Anyone who has followed international affairs closely knows that one distinctive flaw in U.S. cultural diplomacy is our public welcome pavilions at major world events, including the Olympics and the World Cup. (...) After experiencing this first-hand Maxine Turner, President of the U.S. Welcome Pavilion, stepped in to create a space where U.S. culture and business can come together to reach a global public. We spoke with her about her plans for the inaugural U.S. Welcome Pavilion at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Israel’s hasbara efforts just received an enormous boost thanks to a new collaborative effort launched jointly by the Prime Minister’s Office and StandWithUs. The initiative, in which StandWithUs will coordinate closely with the PMO’s National Information Directorate, is designed to “educate young people about how to use social media for education and public diplomacy.”

The U.S. government is seeking to boost the number of Americans studying in Latin America, which was one reason for coinciding visits Wednesday by both Secretary of State John Kerry and former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who heads the 10-campus University of California system.

Miami Chef Douglas Rodriguez is known as the "Godfather of Nuevo Latino Cuisine" for the pan-Latin American style of cooking he helped pioneer. But, as the son of Cuban immigrants, his early cooking education was firmly rooted in the traditions of his parents' homeland.

“Showing up is 80 percent of life” remarked filmmaker and writer Woody Allen in 1977, a quote that if taken to heart could have saved the Barack Obama administration lot of woes and embarrassment in the way it approaches policy and politics across the globe. Obama’s failure to show up or send the vice or an ex-president to Paris’ massive rally on Sunday in solidarity with Charlie Hebdo and freedom of speech, vividly illustrates the decline of U.S. soft power and absence of American leadership on the global stage.

While American patriotism -- the love of one's country -- is "awesome" in more ways than one, American nationalism -- the belief that America is the "greatest nation on earth," with the "greatest military power", and the "greatest ideals" -- can become dangerous, and even turn Messianic. The American establishment has been drilling these nationalist slogans, whether mythical or real, into the American mind for decades.

This week U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to India and Pakistan. Although there is little he can do to resolve long-standing tensions between these nuclear-armed neighbors, Kerry should take advantage of a recent development in Pakistan to reduce the near-term likelihood of war on the subcontinent.