For the past week the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup has enraptured Tahiti. There have been sell-out crowds at the To’ata stadium in Papeete and a carnival atmosphere has pervaded throughout the famed holiday destination. Normally, however, the sport which garners the most attention in French Polynesia is va’a, the traditional Polynesian paddling pastime. Now the two events have merged on one special afternoon on Papeete harbour.

An Egyptian court on Monday ordered the Muslim Brotherhood to be banned and its assets confiscated in a dramatic escalation of a crackdown by the military-backed government against supporters of the ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi.

Sports fans who call themselves the "Yid Army" have been warned they face potential criminal prosecution amid a crackdown by soccer chiefs that has triggered debate in Britain about whether the so-called "Y" word is acceptable. Long-simmering controversy over whether supporters of London's Tottenham Hotspur Football Club -- known as Spurs -- should be permitted to chant the word "Yid" during games exploded when authorities warned that chanting the term could result in fans being fined up to $1600 and being banned from stadiums across the U.K. and abroad.

The U.S. spent roughly $25 billion last year on what’s loosely known as security assistance—a term that can cover everything from training Afghan security forces to sending Egypt F-16 fighter jets to equipping Mexican port police with radiation scanners. The spending, which has soared in the past decade, can be hard to trace, funneled through dozens of sometimes overlapping programs across multiple agencies.

As the United Nations opens its 68th General Assembly session, publics around the world continue to have a positive impression of the international organization. Clear majorities in 22 of the 39 countries surveyed say they have a favorable view of the UN, including thumbs-up from Security Council permanent members Britain, France and the U.S. Ratings for the UN are on balance favorable in Russia. But the Chinese are divided in their opinion. However, views trend negatively in key Middle Eastern publics, including Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan and Turkey.

The New York Times op-ed that has much of the country — including Washington — abuzz on Thursday was placed there by Ketchum, a public-relations giant with a long history of dealings with the Russian government. A spokeswoman for Ketchum confirmed a report from BuzzFeed's Rosie Gray that the firm submitted Russian President Vladimir Putin's piece to the Times, and that Putin himself wrote the op-ed.

When former NBA player Dennis Rodman returned last week from his second visit to North Korea to meet with leader Kim Jong-un, he announced the next step in his unofficial diplomacy: He would try to take other NBA stars to Pyongyang to train the North Korean basketball team. Then, he said, he would try to have an international basketball tournament in North Korea.

September brings a change in seasons and a chance to remember. A dozen years have passed since the day the twin towers fell, but we never look at a bright-blue, clear September sky quite the same way, and certainly each September 11 anniversary gives us pause. With so much global agony, including conflict in Syria and throughout the Middle East, this is a good time to remind ourselves about the value of our diplomacy, particularly public diplomacy, and to remember those working overseas so that we can feel secure at home.