The United Nations is holding its first ever Social Media Day at its New York Headquarters today, in an event featuring social media professionals, digital diplomacy practitioners and academics who are sharing their experiences, discussing trends and proving insights into their work.

In the realm of influencing relations between nations, digital media has suddenly unpinned the power to communicate from the almost exclusive control of the state. Thanks to digital platforms such as social media, state actors must now compete with non-state actors for a voice in the international arena as well as for legitimacy in the eyes of the public—including their domestic one.

WHO welcomes the appointment of the new United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Tuberculosis (TB), Dr Eric P. Goosby, M.D. Dr Goosby’s extensive and high-level experience in global health and diplomacy give him the perfect background for this critical role. (...) WHO looks forward to working closely with Dr Goosby in our shared effort to raise the profile of the fight against TB and to attain the ambitious new targets agreed at last year’s World Health Assembly.

This week U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to India and Pakistan. Although there is little he can do to resolve long-standing tensions between these nuclear-armed neighbors, Kerry should take advantage of a recent development in Pakistan to reduce the near-term likelihood of war on the subcontinent.

Sanctions failed to achieve what dialogue, openness and cooperation, and examples of economic advancement – all forms of soft power – could and did instead.  So don’t count soft power out yet. It’s not dead.