On October 14, the U.S. departments of the Treasury and Commerce also released a sixth set of regulatory amendments to the Cuba sanctions program. These amendments make it easier to engage in authorized travel and business with Cuba [...] “I believe in the Cuban people. This is not just a policy of normalizing relations with the Cuban government. The United States of America is normalizing relations with the Cuban people,” the president said.

Eight Pakistani women visiting Los Angeles County for a women’s empowerment trip and cultural exchange funded by the U.S. State Department will be in Pasadena on Thursday, July 21, to take part in a panel discussion about “Creating Urban Green Spaces: From California to Islamabad.”

Soft power – broadly a country’s ability to persuade other nations to cooperate without recourse to force – has long been a tool of Western foreign policy,  but in recent years Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has introduced his own much less benign variant of the initiative. 

How is democracy promoted around the world? What techniques are successful? Established state democracies are by no means the only inspiration for democracy or for good governance; these ideas can find inspiration in other cultures and societies, such as Myanmar.

During a meeting with the visiting group on Sunday, Presidential Assistant Ibrahim Mahmoud Hamid praised relations between Germany and Sudan and pointed to the important role of public diplomacy to strengthening these relations.