A policy of branding U.S. aid to flood-ravaged Pakistan is risking the security of aid workers working in the Islamic nation, according to a group of relief organizations. Eleven aid agencies including Oxfam, Save the Children, World Vision and CARE International warn that using a “stars and stripes” logo on U.S.-funded assistance compromises their neutrality in a nation mired in anti-U.S. sentiments.

The United States continues to lead the world in global image, according to GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications, a division of GfK Custom Research North America and Simon Anholt, the leading policy advisor. Results from the 2010 Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index(SM) (NBI), which measures the global image of 50 countries, shows the United States holding the top spot for the second year in a row as the country with the best overall brand.

Two Chinese firms that have benefitted from this overseas interest in Chinese gardens are the Suzhou Institute of Landscape Architectural Design and the Suzhou Garden Development Company. Both firms are owned by Landscape Architecture Corporation of China, which is part of the Ministry of Construction.

Experts have talked about winning the “hearts and minds" of populations around the globe for decades. Yet today after continued application of this theory, America and it allies have won neither the trust nor the support from many of the world’s most disaffected peoples. Indeed many feel great distrust.

Sports are making the well-known ambassador, who often goes by her Korean name, Shim Eun-kyung, even more popular among Koreans. She regularly plays tennis, for example, with Korean friends at her residence behind downtown Seoul's Deoksu Palace.

In a recent CBS Sunday Morning program on The Rhythm Road: American Music Abroad, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton quite rationally asserts, "I think there are certainly times music conveys American values better than a speech."

Wynton Marsalis pulled a young Cuban trumpeter aside as he left the Mella Theater here on Wednesday after a Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra concert. The band was here for a residency that ended over the weekend, and Mr. Marsalis had seen 17-year-old Kalí Rodríguez play a few nights earlier at an official reception for the American musicians.

It’s the season for embassy soirees in the nation’s capital, and the public is invited to attend a series of concerts and receptions — not just for the music, but also as a way to sample the social whirl of the diplomatic set on a trip to Washington.