smart & soft power
The cultural dimension of Turkish-Iranian relations and the scope of Turkey's soft power were discussed at a seminar jointly organized by the Ankara-based Center for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies (ORSAM) and the Tehran branch of the Yunus Emre Institute over the weekend in the Iranian capital of Tehran.
About halfway through this five-act extravaganza there’s a tableau of a theatre audience: bejeweled matrons in brocade gowns [...] creaky mandarins in quilted robes. Just the sort of throng that might have greeted the house-counting eyes of a 1920’s Peking Opera actor onstage. [...] The Chinese government spent a lot of pre-devaluation RMB to buy this crowd.
U.S. needs more money for more soft power outreach abroad, but Congress and President must first reform Broadcasting Board of Governors. [...] We don't spend enough money on U.S. government propaganda abroad now, and we did not spend enough money on it during the Cold War, but we were spending money and getting the message across much more effectively during the Cold War than we do now.
Queen Elizabeth II, who turns 90 in April, carried out 306 engagements in Britain last year, a tally in The Times newspaper showed Friday. The queen, who became Britain’s longest serving monarch in September after more than 63 years, also conducted 35 engagements abroad, having paid state visits to Germany and Malta.
Online learning is a powerful asset not only to universities’ individual funding and internationalisation strategies, but also countries’ soft power and the reputation of their higher education sector as a whole.
From the World Service to the Queen and even Norman Wisdom, Britain punches above its weight in the soft power stakes. [...] But the global soft-power reach of the UK is a phenomenon all on its own.
This video from Guardian News shows Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau greeting Syrian refugees as they arrive in the Toronto airport and showcases the Canadian prime minister's smart use of public diplomacy to engage with refugees who will become Canadian citizens.
With an eye on giving impetus to neighborhood first policy amid thaw in ties with Pakistan, India will host South Asian Games (SAG) in Guwahati and Shillong from Feb 6-16 2016. Delhi hopes that the Games will enhance people-to-people and youth links among eight South Asian countries in the spirit of Modi government's importance to neighboring states.