Joseph Nye is as gifted at branding as he is at thinking, teaching, and serving the public. He turned "soft power" (essential to "smart power") into a golden brand. In Washington, you know something has reached gold when the secretary of state wraps a "strategy" around it...

Can a poor country be a great power? Three examples from recent history suggest it can. These parallels would have weighed on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's mind as he flew to the southern resort city of Sanya in China's Hainan province for the BRICS (a grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit.

The United States administration has rebranded the country's foreign policy around the grand concept of "smart power", an expression which envelops great confidence if not self-satisfaction, and which, to a certain extent, presupposes a strategic dominance.

According to the Washington Post’s analysis of the deal on spending cuts agreed to between President Obama and Congress, one of the hardest-hit areas will be the State Department. In particular, the cuts will come down on foreign aid programs, including the Peace Corps, educational exchanges, and economic assistance programs designed to help fragile governments in the developing world.

[Ambassador J Adam] Ereli was deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Qatar from 2000 to 2003 and at the beginning of the press roundtable he said: “When I left Doha in 2003 there were few publications, so it’s nice to see how much is happening in Qatar”.

An influential cross-party committee of MPs has called for the cuts to the BBC's World Service to be reversed to protect its global reputation. The Commons foreign affairs select committee said the 16% budget cut imposed on the service as part of the government's comprehensive spending review had "long-term ramifications"...

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni spoke on the phone with Mustafa El Gendi, assistant chief of the Al Wafd Party, member of the People’s Parliament and coordinator of the Public Diplomacy delegation’s visit. El Gendi visited Uganda a few days ago and met with Museveni to discuss the Nile water.

Hungary has taken the rotating presidency of the European Union at a hugely important moment. Having been the UK’s Europe Minister during Britain’s last EU Presidency in 2005, I have some experience of the hard, diplomatic work involved.