Popular Japanese culture has often baffled the western world. But now local authorities are taking lessons from Japan on how to use popular culture, regional history and local produce to promote regions across the country. The Japan Local Government Centre, which boasts an office in central London, is working to share the lessons of Japanese local authority projects with their counterparts in the UK.

When Gabriela Shalev arrived at the United Nations in 2008 as Israel's first female ambassador, she was determined to launch a diplomatic offensive to improve her country's international standing. Now Shalev, who stepped down in October ...warns that Israel's image is about to take another hit with a Palestinian initiative to win statehood recognition from the U.N. next month.

The Indian Embassy has taken to Sina Weibo, the popular Twitter-like microblogging service from China, in an attempt to portray India’s modern image and promote Indian culture and tourism to Chinese youngsters. Since Sina Weibo boasts a hundred million users...it provides a perfect platform for the Indian embassy to remove the earlier misconceptions and present a modern image of India.

We could overhaul our approach to national security, creating a more strategic, collaborative, less-is-more, and system that features engagement and soft power while we still have most of the decision power to do so, or simply wait for events to overtake us and be handed our fate.

It remains to be seen how Europe will solve the many questions posed by continuing migratory flows...But if it wants to keep its “soft power” and “transformational value” as part of efforts to effect change in its neighbourhood, any policy will have to be in line with the EU’s much trumpeted core values and principles.

Movies can reflect a nation’s culture and showcase its soft power. For the past few years, Taiwanese movies have been making a splash at international film festivals and have helped introduce Taiwan’s many movie talents to the world.

Song said Taiwan has done an excellent job in demonstrating its "soft power" on Dongsha, also known as the Pratas Islands, pointing to the massive funding the government has invested in the South China Sea, as well as the various camps organized by the government to help ordinary citizens learn more about the issue and to drum up public support for the

July is typically the time of year when North Korea makes peace overtures toward the United States...Last week, Pyongyang's chief nuclear negotiator arrived in New York...As if on cue, one day later, the Korean Central News Agency... called for a "peace agreement" with the U.S.