“Communications technology has dramatically democratized the process of gaining a public audience,” said journalist and former military analyst Joshua Foust at a Washington forum on digital diplomacy.

China will almost certainly pass the United States in the total size of its economy within a decade or so. But if one looks also at military and "soft power" resources, the United States is likely to remain more powerful than China for at least the next few decades. Does it matter?

Heavily consisting of university students and women, they include leftists, liberals, secular nationalists, and small but novel groups such as secular and Islamist feminists, vocal groups of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) activists, and "anti-capitalist Muslims." They rely on the "soft power" of arts, humor, and the Internet. Their main ally that has the "hard power" of mobilizing large numbers ready to challenge the leviathan-like police seems to be the so-called "Carsi," a vocal and politicized group of soccer fans.

Big Brother – and millions of television viewers - will be watching every move of a group of outgoing, yet house-bound South Africans again in January 2014. M-Net announced that its proudly local brand, Mzansi Magic, will produce another South African edition of Big Brother, and this time the show will aptly be called Big Brother Mzansi.

At the official launch of the Qatar UK 2013 cultural programme in December, the talk was of mutual understanding of Arab Islamic and Anglo-Saxon cultures, building bridges between the two nations, and aims of long-term partnerships in the fields of education, sport, science and the creative industries.

The Empowering Women and Girls through Sports Initiative aims to increase the number of women and girls involved in sports. From June 17- 27, the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) will bring ten teenage field hockey players and two female coaches from Pakistan to the United States for an international sports exchange. This program builds on the U.S. global commitment to advance the rights of women and girls around the world.

We saw how well the concept worked in Cairo at a critical time in Egypt's history, and we hope to be equally effective here. The partnership emerges from the core mission of the Open Hands Initiative, a non-profit organization that supports unique projects around the world that promote what its founder and chairman Jay Snyder calls "people to people diplomacy." Snyder, a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist, is a passionate practitioner and generous supporter of public diplomacy who will join us later in the journey.

As Israel engages in a tumultuous debate over what to do about African migrants, other conversations, more personal and friendly, are taking place between Israelis and asylum seekers. As part of a social art project called Sihot Mitbah (Kitchen Talks), which takes place every weekend in Tel Aviv, African migrants give cooking workshops to groups of curious Israelis.