On Friday, Sarkisian, 91, officially retired from the Voice of America, where the weekly radio show he started 47 years ago, “Music Time in Africa,” is VOA’s longest-running English-language program.

American music bridged difference with the Vietnamese, Golub said. American musicians were surprised to see that their music had an immediate impact on the Vietnamese with whom the US fought a war for many years.

During the recent crisis in Libya and the events surrounding the online dissemination of a hateful video, many asked: what tools does the State Department have to respond to audiences and engage people around the world in real time?

I was glad to see more than 200 people in the audience for a discussion on water, peace, and security on the margins of the 67th meetings of the UN General Assembly yesterday. The United States, the European Union, and UN-Water co-sponsored the event, which drew senior representatives from governments, UN agencies, and international financial institutions.

Egypt’s president, Mohamed Morsi, is visiting the United States for the first time since taking office, and in an interview with the New York Times shortly before departing Cairo, he provided insights not only about his style of leadership but also about how Egypt has changed since the 2011 revolution that marked the end of Hosni Mubarak’s lengthy rule.

The Hong Kong Space Museum and Chabot Space & Science Centre in the United States (US) have achieved their first collaboration in launching the Digital Skies Student Partnership project, enabling students from the two places to learn about Western and Chinese culture as well as their respective developments in astronomy.

The family of the late ambassador had requested that CNN not issue any reports based on the journal — or even reference its existence — before the family consented. CNN agreed to abide by the family’s wishes, according to Philippe Reines, a State Department spokesman who listened in on a conference call between a CNN executive and a representative of the Stevens family.

Rendezvous regular Mark McDonald asked for fresh U.S. embassy stories. Here is an old one from back when America waded into Vietnam, China was a forbidding foe, and Cold War rivals could have easily blown each other off the map.