Flashy pop culture figures and sports icons may not negotiate an armistice or prevent war, but they could be valuable levers to get top diplomats into the right place at the right time while lowering the stress of high-stakes diplomacy.

Despite priding ourselves as a friendly, hospitable nation with a warm and vibrant people, Jamaica is increasingly branded as one of the most homophobic societies in the Western Hemisphere. Within the current global context, defined by the spread of information, culture and trade, Jamaica's 'quality brand' would appear to be at risk.

Odeke and three other Ugandan basketball coaches were part of a delegation visiting UCLA on the back end of a cultural exchange tour of the United States that included a stop at the Basketball Hall of Fame ...The U.S. State Department helped fund the project, which was conceived by Texas Tech sports science professor Jens Omli, the trip's promoter and the founder of International Sport Connection.

I have said that in at least a half-dozen Globetrotting entries about her becoming a U.S. Public Diplomacy envoy, a graduate of Denver University and of the master's degree program at the prestigiouus Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts University.

“The basketball games are incidental [to] this,” said Cooley. “It’s the cultural exchange.” In each of the previous cities, the Nanyang Model High team stayed with host families. Along with private training sessions and games, the team has mixed in plenty of sightseeing, including Niagara Falls, Smithsonian museums, and D.C. monuments.

In his second Sporting Chances programme Farayi Mungazi focuses on the common image of Australia as a sporting nation. He looks at the role of sport in shaping the country's national identity and asks whether sporting success will always be part of Australia's soft power.

Sports diplomacy builds on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s vision of “smart power", which embraces the use of a full range of diplomatic tools, including sports, to bring people together to foster greater understanding. Since 2003, SportsUnited has brought almost 900 athletes from 58 countries to the U.S. to participate in Sport Visitor programs.

Half a dozen years after her last competition, long after Michelle Kwan realized being a figure skater was only one part of the person she wanted to become..."I'm starting now to have skating dreams," said Kwan, 31 and deep into a career in public diplomacy and promoting educational and cultural causes.