Michelle Obama has embarked on a weeklong trip to China, together with her mother, Marian Robinson, and daughters, Malia and Sasha. Critics of the trip point out that the Robinson-Obama visits to Beijing (Great Wall), Xi’an (terra-cotta army), and Chengdu (pandas), will do nothing to illuminate or alleviate tensions in U.S.-China relations.

Tags: barack obama, china, diplomacy, foreign policy, human rights, michelle obama, peng liyuan, soft power, united states, xi jinping

These are exciting days for those of us who teach and practice public diplomacy. Aimed at establishing mutually beneficial relationships between governments (as well as non-governmental organizations) and citizens of foreign nations, our field is viewed as transformative by some, while somewhat idealistic by others.

Tags: campaigns, government pd, pd evaluation, political campaigns, politics, public diplomacy, soft power, united states

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday to protest remarks by Israel’s defense minister that portrayed the United States as weak in its handling of nuclear talks with Iran and other world affairs, Reuters reported a State Department spokeswoman as saying. 

Tags: benjamin netanyahu, chuck hagel, diplomacy, israel, john kerry, middle east, moshe yaalon, united states

Developing nations want the Internet to be free from censorship, and nowhere is this more prevalent than in Latin America. A new Pew Research Center survey reveals that six of the ten countries that feel the strongest about people having access to the Internet without government censorship hail from Latin America.

Tags: censorship, digital diplomacy, internet freedom, latin america, pew research center, public opinion, surveillance, venezuela

The Russian embassy in London has warned the "British side should mind its language" following a tweet yesterday by the UK embassy in Moscow on Russia's annexation of the Crimea region in Ukraine.

Tags: crimea, digital diplomacy, diplomacy, europe, london, russia, russian embassy, twitter, ukraine, united kingdom

The Saudi royal decree against terrorism in February 2014, and later the Interior Ministry declaration in March banning several Islamist groups, can be considered as the general framework of the new security doctrine that will govern the behavior of the Saudi government in the coming period.

Tags: activism, al qaeda, foreign policy, islam, islamists, muslim brotherhood, politics, saudi arabia, security, terrorism

For the past three years, the Sound Central Music Festival drew artistic talent from across Afghanistan, featuring music, dance and art. But not this year. On April 5, Afghans will head to the polls to vote for a new president from a slate of 10 candidates. The situation is a bit uneasy right now, so it’s not the best time for a full-on music festival. So one of the festival’s organizers came up with another idea.

Tags: academic exchange, education diplomacy, exchange diplomacy, iran, sanctions, student exchanges, united states

More than a century ago, Theodor Herzl wrote a book in which he described Israel as an old new land. For the public, with its archeological digs and religious sites, Israel definitely conjures images of the old. The new, not so much.

Tags: advertising, branding, history, israel, levant, middle east, nation branding, tourism