There has been constant "dark propaganda" on media outlets and social media networks about the Turkish police’s attitude during the ongoing Gezi Park protests, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said, addressing members of security forces in Ankara July 24.

For Africa, the period since mobile penetration figures became significant has been characterised by innovation and technology-driven value added services. These are increasingly being tailored to meet the spending and consumption needs of consumers. For example, Kenyan-based Safaricom's M-PESA has tapped into the "unbanked" portion of the population by taking advantage of the country's high mobile penetration levels.

On Sunday, John Hudson, writing for Foreign Policy, depressingly labeled the Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP) the red-headed stepchild of the State Department. While the Bureau does indeed have directional and organizational problems, it is more the “forgotten middle child” of distracted, arguing parents rather than an unwanted addition to the family.

The last time they were in Hong Kong, two filmmakers from Wong Fu Productions got “pop-star style” hair cuts and ate McCurry burgers at McDonald’s. The two Chinese American YouTube stars embraced the local culture for what it was – a mixture of flash and culture. Wesley Chan and Philip Wang, who founded their film company in California with a third member, Ted Fu, said their roots were here in Asia. That’s part of the reason they keep coming back.

The Foreign Ministry last week opened its first “virtual embassy” – a Twitter account through which it hopes to conduct a dialogue with the people of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain. The new account is called Israel in the GCC – the Gulf Cooperation Council, an umbrella group for every Arab state in the Gulf except Iraq. These six Sunni Arab countries have a mutual interest with Israel: coping with the Iranian nuclear threat.

Every government bureaucracy on the face of the Earth experiences turf wars, morale issues, infighting and red tape. Then there's the State Department's Bureau of International Information Programs. Best known as the bureau that blew $630,000 on Facebook "likes," IIP finds itself at a crossroads, sources tell The Cable, as it prepares to announce a new coordinator next month.

A group of teens in Yemen’s capital taught themselves how to perform various styles of ‘street dance’ through videos they downloaded off the internet. Having no formal training or a place to rehearse, the group dances in various open spaces around Sanaa. The teens refer to their group as ‘Da TNT Crew’. Founded two years ago, the crew now has 13 members between the ages of 12 and 21. Ali al-Slami, one of the group’s founders said their goal was to blend modern and break dancing with traditional Yemeni culture.

There has never been a better time for diplomats to get into data and push the boundaries of what is imagined to be possible within public diplomacy. The amount of data available is greater than ever, perhaps 90% of which was generated in the last two years. At the same time, more people globally are communicating in ways that generate data which is publicly observable, for example through the API of social media platforms. Equally, the tools to analyse data have expanded rapidly, allowing users to search large amounts of data quickly and efficiently.