Norway was ranked fifth in the 2016 Country RepTrak rankings, trailing only Sweden, Canada, Switzerland and Australia. Fellow Nordic nations Finland and Denmark were close behind, at sixth and eighth place respectively. [...] The report was compiled by the Reputation Institute, which claims to be the world’s "leading consulting and advisory firm for reputation". The institute promotes the Country RepTrak ranking as the world’s largest survey of country reputation.

March 2015, an Australian researcher published a statistic that drew both laughs and gasps in the business community there: Fewer large Australian companies were run by women than by men named Peter. The damning statistic prompted some introspection in the Australian film industry in particular, where women represent 17% of directors, a number that hasn’t budged since 1970.

In an ideal world, the Eurovision Song Contest would be all about music and cross-border camaraderie. In reality, delicate diplomacy is essential to prevent politics from spilling into the annual glitz fest. A cast of hopeful artists from 26 countries will compete in this year's final on Saturday in Sweden, homeland of inventor Alfred Nobel, who gave his name to the famous international peace price.

Swedish Ambassador to Nigeria Svante Kilander says the embassy will collaborate with Nigeria to enhance works of arts and cultural relationship between both countries.[...] He noted that works of arts, especially poetry “is a strong tool for preaching culture and societal issues.

Sweden has launched a tourism campaign encouraging people all over the world to call Swedes at random. The country has set up a phone number for the calls.

Germany’s relationship with the Baltic Sea region has traditionally oscillated between collaboration on one hand, and hesitancy on the other. However, given the growing strategic importance of the Baltic Sea region for Germany, it has become crucial for Germany to more fully engage the region through public diplomacy initiatives, with the Baltic islands emerging as a prime target audience.

As part of its marketing, Sodastream created a campaign to show the cooperation between Arabs and Jews in the factory. In its initial phase, the company posted several untranslated versions to Facebook. But after requests from the Swedish and Jordanian embassies – which wanted to use it for their public diplomacy efforts – Sodastream translated the clips to English and Arabic and paid for their promotion.