Voice of America’s Creole Service updates its lineup of programs to Haiti this week, with new segments focused on engaging its increasingly youthful audience and examining critical issues including the economy, health, public safety and education.

Public diplomacy mourns yet another practitioner who helped tear down the Berlin Wall during the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Mo Rothman, a former top Hollywood film executive, died at the age of 92 in Los Angeles on September 15.

While China, with its unquenchable thirst for raw materials, has targeted nations across Africa, nowhere has it been more determined to pursue its interests than in Zambia. Sata says he's determined to stop China doing as it pleases in one of Africa's most resource-rich nations.

Wary of Pakistan, Indian officials have always said they want to focus on what they like to call “soft power” – economic aid and trade. The two leaders also agreed to closer co-operation in the strategically key sectors of oil and gas exploration, mining and infrastructure development, pledging to use India’s growing economic clout to foster trade and investment flows.

Chinese authorities have stepped up efforts in recent weeks to rein in the hugely popular microblogging sites that have become an alternative source of real-time news for millions while challenging the Communist Party’s traditional grip on information.

Public diplomacy mourns yet another practitioner who helped tear down the Berlin Wall during the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Mo Rothman, a former top Hollywood film executive, died at the age of 92 in Los Angeles on September 15. Mo was a member of our volunteer Film Acquisitions Committee at the U.S. Information Agency in the 1980's.

When USAID -- the agency tasked with representing American interests worldwide by improving lives outside of U.S. borders--succeeds, we all benefit. We invest less than 1% of the federal budget in strengthening the health and economic development in other countries, and we get incredible results.

It bears repeating. The European Union's soft power works. Not always, not everywhere, and not without reverses, but the EU has a transformational capacity to make others adopt their values: free, fair elections; rule of law; market economies that maximize the welfare of citizens; and a pan-European outlook.