The opening of Confucius Institutes this week in New York and Washington brings a key part of China's "soft power" initiative to the United States. On Tuesday, administrators at Columbia University will cut the ribbon to inaugurate the Confucius Institute at the Ivy League school in Manhattan. A day later, it will be George Washington University that does the honors, on a campus within walking distance of the US State Department and blocks away from the White House and Capitol Hill.

Americans are not allowed to go to Cuba for tourism but can obtain licences for academic, religious, journalistic or cultural exchange trips. The visit by the couple was authorised by the US Treasury Department and involved meeting Cuban artists and musicians, a children's theatre group, and going to several nightclubs where live music was performed.

Jet Tila has been appointed the first Culinary Ambassador of Thai Cuisine by the Royal Thai Consul-General in Los Angeles, tasked with spreading awareness nationwide and making official his unofficial -- and longstanding -- role as a guide to the cuisine. Tila was tapped for the position after a meeting with the Consul-General, who sought his feedback on promoting the cuisine last month. The chef's duties will include touring the United States on behalf of the Thai government, giving food demonstrations, making media appearances and coordinating events.

She was an unassuming young diplomat, only 25, who greeted journalists at the heavily fortified American Embassy gates in Kabul, escorting them to interviews and impressing them with her organization and her studied wish to build bridges between Afghan and American cultures.

As strangers lined up for white ribbons and American flags to show their support, family and friends of Anne Smedinghoff mourned the loss of a young diplomat who was determined to see the world — and possibly beyond. Her brother, Mark, recalled Monday talking to her after the U.S. landed a space probe on Mars last August and how excited she was about space travel.

The State Department, still reeling from the death of the U.S. ambassador to Libya last fall, on Sunday mourned a 25-year-old diplomat killed a day earlier on a mission with the U.S. military in southern Afghanistan. Five other Americans were killed in the same attack. Elsewhere in the country, a U.S. civilian adviser and several insurgents were killed in a clash Saturday in Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province. Afghan officials said that battle was followed by a U.S. airstrike that claimed the lives of 11 Afghan children.

Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara Sonenshine will travel to Russia, Ukraine, and Georgia April 8-16, 2013. In Moscow, Russia, April 8-11, Under Secretary Sonenshine will be the keynote speaker at the “Fulbright Program in Russia: 40th Anniversary of Successful Academic Exchanges” conference.

One of the key (but less remarked-upon) recommendations in Alex Oliver's policy brief The Consular Conundrum relates to the managing of public expectations for consular services, something New Zealand's MFAT – like DFAT and its political masters – has struggled to do.