The visit ... would have taken the children to Arab towns in Israel, southern areas targeted by militants' rockets in the conflict, a mixed-race school and the beach in Tel Aviv.  But Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since 2007, said the cancellation was justified to protect children from "the politics of normalisation" with Israel.

Obama clearly views Hollywood as an expression of American soft power, and its ability to shape the preference and perceptions of other nations.  As for the North Korean regime ... Hollywood movies, in their most surreal forms, constitute a direct assault on political fantasies, which underpin autocracies and their megalomaniac leaders.

Australia has begun formalising the use of koalas as a "soft power" diplomatic strategy, with a 600-page manual having been drawn-up by the foreign affairs department and the marsupials increasingly being given to regional allies.

Established powers' resistance to their rising counterparts' demands for a larger role in setting the global agenda fuel tensions and disrupt the existing world order. That is precisely what has been occurring lately between China and the United States, and is the impetus for China's "Asia for the Asians" policy.

One of the most admirable aspects of Obama-era foreign policy has been the decision to use American soft power to actively promote LGBTQ rights, including in Europe.

The Tsunami Evaluation Committee, consisting of UN agencies and other NGOs, described the aid commitments as the most generous and immediately funded humanitarian response in history.

According to Hamid, even the most “moderate” Islamists “want the state to promote a basic set of religious and moral values through the soft power of the state machinery, the educational system and the media.”