When Tom Schieffer was U.S. ambassador in Australia and then Japan, he found that a little-noticed program that placed American art in embassies was one of the best diplomatic investments he made.

"I will definitely keep my promise to open a new era of the Korean peninsula through strong security and diplomacy on the basis of mutual trust," the 60-year old conservative leader said. During the campaign, both Park and her main challenger Moon Jae-in offered competing commitment to improve ties with Pyongyang and its new leader Kim Jong-un.

Kerry, meanwhile, said America's diplomatic corps should receive additional resources. But he stressed that embassies should not be turned into fortresses that isolate diplomats from the countries where they're working.

In a statement released by his office, the Israeli Premier said “we are [operating] on four fronts: The military front, the home front, the diplomatic front and the public diplomacy front”, as he continued to stress: “What you are doing greatly strengthens us on the public diplomacy front.”

The report, by a five-strong Accountability Review Board (ARB), also called for $2.3 billion in extra funding over the next 10 years to fortify and improve some of America’s 275 diplomatic outposts around the world. “It’s no understatement that our diplomats are on the front lines of the world’s most dangerous places,” Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee said.

News reports say Sen. John Kerry (D) will be tapped for State while former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, a moderate Republican, may be headed for the Pentagon. If so, this would suggest a return to Mr. Obama’s attempts early in his first presidency to engage America’s adversaries abroad rather than isolate or harm them.

Brazil enjoyed one of the biggest jumps in this year’s soft power survey, marking the end of an impressive year for the country. While Brazil is now well-established as one of the world’s leading economies, a main player on the global stage and one of the all-powerful BRIC nations, it’s impressive spike on the soft power survey indicated that it is also having a very real effect on the culture of the world.

An investigation into the State Department's preparations for and management of the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, has concluded that "systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies" within the department played a major role in the devastation that took place there last September.