The United States Informational and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, more commonly known at the Smith-Mundt Act, institutionalized the Voice of America and specified how the U.S. government could engage in public diplomacy.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is making the case against deep cuts in the international affairs budget, arguing that diplomats provide critical support to American businesses overseas. She said diplomats helped American businesses by promoting U.S. exports, negotiating trade agreements and fighting regulations and practices that discriminated against U.S. firms.

Just days after South Sudan achieved independence, the Chinese government has already established a vocational training program for welders in Juba. The establishment of a program to train welders suggests that China would like to reduce South Sudan's dependency on Sudanese infrastructure.

Part of Israel's strategy is an attempt to decouple our relations with other countries from our conflict with the Palestinians. Israel is signing agreements for academic exchanges and joint research with many nations, and has been accepted as a new member of CERN, the OECD of the scientific world.

Israel opened the traditional baptism site of Jesus to daily visits Tuesday, a move that required the cooperation of Israel’s military and the removal of nearby mines in the West Bank along the border with Jordan. Israel hopes the opening of the site will help draw Christian tourists, who have been coming to Israel in growing numbers in recent years.

Sports diplomacy. This term typically brings to mind images of athletes in action, engaging young and old on their field of play, sharing not only their prowess in sport, but their cultures and values. In Zimbabwe, American soccer player-turned-administrator Jon McCullough gave new meaning to sports diplomacy, trading in cleats for loafers, jerseys for business suits, and playbooks for PowerPoint.

More than 750 million people have a Facebook account and more than 200 million people use Twitter, but the EU’s European External Action Service (EEAS) has only 4,132 followers on Twitter and 1,774 ‘likes’ on Facebook. The EEAS, the EU’s main foreign policy group, has all the presence of an ant on social media compared to Barrack Obama, who has more than 9 million Twitter followers.