public diplomacy

Cultural exchange and commercial transactions between whalers, traders and missionaries, and island women, have been occurring since the 18th and 19th centuries. Food, water and commodities were often exchanged for female companionship. In 1962, the changed status of Guam's security clearance requirements, and the budding tourism industry, spurred the striptease industry.

The most forward-looking companies increasingly use their own "smart power" partnerships with international development agencies and NGOs as a way of opening markets. While a country uses smart power when it intelligently combines hard military power with soft...

To mark the 50th anniversary of the African Union - formerly the Organisation of African Unity, BBC World Service listeners suggested the African songs that summed up the continent to them.

A Japanese contemporary art exhibition themed ‘Yayoi Kusama- Obsessions’ will be held at the Japan Foundation Center for Cultural Exchange in Hanoi from May 25-July 28 to mark Japan-Vietnam Friendship Year 2013.

As Barack Obama gave a speech defending the US use of drone attacks abroad, Pakistanis talked back on Twitter. On Thursday, the US president addressed criticism of his administration's use of drones in counterterrorism policy and proposed new policy guidelines for strikes.

The trip should consolidate U.S. partnerships not just with these three nations, but send a message that a new form of engagement with the United States is now possible. The days of U.S. hegemony in the Western Hemisphere are over, and a president and vice president no longer travel with a packet of aid.

The Arab Spring was not about creating utopia, nor indeed quick-fix solutions to anything in particular. It was about articulating the massive problems holding the Arab world back, and putting them out to a global audience.

As Obama pointed out in his speech, drones do an incredibly effective job of killing America's adversaries, do not violate the laws of war, and -- a fact he didn't adduce -- enjoy the overwhelming support of the American people. Obama was reacting to public opinion -- but less in the United States than in Pakistan or Yemen. And the fact that this is so tells us a great deal about the changing face or war, and of statecraft.

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