The United Kingdom has named career diplomat Paul Madden as British High Commissioner to Australia. He succeeds Baroness Valerie Amos who returned to the UK earlier this year to take up the position of United Nations chief of Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Control.

When you look at the expansion of international broadcasting as an arm of soft diplomacy, governments are using their public broadcasters to do this work," [ABC managing director, Mark Scott] said. "We need to continue to put Australia on display, using the most powerful tools available - the tools of modern communication...

Hillary Clinton, genuinely funny and admiration-generating in a stint this week with two of Australia's broadcast comics, Hamish and Andy...Barack Obama, at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta, making a speech about democracy in Indonesia, and a reprise on last year's appeal to Islam -- but also daring to talk a little bit in the Bahasa Indonesia ("language of Indonesia") he heard around him as a child.

Clinton took her personal diplomacy to Australia’s airwaves, braving a popular radio comedy team who grilled her on potato chips, reality tv and the diplomacy of barbecues. Clinton’s appearance on the Hamish and Andy show was part of her effort to get in front of as many foreign audiences as possible, and the official transcript released by the State Department makes for some bizarre reading.

How does Brand Oz look in China these days? Jennifer Mills went to the Shanghai Expo to see the results of Simon Crean's recent nation branding exercise

How does Brand Oz look in China these days? Jennifer Mills went to the Shanghai Expo to see the results of Simon Crean's recent nation branding exercise.

Senior militia fighters loyal to a notorious Afghan warlord have been flown to Australia to train with elite special forces as part of a covert strategy to strengthen military operations against the Taliban.

CPD University Fellow Nicholas Cull was recently quoted on the subject of nation branding by Greg Barns of the ABC blog "The Drum Unleashed." Barns cited excerpts from Cull's CPD blog "Advance Australia Where? Nation Brands and Soft Power Down-Under" as evidence of a decline in Australia's international image.