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.
Learn Chinese for free…in Liberia
China is often criticised for taking from Africa but giving little back. Not so in Liberia, where Chinese officials are moving into quite new territory - language lessons. For 40-year-old Tubman Nyennety, the motivation for doing the class is driven by personal ambition. "We need to learn Chinese because you never tell when you will have the opportunity to travel to China," he says.
Obama’s Nobel and the power of ideas
The lesson is that rewarding ideas and processes to actualize the ideas are as important as awarding outcomes. Obama’s beliefs in multilateralism and negotiations based on mutual respect, in denouncing torture and human rights violations, and in securing global public goods are nothing new.
The PD Theory of Relativity
[T] he absolute value of PD comes in Obama's Nobel Prize. Obama is a variable of PD Squared, and its value equals a Nobel Prize (and $1.4 million dollars). Enhanced PD equals hope, change and the admiration of billions around the globe for the United States, as quantified in the Anholt Nation Branding Index. For me, the Anholt Index is proof enough that Obama deserves the Nobel. Simply put, an America that is re-engaged with the world as a force for peace is easily worth a peace prize by my calculations.
Obama Becomes Japan’s English Teacher
The [Obama] speech CD and its accompanying book have been a resounding success, selling 200,000 copies since its release in January. A compilation of President Barack Obama’s speeches has done even better, selling half a million copies since November, solidifying his role as Japan’s English teacher. Publishers have since flooded the market with over a dozen language-learning titles, including “Speech Training: Learning to Deliver English Speech, Obama Style”; “Learn English Grammar From Obama”; and “Yes, I Can With Obama: 40 Magical English Phrases From Presidential E-mails.”
The EU Is Making the World Safer
Javier Solana: From Kabul to Pristina, from Ramallah to Kinshasa, the EU is monitoring borders, overseeing peace agreements, training police forces, building up criminal justice systems and protecting shipping from pirate attacks. Thanks to our achievements, we are receiving more and more calls to help in a crisis or after a war. We have the credibility, the values and the will to do this.
Papandreou: a holdall of peace
In a way, half of the success of the trip was achieved in the first minutes of Papandreou’s landing. The Turkish digital media – on which Mr. Papandreou invested so much of his political discourse – made sure that the picture of his “peace hold-all” had reached the thousands of Turkish visitors on the Internet, and had communicated the message that there is a modern approachable new leader in Greece, with a contemporary, trendy style.
A milestone & new starting point for China, Japan, ROK
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Republic of Korea's President Lee Myung-bak and Japanese new Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama erected not only a milestone but a new starting point for the tripartite cooperation as the second trilateral summit meeting was held here Saturday. "The leaders of the three neighboring states, for the very first time in the last millennia, sit down around one table," said Jin Xide, a researcher with China's top think tank.
Hanoi New Music Meeting to become festival
Hanoi New Music Meeting 2009 is a forum, as well as a stage, for nearly 20 contemporary, traditional, classical and electronic composers and musicians from Vietnam, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, the UK and Canada. The exchange and contact among different musical spheres promises to bring surprising and rule-breaking pieces.
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