolitics that have shaped the fate of world empires for the past 500 years. Consequently, they have missed the significance of the rapid global changes in Eurasia that are in the process of undermining the grand strategy for world dominion that Washington has pursued these past seven decades.

The big question is how effectively he can apply his accumulated soft power to make a difference on the world stage. [...] But the pope's most audacious foreign-policy move has been a crusade against worldwide income inequality and environmental degradation, including man-made climate change.