In particular, we need to take advantage of this anniversary to revitalize the Peace Corps so that it makes more progress in advancing its timeless mission of making the world more peaceful and prosperous.

Rarely has the power of a celebrity to draw attention to an issue exerted such a pull as on Tuesday, when White House reporters called an end to the daily briefing by press secretary Robert Gibbs to catch the actor George Clooney as he left a meeting with President Obama about the crisis in Sudan.

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."