“With nearly one billion tourists crossing international borders, tourism is one of the best way for people to experience, interact with and learn from new cultures. This cultural exchange spurs dialogue among nations and peoples, fostering mutual understanding, respect and ultimately, peace,”

“International travel is vital to the United States, as it provides important opportunities to improve economic competitiveness, strengthen national security and advance public diplomacy...India is a dynamic, burgeoning travel market, and we look forward to continuing to build relationships.."

Sport is a gigantic and powerful medium for the international spread of information, reputations and relationships that are the essence of public diplomacy. The money spent world-wide on sport dwarfs what any government spends on public diplomacy. The size of the global audiences for sport and the audience’s level of interest exceed those of any other subject matter, including political news and the movies. The nature of sport—in its human striving for excellence and in its competition, its winners and losers—carries its own messages.

Aid organisations need to be careful that in boasting of (or inflating) achievements in Mogadishu, rather than highlighting massive humanitarian failings across Somalia, they do not become inadvertent allies in a grand deception.

For the first time the U.S. State Department has placed three international fellows in an LGBT organization as a part of a newly launched professional development program...Luis Melgarejo from Bolivia, Tovian Estella Nelson from Liberia, and Sam Muhumuza from Uganda....

So goes one of the fundamental laws of physics. In the face of recent "actions" in the West -- economic crisis and rampant Islamophobia, there is an inexorable "reaction", as the eternal values of Islam continue to manifest themselves.