WASHINGTON – BBC Television tonight will cover U.S. election returns in a live evening-long broadcast – in Britain as well as in the U.S.

“Europeans are far more interested in the U.S. than the U.S. is interested in any other country,” explained Dick Meyer, the BBC executive producer guiding the coverage, speaking at a USC forum here yesterday.

Nation states are facing a second wake-up call in public diplomacy. The first wake up call, prompted by the 9/11 attacks, was the realization that perceptions of foreign publics have domestic consequences. The second wake up call, which rang out first for China during the 2008 Olympics, and then for other countries with Wikileaks, the Arab Spring, and the Occupy Movement, is that adversarial publics are able to challenge states in the quest for global public support. How states can effectively respond to this second wake-up call is a pressing area of public diplomacy research.

The last place that the Polish Ambassador to the United States Ryszard Schnepf might have been expected to appear in his first two weeks in Washington was the opening performance of Our Class, the searing play about a dark episode in Poland’s history: the 1941 massacre of Jewish citizens by their Catholic neighbors in Jedwabne.

DUBAI --- From boil to simmer and back again. It never ends. Political passions in the Middle East do not cool.

I have been visiting Arab countries frequently during the past five years, which certainly does not make me an expert. But I have been here often enough to pick up on the change in mood during the past few months. The cautious hopefulness that flowered after the Arab uprisings of 2011 has withered, replaced by a fearful fatalism about what lies ahead.

How the youth hostel represents the essence of public diplomacy.

Trunk or boot, hood or bonnet? The United States and United Kingdom have so much in common, but there are differences. And when it comes to ‘soft power,’ what young people around the world fear might be in your glove compartment may set us apart.

The community of nations at the United Nations has said ‘we like Australia’. Australia’s first round win of the temporary United Nations Security Council (UNSC) seat is testament to a strong and effective campaign. Labelled a ‘victory for Australian diplomacy and values’ the UNSC outcome signals a comeback for Australia’s global standing – which has spent a little too many years in the doldrums.