Soccer is truly the world’s sport. It is played and watched by more people across the globe than any other sport.

Every four years, it is the center of global attention when the World Cup is held. It’s as if the World Series and Super Bowl were rolled into one mega-sporting event with viewership in the hundreds of millions.

The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs will give $15m to programmes this fiscal year covering Japanese politics and foreign policy in the US, in an effort to enhance Japan’s ‘soft power’ in the country. Georgetown University, Columbia University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will be among the institutions selected to receive the funding, which will be mainly aimed at programmes in the areas of modern and contemporary Japanese politics and foreign policy.

On June 21, the world will observe International Day of Yoga for the first time ever. A United Nations resolution to this effect that India moved in the General Assembly last year was co-sponsored by an unprecedented 170 countries.

Former Canadian Prime Minister Joe Clark urged Canada and Korea to bolster diplomacy in a world characterized by withering superpowers and sprouting middle powers. Canada’s 16th Prime Minister from 1979 to 1980 told a group of diplomats and scholars that as the international order is reconfigured around the world, nations increasingly rely on soft-power strategies of compromise, negotiation and development, rather than hard-power tactics of military aggression and bullying rhetoric.

Many in the country and across the globe believe that the US is slipping away from being the world's most powerful nation. [...] He (Joseph Nye) corroborates his arguments with facts and figures on the indices of America's favourable geography, demographics, military power and soft power, purchasing power parity and science and innovation. 

Widely viewed as a shrewd financial investor, Qatar's return on investment in soft power designed to position it as a progressive ally of world powers in the hope that they will come to the aid of the wealthy Gulf state in times of emergency is proving to be abysmal. [...] the payback in Qatar's reputation, attitudes of law enforcement-related governmental agencies, non-governmental organizations, including trade unions and human rights groups and the public, and media headlines has been everything but congratulatory.

Diplomats with these koalafications don't come cheap. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop could barely contain her glee when she was filmed with the furry foursome of Paddle, Chan, Pelita and Idalia at the launch of Singapore Zoo's new koala exhibit last week. But Australian taxpayers might not be so happy to learn that the diplomatic donation – made to mark 50 years of Australia-Singapore relations – cost them $133,100.