Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday morning pushed for an increase in coordination between government agencies focused on development and foreign aid, saying “If we don’t better coordinate and integrate what we’re doing, we won’t get the biggest impact.”

In September, StandWithUs (having raised funds for the project through Jewcer) brought to Israel 10 of the world’s top Instagram users to take inspiring, fun photos of daily life in the country. Here’s Part 2 of our “best of” series of selections.

More than 200 Russian-speaking young Jews who are living in Western Europe gathered in the Netherlands for a Jewish Agency conference about Israel. Participants in last week's four-day conference, which the Jewish Agency co-organized with Israel's Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Ministry, participated in workshops on “fighting the de-legitimization of Israel.”

The Confucius Institute at Liberia University, which was jointly established by Changsha University of Science & Technology in China and the Liberian government, through the University of Liberia (UL) nearly 4 years ago , has made some landmark achievements in the area of cultural exchange program.

Following news last week that Andrew W.K. -- America's self-declared unofficial King of Partying -- would be visiting Manama, Bahrain, as a cultural ambassador to participate in a cultural exchange, the U.S. Department of State has rescinded its offer... Plans for Andrew W.K. to visit the Middle East country were first announced on his website, where he drew a parallel to mid-20th century's American Jazz Ambassadors.

Monocle may call it 'soft power', but there's nothing soft about the economic dividends that sharing culture can bring. Our own 10 Country British Council research shows that sharing English, education, and culture helps build trust for the UK worldwide, and that trust translates into people worldwide wanting to study in the UK, visit, and do business with us for mutual benefit.

The United Kingdom has been given the world’s top rating by the international magazine Monocle for its use of Soft Power... The magazine singles out everything from Harry Potter to the new James Bond movie to give Britain its top ranking. By contrast it says the United States has slipped from number one because of an introspective year caused by internal politics and the US elections.

Earlier this month we took a look at what Hu Jintao’s political report to the 18th National Congress had to say about cultural policy in China — specifically, the focus on building China as a “socialist cultural power” (社会主义文化强国) to offset perceived Western cultural dominance. A report in today’s People’s Daily summarizes the discussion...