Australia’s international policy portfolio has been left hanging after Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd’s surprise resignation from his post – announced from Mexico in the aftermath of the G20 meeting. Rudd’s resignation, a deliberate retaliation strike against the current Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the ruling Australian Labor Party for the unceremonious leadership coup they pulled off against him some 24 months ago, while fascinating to the political observer, is potentially devastating for Australia’s international image projection.

On Monday, February 27, 2012, the USC Center on Public Diplomacy (CPD) hosted a major research conference on Water Diplomacy which sought to address three public diplomacy objectives in the area of water diplomacy: listening, implementation and policy development.

Today’s NATO suffers from a public diplomacy overload rather than an image problem. Far from being a panacea to its democratic deficit, the dominant influence of public diplomacy strategies and their advocates on Allied decision-making is arguably part of the problem.

Richard Nixon had his “ping-pong diplomacy” with China. Maybe it’s time for Barack Obama to try a little “Oscar diplomacy” with Iran...Who knows? If a process of change can begin with a ping-pong paddle, maybe it can also begin with a golden statuette.

When Muslims around the world turn on the television, open the newspaper, or check out their favorite websites, they are more likely to see injustice, intolerance, and indignity coming from America the (Not Always So) Beautiful. Muslims can get outraged over the picture of Syed Wali Shah, a seven-year-old victim of a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan.

Muslim users who choose to ditch Facebook for the upcoming social network SalamWorld shouldn’t expect to find a Madonna video or discussion of sex anywhere on the site. Salamworld hopes to be a far cleaner version of Facebook, by “filtering out harmful content” and ensuring that its pages “uphold and respect family values".

...The fourth priority is what I call economic statecraft; in particular, how we use diplomacy and development to create American jobs. We have more than 1,000 State Department economic officers working to help American businesses connect to new markets and consumers.