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.

A Forgotten Kitchen Debate and American Public Diplomacy

If there is one theme at today's impressive conference at George Washington University's “Face-off to Facebook: From the Nixon-Khrushchev Kitchen debate to Public Diplomacy in the 21st Century”, it is that US public diplomacy is, above all, about human beings connecting with one another rather than a government "pushing a message" on a “target audience.”

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China Increases Its Economic and Political Footprint in Latin America

While the Chinese surge past the US [as Brazil's #1 trading partner] has been mainly caused by the economic crisis, and with the US likely to regain the pole position in trade with Brazil after the crisis ends, it highlights an underlying trend in Latin America. China is steadily increasing its presence and influence on the continent.

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Interview: Representative Wexler On Engagement, Democracy, And Soft Power

U.S. Representative Robert Wexler (Democrat-Florida), the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Europe, held a hearing in Congress that looked at the role of “soft power” in the world – specifically, the role that international broadcasters like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America play in countries where the media is neither independent or free.

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Return Of A Prodigal US Pleases Asia

East Asian nations will broadly welcome US moves to reengage with the region, with the world's most powerful country offering a counterweight to China's growing clout, analysts and diplomats said.

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Liberal Myth-Making

The peaceniks and flower children around Pierre Trudeau calculated that if they could convince the rest of us that Canada was without a warrior tradition, they could decimate our military and go around to international conferences boasting about how their commitment to peace made them morally superior to the Americans. They also talked themselves into believing that if we had no war-making capacity -- that if we were a "soft power" -- the belligerents in the world's worst conflicts would trust Canada as the "honest broker" for their settlements.

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Strong National Brand Can Help Weather Crisis

Mike de Vries, managing director of "Germany - Land of Ideas" nation-branding initiative, says that the issue of country-branding may be one of the problems. "Products made in a country can be representative of that nation to people in other countries, but the name of Korea seems not to be exposed continuously and repeatedly with the products made in Korea,"

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Politics, Strife Sully National Image

Euh Yoon-dae, the national branding chief, dislikes "Dynamic Korea" as an official national slogan. When it symbolizes a country like Korea, it gives an image of violence instead of vibrancy, he says. His view proved true on Wednesday. President Lee Myung-bak discussed with top officials, experts and business leaders how to improve Korea's international perception.

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The Cold War’s Hot Kitchen

Exactly one-half century ago, one of the great confrontational moments of the cold war seized the world’s attention: Nikita Khrushchev, bombastic anti-capitalist leader of the Soviet Union, and Richard Nixon, vice president of the United States with the reputation of a hard-line anti-communist, came to rhetorical grips in the model kitchen of the “typical American house” at the 1959 American exhibition at Sokolniki Park in Moscow.

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