Education and inter-faith dialogue is the best way to remove Islamophobia, Professor Liyakat Takim has said. “Until today, many Americans think that Allah is a moon god and Muslims are required to kill non-Muslims, these misconceptions have to be corrected through proper education and Muslims need to reach out to non-Muslims,” McMaster University professor told the Mehr news agency.

Tomorrows Youth Organization is living proof of the effectiveness of smart power. American initiatives around the Middle East, and especially in Palestine’s poorest areas offer American youth the chance to teach disadvantaged children drama, arts, athletics, music, computers and earn the love and trust of the Middle East one country at a time.

Some 1.6 million people visited Israel between January and July, according to figures released by the Tourism Ministry on Monday – an increase of 39 percent over the same period in 2009, and 10% more than in 2008, the country’s previous record year.

Haiti's president handed out medals to celebrities, aid-group directors and politicians for post-earthquake work Monday in a ceremony designed to beat back criticism of an uneven recovery that has left 1.6 million people homeless and destitute six months to the day since the disaster.

The French have an expression for it: Il a manqué une belle occasion de se taire – "He (or, in this case, she) missed a good opportunity of staying silent." The saying was brought to mind by the affair of the British ambassador's blog...

As President Obama made clear...the world must unleash its collective imagination through social innovators, entrepreneurs and citizen diplomats to contribute to global development, respond to natural disasters, and initiate interfaith action to tackle preventable diseases like malaria. The moment is now.

Minister of Tourism Stas Misezhnikov said, “The increase in incoming tourism... is the result of massive investment in marketing activities around the world with significant budgets, especially against the background of the public diplomacy challenges that Israel is facing."

There has been much talk on the European side about developing a grand strategy for dealing with a more assertive China. In many ways, China will be the ultimate litmus test for Europe’s new foreign policy.