The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced the addition of Taiwan to the Visa Waiver Program (VWP). However, key U.S. allies and friends continue to be left waiting to join the VWP. These delays make little sense given the extensive benefits that VWP expansion offers the U.S. in terms of national security, the economy, and public diplomacy.

Japan Inc is charging into Myanmar. The rush began one night last October, when Myanmar's new president rolled out a map after dinner to show an aging Japanese power broker a prize that could be Tokyo's to develop - a swathe of land nearly as big as Macau.

“The Fulbright Program has connected our two countries for 30 years in one of the most important ways possible – through the creation of knowledge and professional skills, as well as through a shared belief in educating the next generation,” says Sharon Hudson-Dean, Counselor for Public Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Harare.

Is the Arab Spring going to lead to a U.S. foreign-aid fall? Will America’s deficit and its election politics combine to reduce non-military, soft-power U.S. programs abroad?

When I hear ‘sports diplomacy’ evoked in conversation I often wince, knowing that 99% of the examples do not live up to the standards of the term. Athletes and coaches who work for a team outside of their country for no purpose other than for a love of the game and personal gain do not always qualify.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has, to her credit, visited fifteen African countries on four separate trips. But her presence has been overshadowed by President Obama’s absence. Obama has set foot on the continent just once: for a mere 20 hours in Ghana in July 2009 where he gave a speech on democracy that resulted in no substantial action.

Their consensus is simply, we need to get to know China more. China is a complicated country, burdened by its past and not quite that comfortable in its new role as a world super power. Unless our leadership understands the nuances of our China relations a little more deeply, mixed signals between us will likely keep the relationship tense, and that cannot be good for both countries.

India’s great nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi coined the term satyagraha as a philosophy of non-violent political struggle in 1906, while he was engaged in the early anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.