Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague is in Ottawa to announce an agreement between the two countries that Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird says will start with embassies in Haiti and Burma, and will allow civil servants to consider doing so in more countries as the need arises.

It’s a free country and Terry Glavin is entitled to rail all he likes against diplomacy, robust and otherwise in his column (“What robust diplomacy gets you,” Sept. 12). But he will not disparage diplomacy and deprecate public servants without challenge. I find offensive his characterizations of Lakhdar Brahimi, Mokhtar Lamani and Paul Dewar, all of whom I know personally.

As Canada reduces cultural staff and closes libraries and offices, it's important to remember that soft power is by no means inferior to commercial, political, or military facets.

“We entered the world of weibo with an open mind, and have often been surprised by what we have found,” said a note by the embassy’s public diplomacy head weeks after the first status updates hit the “Canadaweibo” account on Chinese Internet portal Sina.com.

Diplomats in all parts of Canada's Beijing embassy are being encouraged to learn how to use China's version of Twitter. The embassy launched a "weibo" microblog account on Chinese Internet portal Sina.com in June 2011. But internal Foreign Affairs documents show that not all Canadian diplomats rushed to type out 140-Chinese character updates when the account went up.

As multicultural media in Canada grows, so is its use by emerging countries "as a way of influencing foreign public opinion, and as a part of their formal foreign policy apparatus," says one academic.

Climate Change and Water Conference—An ideal opportunity for the international community to exchange ideas and develop a common vision for the future of world climate change and water resources. Until July 11. Ismailia, Egypt.

“We are trying to bring two cultures together,” said Bruce Mitchell, associate provost and chair of the institute’s board. “It’s not just language but art, cooking and crafts.” When it opened in May, 2007, the local Confucius Institute was the second institute in Canada. The institute is a partnership between Waterloo and Nanjing University in China.