In Afghanistan, where women have traditionally been treated as shut-ins and worse, 29 Afghan women are taking a daring step: They are the first volunteers to undergo training to serve in the all-male Afghan national army.

Two dozen countries representing 80 percent of the world’s commercial energy consumption on Tuesday announced initiatives to build more efficient appliances and buildings, “smart” electric grids and electric vehicles.

Underlying the hearts and minds strategy is a simple - and mistaken - assumption that aid projects will generate goodwill towards the US and reduce local support for terrorists and militant Islamist ideology. However, in our conversations we found no evidence that the US has been winning hearts and minds.

Most of us in the U.S. probably don't pay much attention to Tajikistan, but the central Asian nation, which borders Afghanistan and China, is strategically crucial. Fortunately, the U.S. Embassy in Tajikistan...has a brilliant new strategy to strengthen our cultural bonds: Body building competitions.

Pakistan's permanent representative to the United Nations Abdullah Hussain Haroon and Pakistani Peace Builders (PPB) will host the 1st Annual New York Sufi Music Festival on Tuesday at Union Square, New York City, with an objective to present "soft image" of Pakistan through cultural diplomacy.

Many academics warn against relying on new forms of media like Wikipedia or Facebook for reliable information. However, an initiative at the State Department is taking advantage of these very platforms to improve agency performance and transparency.

Three artists of Tabla, violin and flute performed at Pakistan National Council of the Arts (PNCA) here on Monday to welcome US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. ...a large number of US Embassy officials, media persons and people belonging to different walks of life were among the audience...

The technologies that came to the fore in Haiti are not new. They include everyday technologies -- mobile phones, online mapping tools, GPS, and social networking. What is new is their use in the humanitarian context at the scale seen in the global response to Haiti's catastrophic quake.