This is an essay calling for global political reform and best practices in the area of promoting human rights and establishing a lasting peace among diverse cultures and civilizations while at the same time supporting state sovereignty.

Earlier this year, the US Department of State issued its detailed report on the status of "Trafficking in Persons" in every country of the world, Albania to Zimbabwe, it ranks each country as Tier 1, Tier 2, or Tier 3.

Watch live a video chat on US-India Higher Education Dialogue between US Under Secretary of State for Public Affairs & Public Diplomacy Tara Sonenshine and the Indian Ambassador to the US Nirupama Rao. The chat is moderated by Robert Blake, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs.

Recently, Israeli leaders have made successive high profile visits to China, while engaging in considerable public diplomacy efforts vis-à-vis the Chinese people. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even greeted the Chinese people in their native Mandarin during their New Year’s Festival.

Zalman first points out that the dichotomy “hard” vs. “soft” was an exercise in spurious academic categorization. The two are not categorical opposites: “the Obama Administration has dedicated itself to pursuing and promulgating the idea of “smart power”, which is meant to fuse both “hard” and “soft” power.

When I became secretary of state in early 2009, there were questions about the future of America’s global leadership. We faced two long and expensive wars, an economy in free fall, fraying alliances and an international system that seemed to be buckling under the weight of new threats.

Americans deserve transparency about what their government is doing, as long as that transparency doesn’t threaten national security. Transparency should also be the guiding principle of the State Department’s public diplomacy and U.S. international broadcasting.

"Within the State Department, a Silicon Valley veteran has quietly launched an improbable new initiative to annoy, frustrate, and humiliate denizens of online extremist forums," writes Wired's Spencer Ackerman today, reporting on the government's Viral Peace initiative, which sounds more apt to take down a World of Warcraft guild rather than a terrorist network.