Still at it after all these years: the FSB’s Moscow headquarters.
Sergei Butorin via Shutterstock
Russia has decades of experience setting “honeytraps” for spies, diplomats, and whoever else it wants to embarrass or blackmail.
EPA/Sergei Ilnitsky
As his nominee for secretary of state awaits confirmation, Donald Trump is under pressure to explain what his views on Russia actually are.
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The UK has to move on from these petty squabbles and start coming up with a plan.
A Russian police officer guards the Turkish embassy in Moscow.
EPA/Sergei Ilnitsky
Less than a year ago, Andrey Karlov’s assassination would’ve been a dangerous diplomatic incident – but the two massive powers involved have all but mended fences.
From Norway with love.
Hayoung Jeon
An object lesson in seasonal geopolitics.
EPA/Peter Foley
It’s all very well to be intimidating, but China needs to win people over too.
Taiwanese premier Tsai Ing-wen converses with Donald Trump.
EPA/Office of the President of Taiwan
The frenzied response to this year’s most examined courtesy call played right into Beijing’s hands.
The call with Tsai Ing-wen caused a diplomatic furore.
Jorge Adorno/Reuters
‘Little trick’ or ‘petty action’? The difference matters when translating what China really said about Trump’s call with Tsai Ing-wen.
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Football is becoming an increasingly important weapon in Britain’s soft power arsenal.
A woman holding a picture of Castro and Chavez waits to pay homage to Castro in Havana on Nov. 28, 2016.
AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan
A former British ambassador to Cuba, now a professor at Boston University, still has a few questions for the late Cuban leader.
EPA/Larry W Smith
The incoming Trump administration could do worse than learn from China in devising a new policy of economic engagement with North Korea.
Toby Melville/Reuters
Diplomacy between Europe and Trump’s administration will be tricky, but not impossible.
EPA/Monika Skolimowska
The UN’s Charter legally binds it to promote gender equality, but guess what: yes, it’s a man again.
Emma Line/Flickr
The UK plays a crucial role in how the European Union engages with African nations. Post referendum, political and diplomatic norms will have to be re-imagined.
Ben Birchall / PA Archive
The decision to review Hinkley Point C was carried out in a way that quite unnecessarily put Britain’s future relations with China in jeopardy.
Joan Clos (right) shows visiting dignitaries around the UN complex in Nairobi, Kenya, which as host of UN-Habitat headquarters was pushing one of two competing proposals for implementation responsibilities.
Noor Khamis/Reuters
Two years of marathon negotiations have finally yielded agreement in last-minute meetings in New York on the New Urban Agenda to be adopted at the Habitat III summit in Quito in October.
En garde in the Spratly Islands.
EPA
Vietnam is deeply spooked by the struggle over the South China Sea – but its friends in south-east Asia aren’t so keen to stand up to Beijing.
Understanding how China operates on an international level means understanding how it exercises soft power.
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‘Soft power’ has been spoken of a great deal in relation to Sam Dastyari’s recent political donations strife, but it is often misunderstood.
Australia has sought to water down climate declarations made through the Pacific Islands Forum.
AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
This week’s Pacific Islands Forum is the region’s premier multilateral summit. But members have begun turning elsewhere out of frustration with Australia’s climate negotiation tactics.
Where is the love?
EPA/Narendra Shrestha
The US is held to a different standard than other countries – but it mostly has itself to blame.