public diplomacy

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. 

Yu Hyun-seok, president of the Korea Foundation, deplores the reality of Korean public diplomacy, citing the government’s lack of recognition in the importance of and investment in U.S. think tanks that have growing significance. 

Today we take for granted that information warfare — whether the disruption of other nations’ computer systems, the monitoring of citizens’ telephone calls to detect terrorist threats or the use of social media to shape foreign attitudes — is a key tool of national security. But virtually all our concerns about such tactics find their roots in the Great War, particularly in its first hours, when the Alert’s hatchet-wielding crew began its work.

Ethiopian Ambassadors and Consul generals, who gathered for the annual Ambassadorial meeting, participated on the Tigrai Diaspora day festival in Mekelle. 

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