Cape Town Tourism's Facebook campaign, Send Your Facebook Profile to Cape Town, has won a Cannes Lions Gold Award for Cape Town Tourism's advertising agency, Ogilvy & Mather. The prize was awarded in the Branded Content Category (Best Use or Integration of Digital or Social Media) making them one of only two 2013 Gold Award winners from South Africa.

An even more important lesson to learn from marketing, concerns the intricate fragility of Brand South Africa. Much as militant unionists might abhor the notion of globalisation and the principle of capitalism, a stark, non-debatable fact of life is that South Africa cannot survive in isolation.

The embassy of Japan in Nigeria is stepping up its ties with Nigeria through culinary diplomacy with a food fair in Abuja where Ambassador Ryuichi Shoji revealed his country's "great" respect for culture and its influence, especially through food.

China is without a doubt here to stay in Africa! China clearly has a plan for Africa. The "sinofication" of Africa is currently taking place through immigration, the assertion of soft power and mass investments and goods.

President Koroma’s decision to adopt the Smart Power strategy didn’t emerge as a coincidence but through crucial evaluation of the international system in terms of threats, vulnerabilities, risks, interests and opportunities.

In the near future, Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban may have their own top level domain names on the internet, which could spark innovative ways of promoting business and tourism in South Africa's main centres.

Kerry said this "victory for the human spirit" shows what can happen when people overcome ideologies and politics. Signed into law by George W. Bush, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR, is the world's largest and one of the most successful foreign assistance programs.

The Gulf of Guinea was one of the primary areas in Africa where "stability," the command spokesman assured me, had "improved significantly," and the US military had played a major role in bringing it about. But what did that say about so many other areas of the continent that, since AFRICOM was set up, had been wracked by coups, insurgencies, violence, and volatility?