Nursultan Nazarbayev
Kazakh diplomacy
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev visits Japan, meeting with Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda for talks on boosting cooperation (Kazakh news agency Kazinform).
Olympic Torch
Tibet tour
Tibet leg of the Olympic torch relay in Lhasa, China. The Beijing games organizing committee said the decision to shorten the relay from the scheduled three days to just one was taken after last month's earthquake in Sichuan Province (Regional sources).
Japanese military
Gun-boat diplomacy?
Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force destroyer Sazanami visits a port in Zhanjiang in China's southern Guangdong Province. This is the first visit to China by uniformed Japanese Self-Defence Forces personnel (Japan's largest news agency Kyodo).
Bashar al-Asad
Syrian diplomacy
Syrian President Bashar al-Asad visits India meeting wich President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. he is expected to sign agreements in the trade and financial sectors and is also scheduled to travel to Agra and Bangalore (Indian news agency PTI)
Dmitriy Medvedev
Medvedev visit
Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev visits Belarus for talks with counterpart Alyaksandr Lukashenka (Belarusian news agency Belapan).
Gen Deepak Kapoor
Moscow visit
Indian army chief Gen Deepak Kapoor visits for talks with Defence Ministry and military officials (Indian news agency PTI)
Yang Jiechi
China-Kazakh relations
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi visits Kazakhstan for talks with counterpart Marat Tazhin (Chinese news agency Xinhua).
Valdis Zatlers
Ukraine visit
Latvian President Valdis Zatlers visits Ukraine (Interfax-Ukraine news agency).
Cardinal Tarcisco Bertone
Vatican visit
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone visits Belarus. He is the highest ever Vatican official to visit the country and meets with President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, Foreign Minister Syarhey Martynaw and religious leaders (Russian news agency ITAR-TASS).
Angela Merkel
Germany-Ukraine relations
German Chancellor Angela Merkel visits Ukraine (Ukrainian news agency UNIAN).
EU flag
Siberian diplomacy
EU-Russia summit takes place in Khanty-Mansiysk, capital of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area in western Siberia, Russia. This is the EU's first summit with President Dmitriy Medvedev and is expected to launch talks on a new EU-Russia partnership agreement (Russian news agency ITAR-TASS).
Nicolas Sarkozy
Sarkozy diplomacy
French President Nicolas Sarkozy visits Israel and West Bank (French newspaper Le Monde)
Viktor Yushchenko
Ukraine-Portugal relations
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko visits Portugal (Ukrainian news agency UNIAN)
Salam Fayyad
Palestinian conference
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier hosts a Berlin Conference in Support of Palestinian Civil Security and Rule of Law. The conference will be attended by Steinmeier, Chancellor Angela Merkel, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. A ministerial meeting of the Middle East Quartet (Russia, US, EU, UN) takes place on the sidelines (German Foreign Ministry website, Russian news agency ITAR-TASS).
