city diplomacy
In early February, 7 USC Master of Public Diplomacy students embarked for São Paulo, Brazil. We arrived with just a day to get acclimated to the city before our meetings began on Monday. As students of diplomacy, the logical choice for a research trip to Brazil might be Brasilia. As the capital, it hosts the country's diplomatic corps and would certainly make a worthy case study of how diplomacy works in Brazil. While traditional diplomacy will always be worth pursuing, we are not going to Brazil to study it.
Each year the second year students in the USC Master of Public Diplomacy program select a location abroad to conduct new research that can further the study and practice of public diplomacy. This year, the Class of 2014 selected Sao Paulo, Brazil for its unique position in world politics. Brazil is currently transitioning from a regional and hemispheric power to a global one.
Jessica Lopez, a four-year old with a shy smile, has suffered severe chronic asthma attacks since she was born. Her condition always worsened in the fall, when dust rose up from the abandoned fields that bordered her family’s modest one-room house.
What makes a city "cool"? If it means being loaded with atmosphere, charm, great food and nightlife, yet ignored by the bulk of travelers, then Lisbon deserves consideration as Europe's coolest capital. Here's why.
The southern French port city of Marseille has taken a bad rap for years. It’s known for thefts, violence and organized crime. But the city had a chance in 2013 to clean up its act, by being Europe’s rotating Capital of Culture for the year. The title means money from Europe to spiff up and boost local arts. Apparently it helped bring in more tourists. But the jury is out on whether Marseille is safer now, and whether local artists benefited from all the hoopla.
The city’s economic development committee has decided not to consider putting together a bid to host the Olympics in 2024, but left the door open for the 2025 World Expo. According to a staff report, the cost of a competitive Expo bid will be at least $10 million and it will cost at least $1 million to get through some of the initial pre-bid preparation work.
In prosperous Hong Kong, arts and culture are commodities, with institutions increasingly blurring the lines between retail spaces and galleries. Yet despite being the third largest auction market in the world, the city is lambasted, often and loudly, for its lack of sophistication and cultural vacuity. Therein lies the cultural paradox: its focus on big hits and big profits doesn't always create fertile ground for homegrown talent.
Are China’s leaders destined to ask each other, “Who lost Hong Kong?” It’s a question worth pondering after a holiday week that offered a stark reminder of just how restless -- if not unhappy -- a sizable percentage of the former colony’s residents are under Chinese rule, 17 years after the end of British sovereignty. Of course, nobody seriously entertains the idea of a political schism between Hong Kong and China.