U.S. Olympians Jessica Mendoza and Ruby Rojas traveled to Nicaragua today to participate in a week-long initiative to empower women and girls through sports. For the first time, the U.S. State Department—in partnership with USA Softball and the Nicaraguan Softball Federation (FENISOFT)—will hold a series of softball clinics for Nicaraguan girls ages 14-25.

It is no small measure that cultural and sport diplomacy combined could be a very powerful tool for Namibia. Currently, there is no integrated tourism strategy looking at all aspects of marketing Namibia as a destination of choice - except the usual rhetoric around dunes, wildlife and pristine environment.

Tensions between Iran and the US were intensifying in 2008 when American basketball player Kevin Sheppard went to play for the Iranian league. A German filmmaker has brought his unusual story to the cinema.

Today, with the arrival of 12 young female basketball players and two coaches from Senegal, the U.S. Department of State launched its first Empowering Women and Girls Through Sports Initiative program of the year. This initiative engages women and girls from every region of the world, ranging from Brazil to Iraq to Liberia to Thailand to Venezuela, to name a few participating countries.

Soft power, a concept conceived by Havard University Professor Joseph Nye, is the ability to attract, convince and include others through persuasion rather than force or other means. Football has a special place in South Africa as the sport of the everyman. While cricket and rugby are two sports still dominated by the country's white community, football was the game that took deep root within the black majority.

Table tennis has helped connect China and the United States since 1971, when the US team's visit to Beijing sparked a thaw in relations. The sport is poised to play a similar role again, as Dubai announced on Monday it will sponsor the Chinese national team as part of an effort to promote exchange and growth between the two nations."This will be the first time the Chinese national table tennis team has cooperated with a foreign partner."

“It is a big step for the future and building people-to-people relationships between Myanmar and the United States,” said Min San, another player of the 12-member junior Burmese basketball team that is visiting the US on the invitation of the State Department.

I’ll be meeting 12 Burmese basketball players in their teens – six girls, six boys. They’re here because we invited them to visit Washington to see a Washington Wizards game. After that, they’ll go down to Charlotte where they’ll meet with Bobcats General Manager Richard Cho, who happens to be a Burmese American. He’ll invite them to his home and take them to a Bobcats game.