Clark, who led the campaign to drive Serbian forces from Kosovo in 1999 and is now the chairman of a Canadian energy company called Envidity, was responding to questions regarding the outfit’s desire to turn Kosovo’s estimated 14 billion tonnes of coal deposits into synthetic diesel fuel.

Last week, the Pew Research Center released its annual survey of European attitudes to America. While anti-Americanism has declined in Europe, a large "values gap" remains between Europeans and Americans. Meanwhile, anti-Americanism in the rest of the world seems actually to have increased since 2009, with confidence in President Obama noticeably down, especially in Muslim countries. Will America's reputation and influence abroad improve under Barack Obama's second term?

I am delighted to spend some time this afternoon outlining how and why we gauge the effectiveness of our PD programs, talk about evaluation strategies, and lay out statistics. But first, I want to share an experience I had in Bosnia Herzegovina last week. I tell you this because few things are more compelling than looking our program alumni in the eye, and talking to them face to face about their very personal experiences in the U.S.

The year 2012 has seen leadership change in several nations--including the United States, China, Russia and France, with Japan set to hold a general election on Dec. 16--and these transitions could have a major bearing on international relations and the global economy in 2013 and beyond.

Israel held a four-day conference aimed at giving young Russian-speaking Jewish communal leaders in Europe a training in social media that should enable them to promote the country’s image and to reverse anti-Israeli attitudes. The conference, held on November 21-25 in Maastricht, Holland, was organized by the Jewish Agency for Israel, and the Ministry for Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs.

The European Patent Office is a great European success that should be seen not only as a centre for patent granting excellence, but also as a means of generating European soft power across the world. So says the office’s current president Benoît Battistelli.

The European Film Festival activities were launched yesterday at a press conference hosted at the European Union Delegation. The festival brings together more than 14 countries with 20 films from England, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Switzerland, Sweden, Holland, Italy, Poland, Austria and Sudan.