On the latest Global Pulse episode, host Erin Coker examines media coverage of the evolving relations between China and the US. Watch the episode below and share your thoughts!

While this week’s Global Pulse, called “Chimerica,” looks at what the two nations share, there are plenty of points of friction between them. The U.S. regularly criticizes China’s human rights record, and now China has published a report equally critical of the U.S., for “destabilizing the world economy and meddling in other countries' affairs.”

The United States is in a tricky situation. On the one hand, the U.S. wants to encourage human rights and increased democracy in China; on the other hand it fears alienating China, its most prominent trading partner, which holds upwards of $800 billion of American debt. So how has the U.S. walked this delicate tightrope so far? Not very well.

Perhaps the best recent example of the awkward U.S.-China relationship is the controversial meeting between President Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama. Most in the west see the Dalai Lama as a man of peace who dares to stand up to the might of the Chinese government. Not surprisingly, China considers him to be a threat to a unified China, due to his advocacy for the independence of Tibet. They also see him as a pawn of western nations bent on embarrassing the Chinese government. Even some western media sources have criticized the motives of the Dalai Lama. In an editorial from the UK’s Guardian, Brendan O’Neill describes the Dalai Lama as a poseur who “once auctioned his Land Rover on eBay for $80,000 and has even done an advert for Apple.” He also charges that the Dalai Lama “has [been] used as a battering ram by western governments in their culture war with China.”

But celebrities like Richard Gere and Sharon Stone are prominent followers of the Dalai Lama who advocate his return to Tibet, and American Buddhists have made some of his books pop-religion best sellers in America, so there was tremendous pressure on Obama to meet with the Dalai Lama. Although the meeting was carefully planned to try to not offend either side, it ended up offending both. Initially Obama refused to meet, citing the need to meet with China’s Hu Jintao first: human rights activists and western media called it a snub. When the meeting finally did happen it took place in a closed room without cameras. The Chinese were angry that the meeting took place at all.

Whether this and other rights issues are geat walls that will ultimately divide the two nations, or just side roads on the long march to cooperation remains unknown.

For this week's Global Pulse episode, Iran’s Power Players, host Erin Coker asks the question: Are Khamenei and Ahmadinejad playing "good cop, bad cop"? Share your thoughts below!

In the nearly three months since Iran's disputed election and the massive street protests that followed, global media have turned their attention to the internal factional bickering within Iran's ruling party. Allegations of detainee abuse have created further fissures within Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's conservative government, with the country's leadership offering conflicting responses to the allegations.

Reacting to claims made by opposition candidate Mehdi Karroubi of detainee torture and sexual abuse, Iran's parliament speaker Ali Larijani vehemently dismissed the allegations as "sheer lies," according to a CNN report. Larijani's remarks contradicted police and judiciary officials who acknowledged detainee abuse at the now-shuttered Kahrizak prison and promised to investigate the claims. According to The Guardian, an unnamed Iranian MP said he had proof of the abuse, further contradicting Larijani.

As this week's episode points out, Ahmadinejad and the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have also appeared at odds over abuse allegations. According to a report that ran on the state-controlled Press TV website on August 28th, Ahmadinejad blamed the abuse on an enemy plot, saying that he had evidence which "exonerated revolutionary, military, security and intelligence forces." But three days later, following a report that the detained son of a conservative political advisor had died as a result of abuse, the BBC reported that Ayatollah Khamenei promised the young man's father that those responsible would be brought to justice.

The confusing signals reflect factional struggles at the highest levels of government, which can only be aggravated by the Iranian blogosphere's relentless pursuit of allegations of torture, sexual abuse and killings of detained protesters, often through chilling personal accounts. On September 2, the independent Radio Zamanah’s website reported that a rape victim and key witness in the case had disappeared. Mentions of the story surfaced several times throughout the day on the microblogging site Twitter, alongside posts like "Regime, No matter how many you execute, torture, or rape. We will never stop. We will never give up on our right to freedom," and, "Saeedeh's body was burned & almost unrecognizable (note that she was arrested from her house, so burning was deliberate)."

Even after the dust has settled on the present internal political struggle, it may take more than damage control to bridge the divisions between the Iranian government and its people.