President Obama’s nominee for Defence Secretary, former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, has been confirmed by the Senate, ending several weeks of deeply acrimonious hearings in Congress.

Despite guarded optimism and the promise of two more rounds of talks in March and April, the latest tranche of nuclear diplomacy between Iran and six world powers, which ended on Wednesday in Almaty, Kazakhstan, offered nothing new.

There is a moment in Stephen Sackur’s recent BBC Hardtalk interview with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal when one throws up one’s hands in despair.

There is a respectful hush among the journalists. This is the launch of Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) World Report 2013, and executive director Kenneth Roth is at the podium. “The media is key to what we do,” he tells the press.

Hollow boasts of Iran’s technological prowess in recent days have placed a question mark over the Islamic Republic’s true capabilities.

In one of his first acts as the new US Secretary of State, John Kerry spoke to both Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Israel’s President, Shimon Peres, to stress his desire to jump-start peace talks.