APDS Blogger: Molly Krasnodebska

Throughout the last decade, no message was promoted stronger in the European Union than the idea of a new Europe, which has overcome its past of war and totalitarianism, and has emerged as a normative power standing for international cooperation, democracy, and human rights.

And yet when it comes to the recent events in Ukraine, discussed below, European soft power appears rather meager.

The 2012 American Film Showcase...is an international cultural diplomacy initiative that will bring award-winning American films, including documentaries, feature films and animated shorts, to foreign audiences through events worldwide.

Because water is so central to many faiths, it offers both a starting point for action and a point of engagement between the faith-inspired and secular development communities. Water has a special potential: to build on common ground...

In this context, 2012 will probably be a very important year for the U.S. and Turkey, because they have both been selected by NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division to implementing all of the organization’s capability for public policy.

We are all here because we know ensuring that everyone has the clean water they need to live and thrive has to be a high priority for all of us. When I spoke on World Water Day two years ago, I talked about how water is clearly integral to many of our foreign policy goals.

Clinton also announced the release today of an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) on Global Water Security. The ICA is based on a National Intelligence Estimate requested by Secretary Clinton a year earlier to assess the impact of global water issues on U.S. national security interests

To celebrate World Water Day 2012, the European Commission releases the video "More than Water" which shows concrete results of the EU-ACP Water Facility to provide access to drinking water in the Himba villages in the north of Namibia.

On World Water Day (March 22), numerous initiatives and announcements will sure come up. For one, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will announce a new public-private partnership, called U.S. Water Partnership, on Thursday to seek solutions to the global water problem.