Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has written to the Pope, thanking him for condemning an American pastor's threat to burn the Koran last month. In his letter, Mr Ahmadinejad also called for closer co-operation between Iran and the Vatican.

The timing for Walmart's first buyer-seller summit in India earlier this month couldn't have been better. As Indian firms keen to tap the retailing giant's global network prepared their pitches, the Indian government gave the first concrete sign that it may be ready to open up its potentially huge retail market to foreign investors — an opportunity that America's largest retailer has been chasing for as many as 20 years.

Representatives from the American Telemedicine Association, along with leaders from other U.S. telemedicine programs, will participate next week in the inaugural Electronic and Telemedicine Hospital Symposium in Tehran, Iran, to advocate the use of telemedicine for medical diplomacy and cooperative international development.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton today congratulated the winners of the first Apps4Africa competition, which brought together local technology entrepreneurs to build tools that serve the needs of local Non-Governmental Organizations and their communities.

Standing atop the world stage at last month's UN Summit on the Millennium Development Goals, a resolute President Obama boldly revealed a core element of his administration's new global development policy--one that would "unleash transformational change." One place in desperate need of that change remains the Occupied Palestinian Territory, a key focus of administration efforts.

Distinguished journalist Christian Caryl will lead RFE's efforts to step up news coverage from the nation's capital as he assumes the role of Chief Editor of RFE's Washington, D.C. bureau. Caryl is a regular contributor to Foreign Policy and the New York Review of Books and is a Senior Fellow at MIT's Center for International Studies.

Young Iraqi refugees in Syria are in touch with US kids thanks to a novel idea to bring them together via web chats and video conferences. From there, friendships have blossomed

he strategic implications of our recent poll of public opinion in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) are many and layered, but taken together, should point Washington toward a policy capable of meeting a broader set of U.S. interests in the region.