Last year, the Syrian military-police photographer defected to the West. Investigators later gave him the code name Caesar to disguise his identity.  All told, Caesar helped smuggle more than 50,000 pictures out of Syria—his own and many others he downloaded that were taken by other photographers, according to activists working with him.

Americans are divided in their views of whether Israel's actions against the Palestinian group Hamas is "mostly justified" or "mostly unjustified," but they widely view Hamas' actions as mostly unjustified. Those results are similar to what Gallup measured 12 years ago during another period of heightened Israeli-Palestinian violence, and they are consistent with Americans' generally more positive views of the Israelis than of the Palestinians.

The US says it has temporarily evacuated its staff from the Libyan capital Tripoli over security concerns. Staff, including marine guards providing security to the embassy, have been transferred to Tunisia "due to the ongoing violence resulting from clashes between Libyan militias," it adds. Secretary of State John Kerry said there was a "real risk" to staff. It comes amid fierce clashes between rival militias in the capital, with intense fighting at Tripoli airport.

Most notably, China is currently participating in the Rim of the Pacific Exercise, the world’s largest international maritime warfare exercise, for the first time this month. As previously noted, China sent the second largest delegation to the RIMPAC exercise this year. Its RIMPAC fleet includes the missile destroyer Haikou, the missile frigate Yueyang, the supply vessel Qiandaohu, the Peace Ark hospital ship, two helicopters and a dive unit, along with 1,100 personnel. 

This week, a stirring new documentary from the Voice of America called “AIDS: Living in the Shadows” made its world premiere at the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, Australia. The documentary takes audiences on a journey to Nigeria, Cambodia, Haiti, Uganda, Canada, and the United States to meet those living with HIV and AIDS. This is the most recent example of the excellent work done by VOA as it serves its audiences around the world while promoting the interests of the United States — in this case, helping halt a global pandemic.

With reference to Pakistan, our busy diplomats in the world’s power hub of Washington DC are gradually embracing social media but are not sufficiently trained to engage in debates on social media. That is unfortunate because social media has become the new public diplomacy tool and is far cheaper than the bloated budgets of fancy diplomatic events. In this age of rapid-fire peer-to-peer connectivity, the Pakistan embassy is still boxed in in the world of achingly slow government-to-government negotiations. 

Once lauded as the jewel in the crown of China's "soft power" cultural diplomacy, Confucius Institutes have sprung up at hundreds of colleges and teaching institutions around the world. Partnering with local academic centers, their aim is to teach people to speak Chinese, as well as broadening people's experience of Chinese culture in general. But a recent warning from a group of U.S. professors suggests some 90 Confucius Institutes across the U.S.

Have you ever wished that the U.S. would prioritize education as much as it does defense? Ever wondered what diplomacy would be like if there were an equal emphasis placed on deeper connections between people as there is on geopolitical prowess? If so, you might be very keen to learn about the recent U.S./China annual high-level Consultation on People-to-People Exchange (CPE) held in concert with the Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED). Now in its fifth iteration, this merger is what I call smart diplomacy.