Lawyers argue the U.N. should compensate victims of the disease allegedly spread by its peacekeepers.

The book is based on the true story of the 1971 Table Tennis World Championships in Japan, where the unlikely friendship between American player Glenn Cowan and top China player Zhuang Zedong set the media ablaze and drove both administrations scrambling at the highest levels. 

Fifteen entry-level diplomats from Afghanistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs started a two-week training program in Washington on Monday.  For the next two weeks, the group will learn about US policy regarding Afghanistan, US-China relations, public diplomacy and how foreign policy is developed in the US, with a goal towards developing diplomatic, communications and management skills.

The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and PBS LearningMedia will host a series of blended online and in-person conversations about ancient civilizations with high school students, the first of which will take place on Wednesday, October 22.

While introducing Chinese language and culture to foreigners is a good idea, the aggressive attempt to do so via Confucius Institutes has proved problematic.

The U.S. State Department is producing anti-Islamic State propaganda to persuade American and other would-be jihadis not to join the extremist group. It’s ham-handed, and often sarcastic, and unlikely to have the intended effect. Why? Because the department fails to understand how Islamic State attracts recruits in the first place.

Sheikh’s case and several other recent terrorism prosecutions shed light on the growing importance of social media in the battles unfolding in Syria and Iraq -- both as a recruiting tool for Islamic terrorist groups like ISIS and the Al-Nusra Front, and as a means for the FBI to pre-emptively nab the would-be jihadis.

Today, as the world is going through one of the sharpest crises of international relations in recent years, the Cuban missile crisis — or, as Russians call it, "the Caribbean crisis" — may help us understand some very important things. The most pertinent of these is the escape from "historical inevitability."