I live in Edinburgh, Scotland, and for me the star turn at this year's Edinburgh International Festival was the Beijing People's Art Theatre's production of Shakespeare's "Coriolanus." This was Chinese “soft power” at its best. The play was well chosen. Strangely, for a play written four hundred years ago when England was still an absolute monarchy, "Coriolanus" is a critique of democracy, set in ancient republican Rome, as England had never experienced such a thing.

From an armchair in Pakistan’s version of the Oval Office, Nawaz Sharif points towards the forested slopes of the Margalla Hills. “They are the foothills of the Himalayas,” says the man who reacquired the rights to this office — and to this view — when he returned for a third stint as prime minister in June. This comeback has given Mr Sharif arguably the toughest job in the world: governing a nuclear-armed nation of 180 million people, beset by terrorism, economic crisis and a perilous confrontation with India.

It’s high time for the United States to cut off its $1.3 billion in aid to Egypt as the military regime cracks down violently on protesters, Sen. John McCain argued Sunday. The Arizona Republican added the U.S. has lost its credibility in the region after failing to follow its own law that requires suspending aid to states overtaken by a military coup–though the U.S. has not officially described the recent regime change in Egypt as a coup.

Even after 18 years, I never really knew where I stood with the English. Why did they keep apologizing? (Were they truly sorry?) Why were they so unenthusiastic about enthusiasm? Why was their Parliament full of classically educated grown-ups masquerading as unruly schoolchildren? Why did rain surprise them? Why were they still obsessed by the Nazis? Why were they so rude about Scotland and Wales, when they all belonged to the same, very small country?

These past two months the Chinese Navy’s Type 920 Hospital Ship, a vast 14,000 ton floating hospital called “The Peace Ark,” docked in major cities of South Asia providing key medical services and surgeries to local residents. Over the course of the next few weeks the ship will sail to Bangladesh, Myanmar, Indonesia and Cambodia before heading back to China in October. During the five day visit to Pakistan, the ship’s staff clocked in 10 hour days totaling 2,029 outpatient visits and 28 surgeries.

A new campaign by the ruling Chinese Communist Party to promote President Xi Jinping's new slogan, "the China dream," around the world is unlikely to succeed, analysts said on Friday. China's deputy propaganda minister Cai Mingzhao recently called on propaganda officials at all levels to "deeply understand the weighty meaning of the strategic thinking around the Chinese dream, and to...do everything in their power to preserve its values."

President Obama, deploring the military-led Egyptian government’s deadly crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood protesters there, said on Thursday that the United States would pull out of scheduled joint military exercises with the Egyptian Army. “While we want to sustain our relationship with Egypt, our traditional cooperation cannot continue as usual while civilians are being killed in the streets,” Mr. Obama said in remarks delivered from his rented vacation home on Martha’s Vineyard.

I met the Ambassador of the Solomon Islands a few weeks ago. The Solomons (Honiara is the capital) are in the Pacific Ocean over 13,000 km from Cuba and they only have a few embassies around the world so you might wonder why they have recently opened one in Havana. The Ambassador, Simeon Bouro, explained to me that Cuban support is important for the Solomons’ health service - there are more than 90 Solomon Islanders studying medicine in Cuba and a couple of Cuban doctors practicising in the Solomons.