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.
China And Japan Invoke Harry Potter’s Evil Lord Voldemort In War Of Words Over Yasukuni Shrine
Diplomats from China and Japan are invoking the evil Lord Voldemort from the bestselling "Harry Potter" series in their feud over the Yasukuni war shrine in Tokyo. China says the shrine, which Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited recently, glorifies Japan's militaristic past.
Will The World Grow More Authoritarian In 2014?
Judging by 2014's crowded election calendar, this will be a landmark year for democracy. The Economist estimates that an unprecedented 40 percent of the world’s population will have a chance to vote in national polls in 2014. We'll see races in populous countries such as Brazil, Indonesia, the United States, and, most notably, India, where 700 million people are expected to cast ballots in what Fareed Zakaria has called the “largest democratic process in human history.”
Egypt’s Ousted Cabinet Seeks ICC Arbitration
Egypt’s deposed government filed a complaint to the International Criminal Court (ICC), requesting investigations into what it described as crimes committed by the military against its members. The complaint accused the military of staging a coup d’etat against the country’s first elected president Mohamed Morsi and his government, which was followed by the detention of its members and the usage of “extreme force to remove civilians who gathered to protest against the coup."
Diplomatic Fallout: Syria and South Sudan Simultaneously Test U.N. - and U.S.
It is an absolute certainty that 2014 will be a turbulent year for the United Nations. The organization is struggling with crises ranging from the chaos in the Central African Republic (CAR) to the plight of Syrian refugees. There is little hope that these challenges will dissipate soon. Yet two sets of peace talks this month could well decide whether the U.N. faces a truly dreadful year ahead, or just a very difficult one.
The Next Twenty Years Of NAFTA
In 1993, Vice President Al Gore made the unprecedented move of debating businessman and former presidential candidate Ross Perot regarding the merits of the North American Free Trade Agreement on CNN's Larry King Live.
Iceland’s Saga: A Conversation With Olafur Ragnar Grimsson
By all rights, Iceland -- a remote Arctic island inhabited by just 320,000 people -- should be a forgotten backwater. And for most of its history, it was. But in recent decades, the former Danish colony has begun to attract outsized attention from abroad. After its banks were fully privatized in 2003, foreign money poured into the financial sector, which grew to almost ten times the size of national GDP before bursting in a matter of days in October 2008.
Dylan Thomas Centenary: South Wales Gets Ready To Welcome The World
The bookshops are stocking up, the hotels undergoing spring-cleans and the pubs preparing to welcome guests keen to follow in the footsteps of Wales's most famous poet and hellraiser. Admirers of Dylan Thomas are expected to descend in droves on South Wales this year not just from across the UK but from the US, Europe and the far east to join a year-long celebration marking the centenary of his birth.
Geeking Out: Uganda’s Women are Creating the Next Generation of Girl Geeks
If not for a view of the ornate Uganda National Mosque or the sprawling, congested taxi park in the distance, it would be hard to tell that Outbox, a technology incubator and accelerator, is in a high-rise in Kampala (Uganda’s capital city) and not some non-descript office building in Silicon Valley. The vibe is intense and laid-back all at once. Modern, cushy chairs and long conference tables are used by casually-dressed young people typing furiously on MacBooks in a quest to create the next big thing.
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