It is no small measure that cultural and sport diplomacy combined could be a very powerful tool for Namibia. Currently, there is no integrated tourism strategy looking at all aspects of marketing Namibia as a destination of choice - except the usual rhetoric around dunes, wildlife and pristine environment.

Vice Minister of Education Hao Ping told the closing ceremony of "Chinese Language Year" on Thursday that the 19-month-long program had played an important role in strengthening the ties between China and France. He hoped efforts would be maintained and he encouraged more student exchanges in the future.

Stephanie Stallings recently suggested that creative collaboration is a useful model for cultural diplomacy. She is definitely onto something. Circumstances have changed around the work of diplomacy. Publics are now much less distant, more assertive, and actively engaged participants in the making of their encompassing cultural worlds.

Turkish Airlines has become the world's fastest growing airline company. Its CEO, Temel Kotil, explained toEuropolitics why Istanbul is Europe's natural hub for passengers heading to Asia and Africa. The tender for the construction of the city's huge third airport was published on 24 January in theOfficial Gazette of the Republic of Turkey .

My job involves a high amount of communication with both internal and external actors from all spheres, thus consistent and thorough communication is an essential tool for good planning and successful organisation of activities. Although we primarily use a wide range of official communication tools, in the digital era, the input and coverage that can be reached via social media should by no means be neglected. The use of online instruments is gradually becoming an indispensable part of modern diplomacy.

Today, with the arrival of 12 young female basketball players and two coaches from Senegal, the U.S. Department of State launched its first Empowering Women and Girls Through Sports Initiative program of the year. This initiative engages women and girls from every region of the world, ranging from Brazil to Iraq to Liberia to Thailand to Venezuela, to name a few participating countries.

The new Turkish ambassador to Canada says his country’s interest in gaining admittance to the European Union has waned among members of the public but it shouldn’t. He said Turkey is Western in view and the EU is the “personification of that.”

Soft power, a concept conceived by Havard University Professor Joseph Nye, is the ability to attract, convince and include others through persuasion rather than force or other means. Football has a special place in South Africa as the sport of the everyman. While cricket and rugby are two sports still dominated by the country's white community, football was the game that took deep root within the black majority.