Since then, the State Department has brought the issue of online freedom to the table in its diplomacy around the world and joined with Internet providers and social media companies to foster public-private partnership in Internet freedom.

U.K. envoy to Israel Tom Phillips says British public does not automatically assume everything Israel does is wrong, but adds that the debate isn't one of PR but of substance.

What happened to China's much vaunted "soft power" and "good neighborly" diplomacy about which we have heard so much in recent years? China's supposed "soft power," always overstated, has passed from the scene in short order.

[Secretary General of Morocco's Assilah Forum Mohamed Bin Issa] also hailed the openness of UAE to the cultures of the world and cited the literary and cultural prizes such as Sheikh Zayed Book Award launched by the UAE, as a telling example in this regard.

What sort of creeping threat is posed by public diplomacy theorists? Is it a particular theory and or scholar that threatens the bedrock of practical pedagogy in public diplomacy?

Underlying the hearts and minds strategy is a simple - and mistaken - assumption that aid projects will generate goodwill towards the US and reduce local support for terrorists and militant Islamist ideology. However, in our conversations we found no evidence that the US has been winning hearts and minds.

Today, India has an historic opportunity to claim its rightful place. But will India be able to assert itself on the global stage? Will the pride of this resurgent India emerge to counter factors that affect our image? Building Brand India is an imperative we cannot afford to ignore.

The technologies that came to the fore in Haiti are not new. They include everyday technologies -- mobile phones, online mapping tools, GPS, and social networking. What is new is their use in the humanitarian context at the scale seen in the global response to Haiti's catastrophic quake.