he Honourable Ed Fast, Minister of International Trade, today welcomed the announcement by SkyPower Global that the company is donating 5,000 solar-powered lights to South African villages without electricity so children can have light for reading and writing. The announcement was made during Minister Fast's trade mission to South Africa. In its 2010 Integrated Resource Plan, South Africa identified the need for more power generation from renewable sources to meet its growing energy needs and also to reduce greenhouse gases.

Japan should expand its use of overseas development assistance by targeting new regions and projects and consider funding noncombat operations led by foreign military forces, a panel said Thursday in a report to Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida. If the recommendations are accepted in the upcoming review of the ODA charter, it would reverse Japan’s long-held principle of not funding foreign armed forces.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington blasted members of Congress forvoting to rename its street address after an imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate in what was a clear -- if somewhat juvenile -- attempt to needle Beijing for its human rights record.

For half a century now, America's best diplomatic tool has been its music.  Embassies overseas still want American musicians to come for diplomatic reasons. But these days they're not asking for jazz — they're asking for hip-hop.

The World Cup offers something of a free kick for soccer diplomacy, which some observers say U.S. President Barack Obama is failing to capitalize on.  While many nations, from Germany to Russia, are sending their leaders to Brazil to make a diplomatic appearance, Obama is staying home.

Turkey's massive soft power has rapidly evaporated as Ankara attempted to impose its values on others.  Due to its soft power, every actor in the Middle East -- Sunnis and Shiites, autocratic regimes and pro-reform critics, Israel and Palestinians -- trusted Ankara's integrity.

The Scottish Development International (SDI), the trade and investment arm of the Scottish Government, announced the launch of its campaign ‘Scotland Welcomes the World’, in collaboration with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) in Mumbai. 

U.S. foreign policy is failing.  Russia is pushing into Ukraine and threatening Eastern Europe; China is bullying Japan, the Philippines, and Vietnam in the East and South China seas; and terrorist groups in the Middle East and Africa are displaced from one place, only to multiply and create more lethal threats in others.