This week, Tara Sonenshine was formally sworn-in as the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs by Secretary Clinton. Secretary Clinton’s introductory remarks were personal, insightful, and deeply supportive of public diplomacy and of Tara.

Two weeks ago the House of Commons foreign affairs select committee warned that cuts of almost £40 million to the Foreign Office would lead to a "diminution of the UK's influence and soft power", leaving it with a budget smaller than that of Kent County Council.

Winners and losers in the "social equality" game depend on how public diplomacy is used to shape world opinion. Turning up the volume, Brasilia successfuly played the sanctions card against the United States to win a quarter-billion-dollar World Trade Organization (WTO) settlement over illegal Washington cotton subsidies.

Secretary Clinton holds a swearing-in ceremony for Tara Sonenshine as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs at the Department of State.

Liquid Comics and the Open Hands Initiative, a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to public diplomacy efforts, on Wednesday announced the launch of the Silver Scorpion animated Web series on MTV Voices.... the wheelchair-bound Silver Scorpion is the brainchild of a group of 26 American and Syrian youths with disabilities who convened for a Youth Ability Summit in Damascus over a year ago.

[It had] a very complex culture, with very sophisticated and beautiful material, a very complex social organization, [and] a very intelligent relationship with the landscape. And it gives an idea of the lifestyle of these people, who continued in Kazakhstan until relatively recently and is part of their proud heritage.

The “pop-up” restaurant trend – in which restaurant owners let their establishments be taken over by amateur chefs for a night – that has been thriving in the U.S. and Europe for a couple of years reached Seoul this past weekend, when two expat food bloggers crafted a “Korean Food Reimagined” menu for their readers.