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.

Flora Expo proof of Taiwan’s soft power: Ma

President Ma Ying-jeou says the 2010 Taipei International Flora Expo proves that Taiwan can host large, long-running international events. He said it also demonstrated Taiwan's achievements in horticulture and environmental protection to the international community.

Tags: soft power, Cultural Diplomacy, taiwan

Task Force Delivers ‘Human Message’ To Haiti

Task Force Bon Voizen, which translates as “good neighbor,” serves as a picture-perfect image of the U.S. military's soft-power efforts, and the task force's only enemies here are time and budget. Since the task force began its mission at the end of April, it has treated more than 800 dental patients and nearly 23,000 medical patients.

Tags: united states, soft power, government pd, military, haiti, disaster diplomacy

Why Hillary Clinton hasn’t weighed in on Saudi women’s right to drive

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, arguably the world’s best-known advocate of women’s and girls’ rights, is facing criticism for not jumping on the bandwagon of a women’s cause recently in the news: the right of Saudi women to drive. But this can be a tricky cause to take on – as one advocate of American ideals in the Bush administration, Karen Hughes, discovered during her time in office.

Tags: united states, government pd, public opinion, saudi arabia, women, culture, human rights

Building Women’s Leadership in Africa: The Young African Women Leaders Forum

The Young African Women Leaders Forum, a two-day workshop and conference for women from across Africa, will take place in Johannesburg and Soweto, South Africa, June 21–22. U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama will address the conference and participate in some of its activities. The forum is designed to promote the role of women in all spheres of life in Africa.

Tags: united states, government pd, south africa, women, development, michelle obama

Documentaries Delve Into the Sushi Economy

Sushi’s rise to globalism has attracted a lot of attention in recent years...Both documentaries offer a penetrating introduction to the workings of the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo, the world’s largest, as well as the growing “local” character of sushi in the West.

Tags: united states, soft power, Cultural Diplomacy, japan, france, gastrodiplomacy, film diplomacy, environmentalism

Fukushima: suffering the stigma of nuclear crisis

Cities in Fukushima prefecture struggle to cope with the stigma of becoming as synonymous with nuclear crisis as Chernobyl. Even areas that have lower radiation readings than many of the world’s major cities, are finding everything from their goods to their tourist spots — and even their people — shunned.

Tags: soft power, public opinion, japan, tourism, city diplomacy, nuclear crisis

Possible water diversion causes flood of worries

In China, where large areas are chronically short of water and electricity, the mighty rivers that flow from Tibet into South and Southeast Asia are a tempting target. But as China dams more of its rivers in more places, neighbouring nations are worried that the next step may be to divert water on a large scale instead of just using it for power.

Tags: china, government pd, asia pacific, water diplomacy, tibet

Brazil to create ‘botanical Wikipedia’ to catalogue the Amazon

The website, which will be called Wikiflora.org, is intended to allow high-school students and other internet users to get involved in mapping the country’s vast biodiversity. Brazil’s Ministry of Science and Technology has reached an agreement with IBM to develop the website through the use of ‘citizen science’.

Tags: government pd, science diplomacy, new technology, brazil, internet diplomacy, sustainability, biology

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