The secret to successful public diplomacy for a state may sound like a surreptitious potion whose recipe lies with the magicians. However, it is the art of devising and executing strategies, just in the accurate proportion, to transform the way the local and international public perceives a certain state. So, where does this recipe come from? It comes from the human mind.

Australia has agreed to a U.S. request to help fly arms and munitions to Kurdish Peshmerga fighters battling Islamic State insurgents in northern Iraq, joining a coalition being assembled by Washington to mount what Prime Minister Tony Abbott called "humanitarian missions."  

As Iraqi Kurdish president Massoud Barzani asked legislators to prepare for an independence referendum Thursday, dozens of Kurds in the region's capital Erbil rallied in support, waving flags and chanting slogans of freedom and independence.