citizen diplomacy
In this short clip, two Palestinian-Syrian girls in Toronto, Canada called on strangers to "hug a terrorist." Produced by the social media activist group Like for Syria, the video portrays two young girls hugging people to inform pedestrians about the escalating death toll in Gaza. They asked people for hugs, holding a banner that read “Hug A Terrorist” and recorded the reactions of people.
With a swelling franchise of 44 international restaurants, Gastón Acurio has made the varied food of Peru its proudest export. Then Gastón Acurio opened his first restaurant in 1994, and began remaking gritty Lima into the culinary capital of South America.
China’s increasing involvement in Africa has captured considerable attention from policymakers and academics. Formalized in a 2006 policy statement, “China’s Africa Policy,” Beijing’s interest in the region translates into Chinese government and government-affiliated institutions investing billions of dollars in large-scale construction projects across the continent.
![President Jacob Zuma welcomes HE Mr Xi Jinping in South Africa, GovernmentZA's Creative Commons Flickr stream](https://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/sites/default/files/styles/275x168/public/uploads/jinping%20zuma.jpg?itok=ik54Avod)
A review of Howard French's book: China’s Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa.
China's foreign ministry has condemned the behaviour of some Chinese citizens in Africa following its ambassador to Tanzania giving an uncommonly frank newspaper interview in which he decried the "bad habits" of his compatriots. In the interview, Lu Xinsheng said Chinese businessmen smuggle ivory and rhino horns out of the country and flood local markets with counterfeit goods while contractors constantly try to undercut each other, resulting in shoddy infrastructure projects.
While it’s still unclear who shot down Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, killing nearly 300 people over eastern Ukraine, one thing is certain: A crisis that seemed abstract and far away to many Europeans has suddenly – and violently – hit close to home.
As tensions between Palestinians and Israelis remain high, there is a moment of hope in the middle of everything that is bleak: The father of a murdered Palestinian teenager was consoled by the uncle of a slain Israeli teenager. "We expressed our deep empathy with their sorrow, from one bereaved family to another bereaved family," said Yishai Fraenkel, the uncle of Naftali Fraenkel, one of three Israeli teenagers found dead after being abducted on June 12.
It might not be fashionable to spew racial slurs during the World Cup anymore (though they do on a near-continual basis), yet fans apparently feel it's okay to accuse the German team of being goose-stepping, Heil Hitler-ing Nazis. Especially when they score against team USA. This graphic from Regressing shows that during the Germany-U.S. game (which Germany won 1-0), plenty of people were thinking about the former country's murderous past: