This CPD Photo Essay explores the role of non-state actors, acting both as ambassadors between countries and as ambassadors of sport to both domestic and international audiences. These photographs were taken on a recent trip to São Paulo, Brazil. 

Tags: sports diplomacy, non-state actors, skateboard diplomacy, skateboarding, sao paulo, brazil

Ukrainians on Twitter are deriding claims that a far-right leader's business card was found at the site of an attack on a checkpoint manned by pro-Russian activists. Sunday's gun battle, which occurred near the eastern Ukrainian city of Slovyansk, left three dead and a fragile truce on the brink of collapse.

Tags: ukraine, twitter, russia, social media, campaign, parody, #yaros

When, fifteen years ago, Vladimir Putin was appointed Prime Minister under the ailing Boris Yeltsin, few would have thought that he was to become one of Russia’s longest-serving political leaders in living memory.

Tags: vladimir putin, russia, propaganda, europe, public relations, soft power, economy, nation branding

The news that the ABC is to establish an ‘online portal’ in China that will allow it to ‘represent and sell media content across China’ has been greeted with understandable enthusiasm by the ABC.

Tags: australia network, international broadcasting, china, bbc, abc, media, internet, public diplomacy, soft power, asia pacific, australian broadcasting corporation

The soft-power age has almost ended. The key players of global politics no longer use their soft power to influence other states, nor the general route of international politics. Worse, there are not many actors with the ability to perform decisively at the international level.

Tags: soft power, democracy, human rights, security, hard power, united states, european union, barack obama, samuel huntington

Even as the crisis inUkraine continues to defy easy resolution, President Obama and his national security team are looking beyond the immediate conflict to forge a new long-term approach to Russiathat applies an updated version of the Cold War strategy of containment.

Tags: united states, barack obama, vladimir putin, russia, containment, cold war, history, ukraine, europe, smart power, hard power, foreign policy

Press freedom in Jordan regressed last year, particularly after changes to the country’s publications and press law and government moves to block hundreds of online media sites, a new report has revealed.

Tags: media, censorship, journalism, jordan, middle east, jordanian press association, internet, online media, press freedom, king abdullah, freedom house, telecommunications

As languages go, English is a notoriously promiscuous one, borrowing caricatures from Italian, chutzpah from Yiddish and faux pas from French. And yet despite the English-speaking world’s deep and wide confluences with Chinese culture, for some reason, few Chinese words have lately entered the English-speaking world’s vocabulary.

Tags: china, united states, english, language, chinese, culture, Cultural Diplomacy, language exchange