The United States has been privately leaning on France and other allies to hold off on pushing a measure at the U.N. Security Council that is designed to force movement on the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process at least until negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program have concluded, diplomats told Foreign Policy.

Ambreen Butt has always made political art. Early in her career, the Pakistani-born artist now based in the Boston area investigated the tug of two cultures in mixed-media paintings and drawings. (...) Her current installation at Carroll and Sons, “I Am All What Is Left of Me,” was inspired by a commission from the State Department’s Art in Embassies program for the new US Embassy in Islamabad.

The White House is keen to capitalize on Abe`s desire to put Japan back at the center of power in Asia, as China flexes its political and economic muscle. In the Oval Office Obama and Abe will discuss trade and are expected to hail progress toward a Trans-Pacific Partnership that brings together 12 countries -- including Japan and the United States.

Plenty of diplomatic deals get done on the margins of global get-togethers, but one conducted on Twitter in 2014 made Prime Minister Stephen Harper a digital star among his fellow world leaders.(...) Most world leaders use the social media tool to broadcast specific messages; Harper is among many who don't generally reply when messages are sent their way.

It clarifies Cuba in America's official narrative not as a security threat but a country in transition, which is more in line both with Cuba's own self-image and how Latin American and European countries see it. Such a description undermines any rationality for the embargo and lends itself to a U.S. policy that emphasizes engagement and people to people contacts.

Japan's Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, is in the U.S. this week for a tightly packed visit that will focus largely on the strong ties between the U.S. and its closest Asian ally. (...)This visit should help with the latter goal as Abe will have a summit with Obama and a state dinner at the White House with 300 guests. Image is important to the Abe administration, and it'll be on display during this U.S. visit, says Shihoko Goto, an Asia specialist with the Woodrow Wilson Center. 

Becoming a father was a prime motivator for Randy Berry to accept what's sure to be a controversial new role at the State Department. Berry, 50, is the U.S. special envoy for the human rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender persons, the first such post ever created by a nation, according to the State Department. In that trailblazing role, he said he has an opportunity to help his two children grow up in a world more accepting than the one he was born into.

International aid groups and governments have escalated efforts to dispatch rescuers and supplies to earthquake-hit Nepal, but severed communications and landslides in the Himalayan nation posed formidable challenges to the relief effort.