Harsh international sanctions against Iran are pointless and even counterproductive, members of the Iran Project argued this week in a new report. The group, consisting of a number of leading experts and former diplomats, argued that sanctions “may be sowing the seeds of long-term alienation between the Iranian people and the United States..."

So what can $300 million buy you in China? Perhaps, the Chinese version of the Rhodes Scholarship. That's what the Chinese and American private equity mogul Stephen Schwarzman are hoping. The Blackstone Group founder is doling out $100 million of his own money and raising another $200 million to set up an international scholarship program at elite Tsinghua University in Beijing. Alumni include business leaders as well asa China's president, Xi Jinping.

In the first three months of this year, ticket sales for American-made films in the world's second-largest cinema market took an unexpected nosedive. Hollywood's revenues fell by about two thirds in China, compared with the same period a year earlier, to about $A195 million, as big-budget titles such as The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey failed to impress.

Classic Journeys, the award-winning cultural travel company which offers boutique guided tours in over 70 regions, 34 countries, and 5 continents, announced today the addition of people-to-people cultural exchange programs to Cuba.

Harsh international sanctions against Iran are pointless and even counterproductive, members of the Iran Project argued this week in a new report.

In his interview with Foreign Affairs (“Generation Kill,” March/April 2013), Stanley McChrystal, the retired U.S. general, argued that the United States should compel all Americans to serve their country through some form of national service. Conscription, however, is not the answer to the United States’ challenges at home or abroad.

Following Obama’s visit to the region, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has embarked on shuttle diplomacy which signals that, perhaps, diagnosing the peace process as “moribund” is premature. But despite signs that the U.S. is attempting to resuscitate its engagement in the peace process, it is unlikely that such an effort will produce any favorable results.

Most Americans, says Blackstone Group LP founder Stephen Schwarzman, "know next to nothing about China." His solution for that: a $100 million donation from his personal fortune to fund a scholarship program to bring 200 mainly U.S. students to China every year.