BAE Systems , the global defense, security and aerospace company, has shown its commitment to advancing higher education with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the British Embassy in Oman to sponsor The Chevening/ BAE Systems Oman.

Big meals, to be sure, are an indispensable tool of diplomacy. People who have come a long way need to be welcomed and put at ease by their hosts. They are more relaxed and friendly with good food and drink inside them. They feel under a greater obligation to be polite and cooperative. But the EU is not a club of ambassadors, or even of politicians. It is, whether we like it or not, a form of government, a bloated version of a country. It has a commission, a court of justice, a parliament, a legal personality, a passport and a foreign service.

It wasn’t the kind of policy statement that would restore Britain to a central role in geopolitical crises. But the announcement that caught my attention in recent days was a smart deployment of soft power, of which the UK has plenty to offer. John Whittingdale, the culture secretary, claimed for Britain a pivotal role in the fight against cultural destruction, which he described as an affront to common human values.

International aid groups and governments have escalated efforts to dispatch rescuers and supplies to earthquake-hit Nepal, but severed communications and landslides in the Himalayan nation posed formidable challenges to the relief effort.

Britain and France urged the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday to set a framework to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians as New Zealand announced it had begun working on a draft resolution to reignite the process, according to a Reuters report.

Sanctions have become as sacred to western armouries as nuclear bombs were 50 years ago. No one dares question them for fear of being thought a dove or a wimp. They cost little to the aggressor but make them feel good. They repress trade rivals. They attract macho adjectives, such as tough, meaningful, targeted and smart. They are chiefly aimed at domestic consumption. Only the poor (and a handful of rich) in the victim states suffer.

As the Cold War took global grip, the United States purposefully pushed Britain aside. The U.S. took over its military bases, its spheres of influence, and its markets. Conscious of its decline, London clung, slightly pathetically, to what it termed its "special relationship" with Washington.