This groundbreaking event brought together live studio audiences and government officials in Kabul and Islamabad to discuss the way forward for Afghanistan and Pakistan as the U.S. prepares to withdraw its troops in 2014, as well as the role Pakistan should play in the reconciliation process.

For 67 years Radio Canada International broadcast short wave programming around the world... Radio Canada International has had its budget cut by 80 per cent and has been reduced to a few staff and a weak web presence.... Unlike the Internet which can often be disrupted short wave signals cannot easily be jammed. Many in the world just have no access to phones or electricity let alone the Internet.

This past week, the Iraqi Communications and Media Commission ordered the closure of 44 foreign and domestic media outlets in the country. Among them was the Voice of America, a U.S.-run news organization and quite possibly our biggest public diplomacy tool.

The difference in budgets is not the most disproportionate ratio. That would have to go to the sheer number of Chinese journalists allowed visas to work in the United States compared with the number that U.S. state-sponsored press receive from China.

Just back from Burma where Voice of America last week signed a breakthrough agreement with Myanmar State Radio, the Office of Strategy and Development’s Doug Boynton reflects on the change…

Lydia Dennett: "One concern is that the origin of the propaganda for foreign audiences might not be known to the domestic recipient. Might this loosening of the ban on propaganda be a slippery slope?"

The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) plan to merge the grantee-surrogate broadcasters into one large administrative structure is meeting with a strong opposition among both management and employees of Radio Free Asia (RFA) as a killer of effective journalism, efficient management and good labor relations.