Actor Joel Edgerton and director George Miller will receive honorary awards in Los Angeles for their contribution to Australia's reputation in film. [...] Miller will receive a lifetime achievement award for his commitment to creative industries in Australia and his reputation as a filmmaker, especially the Mad Max series.

America’s money and public diplomacy have opened conversations and opportunities in societies where the subject was taboo just a few years ago. But they have also made gay men and lesbians more visible — and more vulnerable to harassment and violence, people on both sides of the gay rights issue contend. 

Speaking at a conference chaired by Senator Sherry Rehman titled ‘The Road to 2016: Negotiating Deadlock and Diplomacy with India and Afghanistan’, participants discussed Jinnah Institute’s Track II diplomacy efforts for building sustained channels of bilateral and multilateral engagements and for offering alternative recommendations on regional policy issues.

The tiny café was set for an event: Chairs were arranged in a semi-circle, and on each table were plates of pie and cheesecake. [...] The guest of honor, Elias Zananiri, had made the trip from Ramallah on behalf of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as part of recent initiative by Palestinian officials to hold parlor meetings with Israelis.

From my point of view, U.S. soft power diplomacy, like IVLP helped the country in the long term, by empowering future leaders and tempering the perceptions of its past and present. When change took root in South Africa, especially after Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in 1990, cadres had already been formed and were ready to take up the political, economic and social direction of the country.

Recently, we analyzed the mediated public diplomacy efforts of Angola in the United States. To facilitate this analysis, we content analyzed American news coverage (by examining The Wall Street Journal and USA Today) from 2008 to 2015, as well as press releases from the Angolan embassy website, dating back to 2011. While the initial goal was to examine how CPD fellow Dr. Jami Fullerton’s Model of Country Concept might apply to a developing African nation, our findings also offered insights and suggestions for CPD’s research initiatives relating to Global Youth and Evaluation.

Bernard- Henri Lévy is precisely the kind of target that Israeli public diplomacy efforts should be focused on – far more so than any incumbent politician, especially outside the USA. After all, it is unelected “intellectual elites” who have definitive impact in determining the substance and style of the international discourse on the Arab-Israel conflict. Since it is this discourse that molds political decision- makers’ perceptions of their policy constraints and alternatives, this confers on these elites decisive – albeit indirect – influence on the policy choices adopted.

Although the world recently lost a legend, “Marvelous” Mal Whitfield, his legacy of spreading global goodwill through sports lives on. As the State Department continues to reach new audiences through sports diplomacy, it is important to look back to those who first strengthened relations between the United States and other nations through sports.