Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy of NATO, Ambassador Kolinda Grabar, gave a talk on NATO and Public Diplomacy activities to young Turkish diplomats who recently joined the Ministry and attending basic and preparative training program, on 13 December 2012.

Canada and Israel took another step forward to strengthen bilateral relations by signing an agreement to jointly foster economic and social development in the developing world. The pact was signed last week in Ottawa by Margaret Biggs, the president of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and Daniel Carmon, director of Israel’s Agency for International Development Cooperation (Mashav).

Last weekend I partied in Romania. I had been invited there by a game developer, eRepublik, to attend an event celebrating the fifth anniversary of their game (also called eRepublik). eRepublik is one of my favourite consulting clients, so I was happy to be invited to participate in the festivities in downtown Bucharest and see what they had been up to.

The goal of the author of Citizen Ambassadors of Nigeria is to bring to the forefront a theory called track two diplomacy by which non-officials like businessmen, academics, retired civil and military officials, public figures, and social activists engage in ambassadorial works targeted at improving the image of a country.

Shasta County Board of Supervisors started its day in Redding (California, USA) with Hindu prayers on December four for the first time since its 1850 creation, containing verses from world’s oldest existing scripture.

This past Thanksgiving break, Ben Hubley ’15 traveled to China to compete in the 5th Chinese Bridge Competition, a Chinese proficiency contest for foreign high school students, held in Kunming City. Out of 104 contestants from 45 countries between the ages of 15 and 20, Hubley placed third in the individual competition after a student from Singapore placed first and a student from Russia placed second.

The India-China “battle for Buddha” has now reached Myanmar, with New Delhi sponsoring an International Conference on Buddhist Cultural Heritage in Yangon over the weekend, while Beijing has since last year been trying to leverage the legacy of “Shakya Muni” to connect with the religious majority in its south-western neighbour.

Yangon: It was a day of religious diplomacy by India as External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on Saturday inaugurated a three-day international conference on Buddhism followed by unveiling of a 15-foot statue of Gautam Buddha.