The day before President Trump met with Pope Francis, Cardinal Peter Turkson juxtaposed the president’s speech in Saudi Arabia with what the Pope said in Egypt. Taking to Twitter, he wrote: “Pope Francis & Pres Trump reach out to Islam-world to exorcise it of [religious violence]. One offers peace of dialogue, the other security of arms.” [...] Yet the Ghanaian cardinal, Francis’ chief “minister” for matters of peace, suggesting that the “peace of dialogue” is the path to be preferred over the “security of arms.”

The 4th “transatlantic dialogue” took place at the University of Luxembourg on Campus Belval in Esch-sur-Alzette. The theme was “creating human bonds through cultural diplomacy”. 320 attendees and 100 cultural actors from Europe, the United States, Mexico, Japan, South Africa and Saudi Arabia discussed and performed around the notion on how cultural diplomacy has a vital role to play in international relations.In 55 discussions and workshops, participants studied inter-sectionalism and common bonds; and how to bridge differences by understanding cultural identities. 

It was December in northern Syria and the temperature was dropping fast. U.S. special operations forces urgently needed to get blankets to their partners. They turned to a small charity run by Jim Hake, a former venture capitalist. Within eight hours, 200 blankets had arrived, paid for by Hake’s NGO, Spirit of America. [...] And Hake argues, if extremists are relying on private donations to launch terrorist attacks, why can’t private citizens in America donate money to help U.S. forces fighting them?  “To prevail, we need all elements of national power — private and public,” Hake said.

The biggest box office stars don’t always hail from the US, they come from other places, too. Beyoncé, the internationally famous and quite possibly most talked-about woman in the world, has about 14.7 million Twitter followers. She’s ranked at, roughly, the 119th most popular person on Twitter. Shakira, the Colombian-born pop star, has a whopping 45.2 million Twitter followers. She’s about 18th on the Twitter popularity scale. [...] This is not to say that American movie stars are not popular, it's just that the Hollywood's near monopoly for almost a century is lo longer in effect. 

The United States is resisting plans to highlight how climate change is disrupting life in the oceans at a U.N. conference of almost 200 nations next week, Sweden's deputy prime minister, who will co-chair the talks, said on Tuesday.President Donald Trump doubts that global warming has a human cause. [...] He tweeted after a Group of Seven summit in Italy on Saturday, "I will make my final decision on the Paris Accord next week!" All other G7 leaders reaffirmed strong commitment to the global deal.