“When MasterChef kicked off here in India, there were some ­racial issues with people getting beaten up, taxi drivers and all the rest of it,” Mehigan said while signing plates. [...] when MasterChef started, it all turned around. It’s what embassy people call “soft diplomacy”...

MAP Director Khalil Hachimi Idrissi and some other executives of the news agency and Iran’s Deputy Culture Minister for Press Affairs Hossein Entezami announced the resumption of MAP activity during the meeting in Tehran on Tuesday. “The government has special regard for the development of media activity and also for a boost for media in private sector, because it deems media diplomacy one of the pillars of the public diplomacy,” Entezami said at the meeting.

If it wasn’t inevitable, the threat was clearly lurking on the horizon. And now, legislation that would eliminate the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) [...] and de-federalize the Voice of America (VOA) has been passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. Blowing up the Board and converting the 74-year-old VOA into a non-governmental entity, the kind of drastic reform which one congressional aide reportedly described as “the nuclear option,” is now on the table.

Christians and Muslims lived together for decades in Bambari, and throughout the Central African Republic. [...] “The radio hopes to be a kind of bridge over the river that could help people to be reconciled,” said Mathias Manirakiza, the Central African Republic director for Internews, the international media development nonprofit that helped the community establish the radio station.

China Daily's deputy editor-in-chief Kang Bing said Fairfax Media's presence in both Australia and New Zealand "means the influence of China Daily will be spread to cover the two most important countries in Oceania", adding that China's "soft power could drive the wheel of its friendship with Australia and New Zealand", according to quotes carried by the Chinese newspaper.