Today this woman, Dilma Rousseff, is the President of Brazil - the perennial "country of the future", the world's seventh-largest economy by purchasing power parity (ahead of the UK, France and Italy), a member of the BRICS, and exercising a soft power way beyond music, football and joy of living.



According to an interview with American scholar Joseph Nye in the British magazine Monocle, nations can adopt more “soft power” measures, which can be used as a type of subtle cultural (and ultimately political) pressure to obtain goals without violence or military-driven exertions.

Based on Hillary Clinton’s vision of “smart power” diplomacy, "OneBeat" will bring up to 50 international musicians between the ages of 19-35 to the United States for a month-long exchange. OneBeat musicians will connect with Americans musicians and audiences, especially underserved youth, through people-to-people diplomacy and social engagement projects.

"We can see how we can enhance military-to-military cooperation, interoperality and public diplomacy so that we can better explain Nato and what it does and we at Nato can better understand the region," he told Gulf News.

The Australia Network has been our venture into this way of building national ''soft power'' - in other words, winning friends and understanding overseas through television news and entertainment. It had an uncertain start as an ABC offshoot with some additional funding from advertising.

University of Indonesia security expert Andi Widjajanto said it would be hard for Yudhoyono to rely only on soft power measures, such as dialogues, norms establishment and confidence-building measures, to reduce tensions without resorting to hard power.

This attempt to garner longer-term soft power of being perceived positively globally and by African partners, however, may well contend with its harder and more short-term economic and domestic needs. China has an interest in some agreement, partly to vindicate criticisms levied against it at previous conferences but, at the same time, must pursue economic growth at home.

For the majority of Iranians, as Muslim Shias, Ashura has clearly been the meta-narrative. It has particularly been important since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in Iran and one could surely see the footprint of this narrative in Iran's foreign policy