Interest in China is a recurrent theme in Latin America...Close ties specifically with the Asian giant are encouraged not only by Colombia’s status as a rising world power, but also by China’s use of “soft power.”

I bring a personal history as a problem-solver and an effective manager...I will approach the U.S. Mission in China in much the same way, looking for ways to engage in public diplomacy that work best to get our message across to the Chinese government and out to the Chinese people.

McHale's most valuable contribution may have been to structurally reinforce public diplomacy within the State Department...she took a big step toward increasing the centrality of public diplomacy in American foreign policy.

Why did Mr Obama risk stirring such bad blood between his administration and Israel’s, to no apparent diplomatic gain and at a time when the pro-Israeli lobby in America, already in pre-election mode, still wields so much clout?

When Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt couldn't reach his counterpart in Bahrain by traditional means of communication, he turned to Twitter...Many politicians and diplomats worldwide have already embraced social media as a tool to communicate with the public...

What had been a challenge to US power is now a "historic opportunity", as Barack Obama put it in his Middle East speech last week. But he does not mean an opportunity for the people who have risen up; it is a chance for Washington to fashion the region's present and future, just as it did its past.

Ambassador Menha Bakhoum, head of media and public diplomacy for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, told CNN, “The Egyptian government decided to open the Rafah border to give relief to the people of Gaza permanently.

Paying homage to history, Obama saluted the English for developing the rule of law and the rights of citizens, values that he said inspired the United States and set a model for the world. With allied powers, he said, they built the modern global order.