The pair of Bitcoin hearings held this week by Senate committees could have been a disaster for the Bitcoin community. After all, Bitcoin first came to mainstream attention in 2011 when Gawker reported on Silk Road, an anonymous online marketplace that allowed users to purchase a wide variety of illegal drugs with Bitcoin. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) denounced the site and suggested that Bitcoin was "an online form of money laundering."

The State Department has long cautioned Americans about visiting North Korea, but on Tuesday it went a big step further, issuing a blanket warning against all American travel to the country. This was the first such State Department warning since North Korea began allowing American tourists in 1995, immediately raising the question: why?

The United States and Afghanistan are close to finalizing a deal that would set guidelines for the two countries' relationship after 2014, when the bulk of American forces are supposed to leave the country—more than a dozen years and hundreds of billions of dollars later.

Often, the enjoyment of a work of art requires one to forget about its message and simply focus on its sensory appeal. In other cases, the work of art is the message. The project of cultural diplomacy often straddles this border between agenda and art for art's sake, and at a time when U.S.-Russian relations are publicly frayed, cultural exchange can help to keep tensions at bay. Last week, Grammy Award-winning American saxophonist Bill Evans, a former bandmate of Miles Davis, performed with his band "Soulgrass" at Spaso House, the official residence of the U.S. ambassador.

When negotiations over the future of Iran’s nuclear program broke down last week, the question of why they did loomed in everyone’s mind. In response, Secretary of State Kerry offered some weak explanation that Iranian negotiators had to get approval from higher ups back at home. Kerry’s comments were a deflection from blaming the French for putting the kibosh on the agreement. Rather than deflecting from the French, Senator John McCain, in a rare move for a conservative Republican, complimented the French for their bravery in stopping the agreement, proclaiming, “Vive la France!”

There’s been a lot of talk these days that globalization is dead, even reversing — and for good reason. It seems that many of the factors that had been driving globalization have run out of steam. The growth of trade, which has long outpaced the expansion of the world economy, has slowed in recent years. Negotiations to forge a new global-trade agreement, the Doha Round through the World Trade Organization, have been stalled for years.

During the "Public Diplomacy of the Americas" conference hosted by the USC Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars, former Mexican Ambassador to the U.S. Arturo Sarukhán discussed U.S.- Mexico relations, highlighting the importance of increasing the digital component of Mexico's diplomacy to deal with issues such as trade relations, transnational crime, and immigration.

Last week, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Mexico City Mayor Miguel Mancera entered into a first-of-its-kind city-to-city agreement. This was not a typical Sister Cities cultural exchange pact. The Global Cities Economic Partnership instead plans a series of joint initiatives in trade, innovation, and education to increase employment, expand advanced industries, and strengthen overall global competitiveness.