When Starbucks announced that it was coming into India as part of a partnership with the Tata Group, there was a lot of excitement in the country’s coffee shop segment....Meanwhile Dunkin’ Donuts, another U.S. coffee and baked goods chain, beat the Seattle-based company to the punch: On May 8, the Canton, Mass.-based Dunkin’ Donuts opened its first restaurant in India, in city center Connaught Place in Delhi.

We learnt with disbelief yesterday that the world boxing title fight that was to be the first of its kind to be staged on Botswana soil has been postponed indefinitely for lack of funds...This world title fight would offer a rare opportunity to unfurl the banner of Botswana on the world stage, forever leveraging branding the country for all that it stands for.

A U.S. intelligence report made public in March outlined the potential for water-related issues to become national security problems in various places around the world. At a Washington policy and research organization May 9, the U.S. State Department revealed a multipronged strategy to prepare for the emergence of water problems "that will risk instability and state failure [and] increase regional tensions," as the intelligence assessment predicts.

Since the beginning of the year palpable change is in the air. It is readily apparent to me that a critical mass has been reached and that China's long-time inability to master the art of soft power and cultural diplomacy is finally changing. The few popular long-time staples of Chinese cultural diplomacy like kung fu fighters and acrobats, together with a few memorable highbrow museum shows, now have more and more company.

Public diplomacy can be implemented as a cluster of measures that are more productive than the confrontational steps such as “checkbook diplomacy,” in which Taipei and Beijing competed for formal diplomatic partners.

Obama’s public diplomacy on drones has its uses on the 2012 campaign trail, but for U.S national security policymakers it is needed to counter the daily reports out of Pakistan that virtually everybody from the pro-American foreign minister to the Islamist right opposes the drone war. In the country’s upcoming presidential election, perennial populist candidate Imran Khan is surging on the strength of his pledge to shoot down U.S. drones.

Then there's public diplomacy. Have we abandoned this completely? What we used to have was a fairly feeble attempt at a public diplomacy function, with some funding for cultural events and expos (which limp along) complemented by plans for some marginally more rigorous programs which were disbanded before they really started (like the ill-fated 'Australia on the world stage' program)

The Marine Corps decided their own public diplomacy strategy in Afghanistan (though they call it psyops, and other refer to it as propaganda) needed to be evaluated by a third party. They hired the Rand Corporation to review their programs, and then ...published the results, good and bad, for the world to see. Some takeaways...