Vice Foreign Minister Zhai Jun on Monday urged Chinese businesses in Africa to work for mutual benefits and shared development. Zhai made the call at a forum on Chinese businesses in Africa, which was hosted by China Public Diplomacy Association and attended by Chinese enterprises, academics, and African diplomats in Beijing.

Marc Coleman is under the illusion that Brazil could become Ireland's 'El Dorado' (Sunday Independent, March 10, 2013). He states that '47 per cent of Brazil's 100 million population is middle class'. The census of 2010 gives Brazil's population as 190.8 million, not 100 million. It is absurd to think that this growing middle-class 'are crying out for what we (Ireland) want to export'.

It was a St Patrick's Day celebration danced to a samba beat rather than a slip jig in Brazil last night as the iconic statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro turned green for Ireland's national holiday. The now annual 'greening' of landmarks around the world has gained further momentum.

With Xi Jinping's election as the new president, China has equalled the United States in a crucial area of soft power. For the first time, China will deploy its first lady, who happens to be a famous folk singer, to charm the world and build bridges.

China is now the world’s second-largest economy and the only plausible challenger to the US as dominant global superpower. So it is hard to disagree when David Shambaugh asserts that the country’s rise is “the big story of our era”. And yet, oddly enough, Professor Shambaugh’s China Goes Global is dedicated to proving that the rise of China is not such a big story, after all.

The U.N.-backed Alliance of Civilizations will strengthen its role through mediation and fostering of cultural understanding through sports, arts and music, the head of the initiative, which gives priority to defusing tensions between Western and Islamic worlds. “The Alliance can become a major soft power tool to diffuse tensions and conflicts, especially those which are ethnically or identity based,” the High-Representative for the Alliance, Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, told reporters at UN Headquarters in New York on Thursday, while outlining his priorities for this year.

President Xi, who has said achieving the "great revival of the Chinese nation" is the goal of his administration, is expected to pursue wealth- and military-building policies over his two five-year terms, aiming to transform China into a superpower on par with the United States. Backed by a strong military, China has been striving to become a "great maritime power." It is quite clear that the country will continue its hard-line stance against Japan, Vietnam, and other neighbors in the East and South China seas.

After nearly four years of often testy relations with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, US President Barack Obama is about to try a different tack - going over the head of Israel's prime minister and appealing directly to the Israeli people.