Iraq's Central Criminal Court sentenced al-Zaidi to three years in March after he was found guilty of assaulting a foreign head of state on an official visit to Iraq.

CNN: Iraqi shoe-thrower's jail sentence reduced from 3 years to 1

Richard Haass, former State Department official and head of the Council on Foreign Relations, may have put it best when he suggested that what we need here is a dial, not a switch.

CNN: Should CIA be targeting terrorists?

The foreign secretary formally approved Mr Kinnock's appointment as head of the state-funded cultural body - after he had been recommended by an independent panel.

BBC: NEWS | UK | Politics | Kinnock to head British Council

Correspondents say the new state department head will spend much of the week getting in touch with foreign leaders.

BBC: John Kerry starts first day at US state department

The new state department head has spent much of his first week getting in touch with foreign leaders.

BBC: John Kerry refuses to speak French at news conference

"The intervention of Western forces would be perceived as a foreign interference, " he told the European Parliament, in the first address there by an Israeli head of state in almost three decades.

BBC: Rebel soldier in Homs on