The massive gathering of nearly 50 African heads of state and government in Washington allowed top U.S. officials to broker deals between American companies and African dignitaries, as well as press privately for action on security and human rights concerns. And at a time when Europe and major economies such as China are expanding their foothold in Africa, the conference gave the United States a chance to reinforce its long-standing connection to the continent.

If the United States hopes to maintain a level of influence in the world commensurate with its economic and military strength, it must modernize and dramatically improve some of its soft-power foreign policy tools. Many of those tools have proven ineffective, and fail to reflect the transformational changes in the past two decades prompted by technology, connectivity, and global markets.

The European Union (EU) has invested €4.6million to establish six EU Centres across Australia and New Zealand for the 2014-2016 period. The EU Centres, co-funded by their host universities, include a wide variety of partners from all sectors of the community. "This is the largest public outreach program for the EU in Australia and New Zealand and expands the existing network from four to six centres", said EU Ambassador to Australia and New Zealand, Mr Sem Fabrizi. 

Public diplomacy means local community education in underdeveloped countries where disease is a stigma and reporting on issues like Ebola is poor. Ebola is now a front-page story and a social media phenomenon.  Let us use that momentum to demand support to create effective village- and community-based education in Africa, Latin America and other places where diseases go unreported.

Japan imposed new sanctions against Russia on Tuesday that were more limited than those announced last month by the United States, a move that analysts said illustrates Tokyo’s conflicting desires to show solidarity with Washington while also keeping the door open to improving ties with Moscow.

One of the nice things about being the most powerful person in the world is that people give you presents. It's unlikely that gifts from foreign countries do much to sway American diplomacy, but foreign visitors bestowing cumbersome or weird gifts is almost certainly one of the more entertaining parts of President Obama's job. 

US secretary of state John Kerry invoked Prime Minister Narendra Modi's election tag line 'Sabka saath sabka vikas' at a Washington think-tank meeting before his India visit last week. While this may have been good diplomacy, investors and brand marketers are also trying to convey a greater cultural affinity.