There are no I  [❤]  North Korea bumper stickers, no shot glasses with North Korean city names. But imagine a reality where the 69-year-old totalitarian state was a free and open country that welcomed tourists to frolic in its streets. This improbable reverie inspired the Swedish design agency Snask to create a ready-to-use nation brand identity kit, complete with a new North Korean flag brandishing a message of love.

Ahead of youth month, Brand South Africa has partnered with the Sunday Times Generation Next to host this year’s youth marketing conference. The conference looks at youth brand preference and consumer behavior and explores how the youth can drive growth in local brands. This partnership is in line with Brand South Africa’s domestic objective of promoting and championing programmes that enhance the Nation Brand. 

Tourism is a key foreign exchange earner in East Africa. Rwanda, which is still heavily dependent on foreign aid after the 1994 genocide tore the nation apart, has been seeking to boost the sector. Tourism generated $404 million from 1.3 visitors in 2016, and revenues are expected to climb 14 percent to 460 million in 2017.

Ryomyong St is the third prestige project in as many years in the North Korean capital, and by far the largest, said to have nearly 5,000 apartments, which according to authorities will be distributed free to deserving citizens. Its name translates as “illumination” and the official KCNA news agency described it as “an icon of modern street architecture and a fairyland representing the era of the Workers’ Party”.

Much has been made of Japan’s recent turn away from pacifism and growing military muscle, but Tokyo is also extending its global reach in more subtle ways. Japan is especially serious about increasing its soft power, the ability to win over global partners with cultural and diplomatic affinity rather than coercion and sheer heft.

A high-profile media forum to be held in Dubai next week will feature an Arab News panel discussion examining the region’s image abroad. [...] A report titled “The Arab Image in the US” will be unveiled at the event. It is based on an exclusive survey of how the American public views the Arab world, conducted in partnership between Arab News, the Dubai Press Club and research and polling specialist YouGov.

Over the past decade, Sweden’s public diplomacy has been quick to affirm the low-hanging fruit of cosmopolitan global public opinion, which might be summarized as the belief that Sweden could well be the most fairly organized society in the world. It is the country that, according to the Good Country Index, makes the most prolific contribution to the global commons. Its feminist foreign policy is currently making waves at the UN Security Council.