In conflicts and post-conflict zones all over the globe, UN peacekeepers play an essential role supporting peace and stability. Supporting these efforts is the United States’ Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI). Vietnam has been working closely with both the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Defense to begin building its peacekeeping capabilities, and through GPOI, take its first formal steps towards contributing individuals and units to UN peacekeeping missions.

America's president, Barack Obama, is not the only person in two minds about potential American strikes against Syria. In the wake of his decision last weekend to defer the matter to congress, Syrians, both in Syria and abroad, remain divided over the desirability of such action.

In a 1958 article in The Atlantic, the Sinologist George E. Taylor considered this Moscow-Beijing alliance in an article entitled "Why We Do Not Recognize Red China." Aside from the era-appropriate use of the term "red"—scholars then distinguished between the Communist-led Chinese government on the mainland and the Nationalist-led one in Taiwan—Taylor's essay argues that the United States shouldn't recognize the Communist government ruling Beijing.

Former basketball star Dennis Rodman arrived in Pyongyang Tuesday on a five-day visit amid speculation he may try to negotiate the release of jailed U.S. citizen Kenneth Bae, China's Xinhua news agency reported. In Beijing, the gateway for flights to Pyongyang, Rodman told Reuters he was on another "basketball diplomacy tour" and would not be discussing the release of Bae.

Why do they hate America? What can we do to make them like us? There has been much talk about the promise and limits of U.S. public diplomacy in the Islamic world ever since the 9/11 terrorist attacks and an assumption that our efforts need to be adapted from the Cold War. But many of these discussions ignore that the robust, global system of public diplomacy funded by the State Department from the 1920s until the 1990s pre-dates the Cold War.

To prepare for an endless barrage of secondary-school exams, Zhang Ruifan learned to memorize entire science textbooks. So when his family sent him to high school in the United States, he was so far ahead of his fellow freshmen in math and science that he usually knew the correct answer even before the teacher had finished speaking.

The National Security Agency's spy program targeted the communications of the Brazilian and Mexican presidents, and in the case of Mexico's leader accessed the content of emails before he was elected, said the journalist who obtained secret documents from NSA leaker Edward Snowden. Glenn Greenwald, an American journalist who lives in Rio de Janeiro, told the news program "Fantastico'' in an interview that a document dated June 2012 shows that Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's emails were being read. The document is dated a month before Pena Nieto was elected.

Australia is offering moral support for a U.S. military strike in Syria while New Zealand said Monday it needs more information after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry personally called each country's foreign minister. Kerry has been trying to secure at least some international support for a potential U.S. strike after accusing the Syrian government of launching a chemical weapons attack.