Speaking during his formal oath-taking ceremony on Wednesday, Moon pledged to work for peace on the Korean Peninsula amid growing worry over the North's expanding nuclear weapons and missiles programme. "I am willing to go anywhere for the peace of the Korean Peninsula," Moon said. "If needed, I will fly immediately to Washington. I will go to Beijing and I will go to Tokyo. If the conditions shape up, I will go to Pyongyang."

Russia’s interference in the 2016 US presidential election, and its suspected hacking of French President Emmanuel Macron’s campaign servers, should surprise no one, given President Vladimir Putin’s (mis)understanding of soft power. Before his re-election in 2012, Putin told a Moscow newspaper that “soft power is a complex of tools and methods to achieve foreign policy goals without the use of force, through information and other means of influence.”

Concerns are growing the diplomatic strains may spill over into sociocultural and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries despite their deepening economic interdependence. [...] But in the eyes of Park Euna, ambassador for public diplomacy at the Foreign Ministry, now is time for Seoul to step up efforts to reach out to citizens of not only China but other countries around the world, helping promote their understanding of and eventually reach its foreign policy goals.

'Hard power' can no longer stop conflicts nor the rise of violent extremism and “ancient hatreds” such as antisemitism and racial discrimination, the head of the United Nations cultural agency said today, insisting that “we need 'soft power' of education, knowledge, culture, communication, the sciences, to strengthen the values we share and recognize the destiny we hold in common.”

Philibert Browne, editor of Liberia’s Hot Pepper newspaper, says China is winning admiration. In Liberia, it has built roads — ones of not obviously inferior quality — and a spanking new campus at the University of Liberia, replete with friendship tower and Chinese-style gate. “You can see what they are spending their money on but you can’t see what the Americans are spending on,” Mr Browne says. “You don’t put capacity building on your meal table. Slowly but surely, the Chinese are winning in Africa.”

All the panelists asserted that media should exert efforts to enhance the image of Arabs. Arabs needs to have long-term partnership with the US in various fields. For example, there should be exchange of visits in the field of education. Arab governments should provide scholarships to young Americans to study and know the Arab culture and to have experience of their life, they suggested, noting that many Arab students receive scholarship in the US.