What started as a partnership that took root between Montgomery County and El Salvador last summer is bearing fruit in the form of continued efforts to foster cultural understanding and spur educational and economic outreach.

Amy Zalman recently proposed that “soft power” – as a conceptual frame for understanding global politics – is too narrow and has outlived its usefulness. Her provocation generated fruitful responses and suggests that we might be ready to stop treading water and move beyond our decade-long fixation with the term to new and more constructive places.

Iran, which already has a firewall blocking many Western websites, says it's restricting access to Google's email service and search engine. A government deputy minister announced the ban Sunday on state television, the BBC reported. The restriction follow protests in the Muslim world, including some in Iran, against an anti-Islamic film posted on Google's video-sharing site YouTube.

Obama's comments to the General Assembly will be scrutinized around the globe and by the gathering of presidents and prime ministers in the famed United Nations hall, given the tumult, terrorism, nuclear threats and poverty that bind so many nations. He will respond to unrest in the Muslim world and seek to underscore U.S. resolve in keeping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

Painting artists in the country have been provided with an opportunity to develop their career in Iran, following an exchange program initiated by the Far East nation..."Our goal is to establish an exchange relationship drawing artists, between Tanzania and Iran so that they can learn and exchange the customs and cultures of their respective countries. "

Minister of Public Diplomacy Yuli Edelstein told students and young professionals not to blame reporters for Israel’s poor image at a conference on media and hasbarah at Ariel University earlier this month...Edelstein also urged citizens to take an active role in Israel’s public diplomacy efforts, stating that, “Citizens, who photograph and share it on social media introduce to the world our human face.”

The chairman of the Azerbaijan Youth Organization of Russia and the founder of organization IDEA Leyla Aliyeva published in the "Rossiyskaya Qazeta" narrates about Azerbaijan's effective cultural policy abroad and positive results of the public diplomacy realized by Azerbaijan in Russia.

Since the 2001 attacks on the United States, American public diplomacy has gradually developed greater sophistication in terms of its respect for Islamic and Arab culture, but that gradualism must now accelerate to keep pace with the confident assertion of Arab identity by millions still relishing the transformations begun in the Arab revolutions.