Cilliers said after the election that Dlamini-Zuma’s candidacy for the AU seat was pursued with such valour in order to facilitate South Africa’s greater campaign for permanent representation on the UN Security Council. “The South African campaign for a permanent seat on the Security Council is particularly important to (DIRCO) Minister Maite Nkonae-Mashabane,” he explained.

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.

They say a photo is worth a thousand words. Perhaps presidents Obama and Putin never heard of that expression. It is rare to the point of being unknown when the last time was that two world leaders showed such obvious mutual dislike of each other.

But the crown prince and princess too are part of the soft power strategy of Spain. That was why they were in New York, part of a quiet tour of the U.S. northeast.... in the party in the Cervantes institute were a select audience susceptible to their brand of royalty: prominent leaders of the Hispanic community in the U.S., an audience well aware of their own historical links to Spain on various levels...

Digital diplomacy can be defined as the use of social networks by states and civil society to further foreign policy goals and influence public opinion, and the AFP e-diplomacy hub shows this in real-time, collating tweets from heads of state and government, diplomats, experts, foreign correspondents and activists from more than 150 countries.

The app displays the most-used hashtags, measures an individual’s influence (think Klout), and maps the relationships between these important figures. The e-diplomacy hub is an effective way to show which figures are talking about what issues, and where these public diplomatic dialogues are taking place.

The world’s media focused on the atrocities of the Syrian conflict prior to Euro 2012 – and how quickly, it would appear, that we have forgotten the suffering of others just because we are watching another TV channel...Could we now be described as being subjects of ‘compassion fatigue’..?