In the mass media and the blogosphere,both inside and outside China,commentators have been discussing the differences between the cultural segments of the Beijing and London ceremonies as representative of two opposed political systems.

For Olympics organizers who pride themselves on putting on a carefully choreographed — obsessively controlled, some would say — 17-day show, the bursts of Twitter activity are like gamma rays escaping from a solar flare. They're impossible to stop and spellbinding to behold.

High levels of anti-Americanism in Pakistan have “handicapped” U.S. efforts to support development in the South Asian nation, according to a new study. The Center for Global Development, in a report released Monday, urged the United States to work with the World Bank and other international aid agencies with programs in Pakistan.

The London 2012 Games have been touted as the first Olympics to live fully in the age of social media. After all, the organization's Twitter feed has nearly 1.4 million followers...But a rash of scandals and news related to Twitter has put a new mark on the face of these games. And, as they say, it ain't pretty.

Analysts in India have tended to view the recent visit to Japan of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi through a narrow political prism. They see it as an image-building exercise conjured up by Modi’s slick PR machinery to project him on the international stage and appear, well, Prime Ministerial.

Participants at the First Meeting on Public Diplomacy, organized by the Moroccan Association for Development and Parallel Diplomacy (AMADIP) in Rabat on July 27 and 28, stressed the need to unify visions and efforts of public diplomacy actors and have a proactive approach to diplomacy instead of a seasonal and folkloric one.