On April 12, 2013, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv hosted a day-long conference for Ukrainian women entrepreneurs focusing on business owners of small and medium enterprises. The goal of the event was to promote the importance of Ukrainian women in fostering economic growth, build the confidence of women entrepreneurs to take on leading roles in business and society, provide practical tools for further empowerment, and serve as a platform for networking.

Among the principal assets of U.S. public diplomacy are American values. They are admired around the world, even by many people who dislike American policy. No other political system offers such extensive individual and systemic freedoms as those enumerated in the Bill of Rights. Showcasing and standing up for those freedoms should be at the heart of U.S. public diplomacy.

The arrest of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, the head of the Sinaloa cartel, on Saturday was an event of enormous importance in the Mexican government’s fight against organized crime. Mexican public opinion had long ago decided that this government, and the previous one, were not serious about hunting for Guzmán, preferring the relative stability and lower-violence approach of the Sinaloa cartel to the more militaristic style of other cartels, such as the Zetas.

With Ukraine's parliament dismantling the last vestiges of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych's government, the Obama administration warned Russia against sending troops into the country and told Moscow that it should allow Ukrainians to freely determine their own future. Appearing on Meet the Press Sunday, National Security Advisor Susan Rice was adamant about limiting Russia's role in Ukraine going forward.

Public diplomacy has always been an important tool in communicating a country’s policies, values, and culture. However, the means through which these goals could be achieved considerably changed in the last one hundred years, and politicians as well as scholars have had to face new challenges and adapt to a new media era.

When Fernando Gonzalez walks out of an Arizona prison next week, the "Cuban Five" will be down to three. Intelligence agents in the employ of Fidel Castro's Cuba, they were arrested in the United States in 1998 and given terms ranging from 15 years to consecutive life sentences on charges including conspiracy and failure to register as foreign agents. 

On my first morning as Under Secretary, I wanted to reach out to our many friends and partners who extend, amplify and inform our public diplomacy.  You are valued stakeholders in the public diplomacy community and I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself and share my vision for public diplomacy.

Many objected when Secretary of State John Kerry referred to Latin America as "the backyard" of the United States last April. While his statement may have been intended as an innocuous comment on geography, the implications of his words represent an all too common attitude about our Southerly neighbors that is not only ignorant, but often inaccurate.