A curated selection of public diplomacy-relevant news from a global cross-section of English-language media outlets, including independent, corporate-owned, and state-sponsored sources. The stories featured don't necessarily represent CPD's views nor have they been verified by CPD.
Deference to multiculturalism undermines those fighting extremism, generals warn
The Guardian
Britain is becoming a soft touch and a "fragmenting, post-Christian society" with a "misplaced deference to multiculturalism" undermining the fight against extremists, a security thinktank says.
Nobel Peace laureates make plea to China
Deutsche Welle
Eight Nobel Peace Prize laureates head up a list of more than 80 eminent people who have sent a letter to Chinese President Hu Jintao to do more to help bring peace in Darfur.
Ex-U.S. Officials Orchestrate Korea Nuclear Diplomacy
The concert in some way resembles China's 1971 "ping-pong diplomacy," when its invitation to a U.S. table tennis team was followed by then U.S. President Richard Nixon's February 1972 visit and establishment of bilateral relations…“I call it a 16-inch broadside of soft power fired by the Philharmonic.”
U.S. campaign fires up Brits
The discussion showed that the anti-American feelings manifest in Britain since the beginning of the Iraq war are more anti-President George W. Bush than anything else. The love-hate relationship between Britain and America — "divided by a common language" — will not disappear, but once Bush, like former Prime Minister Tony Blair, has left the political arena for the lucrative lecture circuit, British attitudes toward America should become more rational and warm.
Hollywood’s geopolitics lesson for China
Financial Times
Few people will have known before this week that Steven Spielberg – he of Jaws, Jurassic Park, E.T. and other Hollywood epics – was to lend his creative talents to the Beijing Olympics. Of itself, his withdrawal on grounds of conscience scarcely registers on the Richter scale. Mr Spielberg’s protest, though, is not without significance.
Darfur Issue May Entangle Beijing Olympics Sponsors
The Wall Street Journal
This summer's Olympic Games are six months away, but activists trying to end Sudan's attacks in Darfur have already scored one victory related to the Games and they are looking for more. That could put pressure on Olympic corporate sponsors to respond in some way.
Danish Muhammad cartoon reprinted
BBC
Danish newspapers have reprinted one of several caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad which sparked violent protests across the Muslim world in 2005.
When We Torture
New York Times
Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pushed last year to close Guantánamo because of its wretched impact on American foreign policy. But they lost the argument to Alberto Gonzales and Dick Cheney. So America spends millions of dollars bolstering public diplomacy and sponsoring chipper radio and television broadcasts to the Islamic world — and then undoes it all with Guantánamo.
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