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.
Africa: What is Africom Really About?
One participant provides notes and commentary of the "Transforming National Security: Africom--An Emerging Command" conference organized by the Center for Technology and National Security Policy at the National Defense University in Virginia, February 19-20, 2008.
Caribbean sings (literally) Obama’s praises
The trend is not just another instance of pop culture and politics merging in a presidential campaign that have hip-hop stars like Jay-Z and Wyclef Jean endorsing Obama from center stage. It's an example of the Illinois senator's growing appeal beyond U.S. borders and the global excitement enveloping his campaign and candidacy -- even among those who can't vote.
Welcome to the Olympics
Resenting criticism of its handling of unrest in Tibet, China wages a gruesome propaganda offensive...The unrest is being fuelled by the Olympics. Many Tibetans see the games as a chance to highlight their grievances and put pressure on the authorities to relax religious and political controls. As China pours more security forces into the region, foreign human-rights activists and Tibetans living outside China are stepping up their protests.
Fight violence with nonviolence
The new global norm of "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) should inspire the use of civil society and nonviolent means. While it includes military interventions, R2P is based on emerging international human security and human rights doctrine that aims to avert further failure by the international community to prevent and stop genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity...Nonviolent Peaceforce is working to bring this kind of peacekeeping to greater prominence, with the goal of increasing its current 70 field team members to a cadre of 2,000 by 2012.
Central/South Asia: Iran Pushes Cross-Border TV Project
For years, Tehran has pursued vigorous "cultural diplomacy" in neighboring countries that share its linguistic roots -- namely, Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Such efforts were in the spotlight this week after a March 24-25 meeting in Dushanbe of the three countries' foreign ministers. Among other issues, the ministers reportedly prepared a deal on launching a common Persian-language satellite-television network to be run jointly by all three governments.
Dominica welcomes first group of Venezuelans under social tourism programme
Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit opened the doors of his office at the Financial Centre last week to welcome thirty-three people from Venezuela -- the first group to visit Dominica under the Social Tourism Programme. The programme is an initiative of the government of Venezuela to strengthen ties between Venezuela and countries of Latin America and the Caribbean through exchange of their people.
Indian literary works to be translated into Arabic
A project to translate major Indian literary works into Arabic is on the anvil as part of India’s efforts to project its soft power in the Gulf. “We propose to translate major Indian literary works - fiction, non-fiction and poetry - into Arabic as part of our larger vision to improve ties in the cultural area in the Gulf,” India’s Ambassador to the UAE Talmiz Ahmad told IANS. The translation project is part of a three-pronged approach the Indian embassy in this Gulf nation is taking in the literary area as part of a major cultural diplomacy drive.
What Europeans seek in the US presidential election
Could the restoration of America's international reputation turn out to be bad for Europe, by eroding its new monopoly on representing Western values and calling it back to its hard power duties? Could it be that a candidate of fear - McCain or, increasingly, Clinton - really serves Europe's interests better than a candidate of hope? With Obama in power, it would become - at least initially - more difficult for Europeans to denounce America, even if the "New France" of Nicolas Sarkozy has already moved away from this easy temptation.
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