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.
Candidacy for Unesco by Egyptian Is Faltering
Egypt’s culture minister, a painter named Farouk Hosny, has tried to save his candidacy to be the next director general of the United Nations cultural agency, Unesco, making a public apology for suggesting last year that Israeli books in Egyptian libraries should be burned.
Victorian Artists Funded To Hit Edinburgh Festival
The [Victoria] State Government will spend more than $500,000 to help Victorian artists take their shows to the world stage. Central to the deal is a three-year, $300,000 exchange with the Edinburgh Festival [UK] that will send Melbourne-made work to the world's biggest arts event.
Governor’s Awards Honor State Enterprise Abroad
The Ketchikan-Kanayama Exchange brings Japanese middle school students from Kanayama, Japan each spring to spend time living with Ketchikan families, visiting schools, and participating in local events. Each summer a group of up to 20 Ketchikan students, along with chaperones, travels to Kanayama to live with families there for two weeks and to visit different schools in the area.
Kenya: Country Should Hire Obama to Clean Up Her Ugly Image
So the Kenya government is at it again, shopping for another PR firm in the US to whitewash its tainted image abroad! It is the kind of decision that can only come from a desperate government that has lost direction altogether. It can never have come from a government with a functional Foreign Service department. Mind you, we tried this trick in the early 1990s with another PR firm in Europe; Orr Associates, when Daniel arap Moi's regime was under siege. We paid millions of shillings without anything to show for it.
Iran, Sri Lanka Keen to Boost Cultural Ties
Head of Iran's Islamic Culture and Relations Organization Mehdi Mostafavi here on Thursday underscored the need for strengthening cultural relations among world people, in particular between Iranian and Sri Lankan nations.
Death of a Dissident
In giving the Libyans a free ride on human rights, the free world has handed them the tools they need to lead the public-diplomacy campaign of the world of tyranny. Of course it is important to engage peoples around the world in constructive dialogue. But a dialogue with a country's people is not the same as a dialogue with their regime.
Paint By Numbers
The Arab opinion polls that drive headlines in the West are far from worthless,Marc Lynch writes, but we must understand their limits…. Public opinion can only be understood in the context of its political system: it matters in non-democratic countries, but in very different ways than in a democracy. Without such a political context, analysis becomes almost impossible.
Diplomats Gently Intervene to Stand Against Supression of Palestinian Cultural Event in Jerusalem
British Consul-General Makepeace: "I've just been informed by the police that this closing event of the literary festival is not to be permitted here. I'm glad to say that it will take place on the premises of the British Council here. I don't recognize the law referred to in the statement behind me, but I think all lovers of literature will regard this as a very regrettable moment, and a regrettable decision"
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