Cuba has signalled that it will free all its political prisoners and let them stay on the island in a bold attempt to repair Havana's ties with the international community.

The subject of public diplomacy evaluation tools and methodologies has been front and center this week. Debating the difference between "measures of effectiveness" (or MOE), "measures of performance" (or MOP)...

Muslims On Screen and Television (MOST) was formed; not as a way of converting Hollywood, as Lauren Levy, the creative executive at Miramax said, but “instead, they want to work with writers, producers, show-runners, agents on their own terms... to create more balanced, diverse and authentic characters and themes”.

While U.S. public diplomacy since September 11, 2001, has focused on countering terrorism and the radicalization of the Muslim world, a job increasingly supervised by the Pentagon, China has been moving ahead methodically with its own ambitious global agenda.

More recently, Taiwan is trying to expand on its reputation and gastro-brand through an initiative to promote Taiwan through enhanced culinary diplomacy.Gastrodiplomacy is predicated on the notion that the easiest path to winning hearts and minds is found through stomachs.

AFRICOM, with headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, was launched with great fanfare in 2007 as the first and only military regional command that would focus primarily on “soft power” and include a heavy mix of civilians in its ranks.

Today, the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, a bi-partisan board, created by Congress whose members are appointed by the President, met to discuss the State Department’s performance on outreach and engagement with foreign publics.

As a whole, the [California International Theatre Festival] is an excellent example of cultural diplomacy towards American audiences as presented by various countries such as China, Ireland, Canada and Mexico, among others.