Many cultural diplomacy endeavors within governments, particularly when using the visual arts, present art in the safety of the traditional museum or mega-gallery. While the reasons for doing so are understandable, it's much more exciting to hear about programs that accept a bit more out-of-the-box type of approach.

Yuliana Lestari is searching for universities. She takes a brief tour of Oxford in England and then zooms off to Harvard with the help of Google’s Liquid Galaxy. The 16-year-old Indonesian is one of a host of youths who have come to take advantage of the high-tech resources inside “@ America," an initiative supported by the US Embassy in Jakarta that puts an edgy, 21st-century twist on public diplomacy.

Whether one supports or finds fault with current (and envisioned) U.S. diplomacy and international development processes and practices, most foreign policy analysts and academics will recognize the first Quadrennial Diplomatic and Development Review (QDDR) as a landmark document.

Singapore diplomats would be more cautious in discussions with their US counterparts following the publication of confidential cables by WikiLeaks, the city-state's foreign minister said Monday, calling the release of the documents a disaster for the US.

Mr. Zuckerberg, the 26-year-old Facebook chief executive and co-founder, may be the man of the moment in the United States and much of the rest of the online world. But here in Japan, one of the globe’s most wired nations, few people have heard of him.

GW’s Museum Studies Program, part of the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, announced plans to launch the Iraqi Museum Residency Program to provide museum professionals from Iraq unique learning opportunities and behind-the-scenes access to some of America’s top museums.

The ugly American — the stereotypically brutish, ethnocentric, bumbling traveler abroad — is dead. He's gone the way of global U.S. hegemony, the strong dollar and mid-20th century American naivete.

Several years ago, I became interested in the origins of the Voice of America. I had worked there in 1942 but wanted to supplement my recollections with written facts. The quest for the truth turned out to be far more complex than I ever could have imagined...