On July 25, Department Secretary of State Bill Burns announced the creation of Networks of Diasporas in Engineering and Science, or NODES, at an event organized by the Office of the Science and Technology Advisor to the Secretary of State (STAS). At the same event, Under Secretary of State of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara Sonenshine launched the Science, Technology, and Innovation Expert Partnership.

London 2012 organisers have apologised and blamed human error for Wednesday's wrong flag mix-up when South Korea's flag appeared alongside North Korea's women's football team on stadium screens as players warmed up before their opening match. The team left the pitch in protest at the blunder and initially refused to play but the game with Colombia at Hampden Park, Glasgow, eventually kicked off more than an hour late after hurried corrections to the video rectified the spectacular mistake.

A new study finds almost two-thirds of world leaders now have a Twitter account, but many don't bother to follow each other. The "Twiplomacy" study Thursday by PR firm Burson-Marsteller says President Barack Obama is the most-followed world leader, including by 76 of his peers and other governments.

Bodies like the Sahitya Akademi, the Lalit Kala Akademi and the National Gallery of Modern Art opened their accounts on popular social media site Facebook some nine months ago. And while their pages are not very exciting, to get them moving in this direction was a feat in itself, accomplished largely due to the efforts of Abhay Kumar, former Deputy Secretary, Public Diplomacy, in the External Affairs Ministry, whose personal interest motivates him to keep nudging a sluggish bureaucracy.

DanceMotion USASM builds on Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s vision of “smart power” diplomacy, which embraces the full use of diplomatic tools, in this case dance, to engage people and create opportunities for greater understanding.

One reason for this is the issue of global power relations, which influence how markets are organised and who benefits from technological progress. Innovation systems are not neutral — the effects of purely market-led science and technology efforts and associated innovations tend to aggravate existing inequalities.

Particularly for practitioners of public diplomacy, understanding the role of religious faith in people’s lives is an essential part of crafting outreach efforts. In much of the world, secularism is viewed warily, seen as weakening the fabric of society, and so a respectful approach to religion is an essential element of diplomacy. Religion is not “mere sociology,” as the CIA reportedly referred to it prior to the 1979 Iranian revolution. Rather, it must be taken seriously as a foundation stone of international relations.