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.
Citizen diplomacy and cross-cultural pollination
Indonesians abroad, such as those who work in academia, as entrepreneurs or executives, indirectly represent Indonesia in the international arena, regardless of the negative label they are given -- "brain drain". This term is degrading and baseless, for only those who have never experienced the hardship of living away from one's homeland would have said it out loud...The opposite concept is "brain gain", which is a notion that acknowledges the dynamic exchanges of human capital across borders.
Americans embrace a smaller world
We have been knocked down in size and stature but are strangely learning more about the planet. Books such as Three Cups of Tea, about an American's efforts to build schools in northern Pakistan, are best-sellers. And anthropologists get calls from the Pentagon about foreign tribal customs...All of which bodes well for the next president as he tries to restore our image in the world. The flip side, of course, is we are steadily losing our influence overseas, especially our ability to sway a country's behavior through cultural (i.e. blue jeans) or ideological (i.e.
Getting Your Point Across
(Photo essay) Wei Shengchu, 58, a supporter of traditional Chinese medicine, poses for photos in front of Beijing Railway Station with his head covered with acupuncture needles depicting 205 national flags and an Olympic torch.
Beijing faces Olympic challenges
With a month to go before the Beijing Olympics, China remains plagued by a number of problems including critical human rights reports and pollution.
Ripken to visit South Africa in envoy role
Cal Ripken Jr's personal mission to teach baseball to children around the world will continue next spring, when the Hall of Fame Oriole and other Ripken Baseball representatives visit South Africa...The U.S. State Department and Ripken, who was named an American public diplomacy envoy by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2007, are expected to make the official announcement Wednesday.
Why doesn’t The Free One do what we tell it to do?
Briefly, al-Hurra and its U.S.-citizen-funded ilk stood (and stand) accused of misreading the local market, failing to win audiences, being stapled to an obsolete Cold War model of propaganda, not pencilling out in even the most modest financials, delivering a product that people already get in better and more accessible forms and committing the mortal journalistic sin of being boring.
Beijing: this rubbish revolution won’t be permanent
In the run-up to the Olympics, China is changing. But who knows if it will stay the same after the Games. Beijing is obsessed with saving face in front of visitors. And in the run-up to the Olympics, that means, even down the backstreets, that garbage must vanish.
Can the Olympics be a catalyst for change in China
Unlike, Athens, Sydney and Atlanta, the pages of history will not judge the Beijing Olympics on the merits of the Games, nor the thrills of its contests, nor even the number of world records that are broken. Instead, in years to come, the judgment will be whether bringing the Olympics to China had any positive effect in relaxing the iron grip of the totalitarian rulers.
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