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.
Anthony Bourdain Explains the Israel-Palestine Conflict Through Food
CNN food and travel host Anthony Bourdain's excellent hour-long special on Israel-Palestine, in he which he explores both sides of the green line, begins with a line that could not ring truer for me. "It's easily the most contentious piece of real estate in the world. And there's no hope – none – of ever talking about it without pissing somebody, if not everybody, off," he says of Israel-Palestine and particularly Jerusalem.
Islamic Bloc Seeks to Join Permanent U.N. Security Council
Since the founding of the United Nations in 1946, the United Nations Security Council has existed to oversee decisions made by the U.N. The five permanent members—China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and France—have a veto power that enables them to prevent the passage of any "substantive" draft Council resolution even if the other countries support it.
An Independent Scotland Would Be Good for the World
Today (18 September), people in Scotland are exactly one year away from the all important day when our citizens will vote on the future direction of their country. Gaining control of how Scotland will engage with the wider world is an important consequence of that vote. For me, an independent Scotland is not - and never will be - an end in itself.
‘Is Facebook Real?’ China’s Internet Users Ask in Frustration as Iran Lifts Its Ban
China’s online community brimmed with disappointment - if not despair - on Tuesday after online media reported that Iran had granted its citizens access to Facebook and Twitter. Both sites had been walled off from Iranian users since 2009. This leaves China, along with its neighbour North Korea, among the very few countries which still block Facebook and Twitter. “Iranians are now returning to Facebook, yet we Chinese haven't even met Facebook,” one microblogger commented on Weibo.
H-1B Visas and Immigration Reform: A Sticking Point in the U.S.-India Relationship
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will be meeting with President Obama in Washington next week to discuss economic and trade cooperation between the United States and India. One of the most critical topics on the table will be immigration reform as it relates to Indian workers in the United States.
Poll Finds 50% of Separatists Believe Jews and Muslims Have Too Much Influence in Quebec
About half of Bloc Quebecois and Parti Quebecois supporters think that Muslims and Jews have too much influence in their province, while nearly a third of British Columbians think the same of Sikhs and Asians, a new poll suggests. While that sentiment is particularly pronounced by separatists and in Quebec in general, the rest of Canada fares little better in the Forum Poll on multiculturalism, with about one-third of Canadians saying Muslims have too much influence in their home province.
Forcing Children to Wear Burkha to School is ‘Completely Wrong’, Contradicts British Freedoms
Boris Johnson has said forcing children to wear a burkha to school is “completely wrong” and contradicts British values and freedoms. Speaking after it emerged a number of UK secondary schools forced girls as young as 11 to wear the full Islamic veil, the Mayor of London said a burkha cannot be described as part of a school uniform, adding that he was “totally against kind compulsion in this matter”.
Wayne K. Spear: U.S. Humbled in the Art of Diplomatic Warfare
Commenting in January on his country’s blacklisting of America as a destination for Russian child adoptees, Alexey Pushkov cited the deaths of nineteen children and the U.S. legal system’s “very laxative decisions” concerning the fate of the adoptive parents. When Mr. Pushkov is not tweeting about American exceptionalism, he is on state television spreading the pro-Putin and anti-American propaganda which is the staple of his TV Tsentr program “Post Scriptum.”
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