And silky smooth, Rolls Royce bureaucrats, honed in the dark arts of diplomacy, but who have never been near a business in their lives, mutter menacingly about the threat to the economy if we were excluded from the Single Market. Of course, it may be possible to be outside the EU but still in the Single Market, like Norway, or outside both but enjoying most of the benefits, like Switzerland.

The USC Center on Public Diplomacy is now accepting applications for its rigorous professional training program, which runs from July 21 - August 2.

Re-Framing & Re-Imagining the American Brand Abroad

Nigeria’s Nollywood is the third largest film industry worldwide...Nollywood has not even recognized how powerful she is becoming, for Nollywood poses a business threat to Hollywood especially in Africa and developing nations. What Nollywood did in Africa and beyond was to displace Hollywood by telling the stories average Africans can identify with and not some tinseltown stories that are quite far away from African experience and cultural make-up.

It is no small measure that cultural and sport diplomacy combined could be a very powerful tool for Namibia. Currently, there is no integrated tourism strategy looking at all aspects of marketing Namibia as a destination of choice - except the usual rhetoric around dunes, wildlife and pristine environment.

Vice Minister of Education Hao Ping told the closing ceremony of "Chinese Language Year" on Thursday that the 19-month-long program had played an important role in strengthening the ties between China and France. He hoped efforts would be maintained and he encouraged more student exchanges in the future.

Stephanie Stallings recently suggested that creative collaboration is a useful model for cultural diplomacy. She is definitely onto something. Circumstances have changed around the work of diplomacy. Publics are now much less distant, more assertive, and actively engaged participants in the making of their encompassing cultural worlds.

The launch of Africa Weekly by the China Daily in December is the latest move by a Chinese state media company to expand on the continent. In April 2011, the Xinhua news agency partnered with a Kenyan network operator to provide news for mobile phones. That was followed nine months later by CCTV Africa in Nairobi, the first broadcast hub to be established by China Central Television (CCTV) outside Beijing.