U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was supposed to be back at work in Washington this week, after coming down with a stomach virus early last month, then falling and suffering a concussion. Instead, she was hospitalized Sunday with what doctors say is a blood clot related to her concussion.

As 2012 draws to a close and turmoil brews across the Middle East and elsewhere, there's no doubt that we are a long way from the golden age of cultural diplomacy. Gone are the days when the U.S. State Department sent the likes of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington jetting around the world to expose hundreds of thousands to America's great homegrown art forms.

Forecasting the major international stories for the year ahead is a time-honored pastime, but the world has a habit of springing surprises. In late 1988, no one was predicting Tiananmen Square or the fall of the Berlin Wall. On the eve of 2001, the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan were unimaginable. So with that substantial disclaimer, let's peer into the misty looking glass for 2013.

Steven Lee Adams will soon be receiving a large crate at his studio in Mapleton containing a painting he loaned to the U.S. ambassador to South Africa three years ago. His painting has been hanging in the embassy there as part of the Art in Embassies Program.

On December 18, the US State Department’s Accountability Review Board (ARB) released an unclassified version of its investigation into the September 11 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya. US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the attack, so the report was widely anticipated by the public and by government officials alike.

Part of American Music Abroad, the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs announced that Kensington, Maryland-based folk group Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, with Barbara Lamb, will tour Asia and the Pacific Islands. The trio will tour China Dec. 30 - Jan. 6, Malaysia Jan. 7-17, Vanuatu Jan.18-23 and Papua New Guinea January 23-27. Tour activities will include public concerts, lectures, demonstrations, workshops, media outreach, and collaborations with local musicians.

Taiwan is “the only force on Earth that may have an impact on the future political development of China,” said Steven S.F. Chen, formerly the island’s envoy to the United States and now an adviser to its president. “Not, I’m afraid to say, the United States, not Japan, not any another country. Only Taiwan.”