Kyodo News has launched a fully redesigned website for its English-language service as part of efforts to strengthen its multilingual and multimedia services... The Kyodo News English-language service covers developments around the globe 24 hours a day, with a particular focus on Japan and the Asia-Pacific region.

In July 2010, the Ministry of External Affairs sent its first ‘tweet’ through its official Twitter account, thus pulling India into the age of digital diplomacy. Despite being an information technology powerhouse, India is a late entrant in using tools of e-diplomacy...it is an apt moment to reflect on changes affecting the country’s diplomatic representation abroad. The basic change relates to the backdrop of India’s rising stock in the world.

Facing square-on the ethical dilemmas that arise in times of conflict, Israeli experts shared their vast experience providing humanitarian aid at home and abroad with 65 medical students and activists from 25 countries.

India has widened its security crackdown, asking all companies that provide encrypted communications - not just BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion - to install servers in the country to make it easier for the government to obtain users' data. That would likely affect digital giants like Google and Skype.

It's one thing to maintain ruthless control over an oppressed citizenry. But quite something else to tweet about it well. In today's Davos-driven geopolitics, even authoritarian leaders need to be savvy about public relations. That's why even the toughest leaders are all up on the Internet; they use Twitter to craft their images without the hassle and noise of competing parties or media bias.

[Rik] Panganiban is assistant director of the Online Leadership Program for Global Kids, which for four years has relied on the Teen Grid to educate urban youth from around the world about such topics as racism, the genocide in Darfur, child trafficking, public diplomacy, and the digital divide, in collaboration with UNICEF, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Youth Ventures, and more.

Up until last year, according to a report in the New York Times, the US State Department was still doing things the traditional way: through diplomatic cables, official communiqués and government to government transactions involving diplomats travelling to other countries to negotiate agreements.

Peace talks beginning today in Washington between Israelis and Palestinians will prompt the use of the new accounts to communicate events and news from the talks. Although Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office has had an official website for some time Netanyahu apparently realizes the benefits of using social networking sites to get his message across more widely.