The State Department announced today that it had completed a key component of its strategic framework for public diplomacy, with the selection of Deputy Assistant Secretaries for public diplomacy in the Department’s six geographic bureaus and a Deputy Assistant Secretary for international media engagement in the Bureau of Public Affairs.

A Pakistani delegation consisting of nine professionals, who have achieved distinction in their respective fields and are on a visit to the US since October 1, will visit the US State Department, which has arranged special briefings for them with its Public Diplomacy wing. The delegation is visiting the US at the invitation of the Rotary Club (RC) of Wilmington, Delaware.

I've written in The Huffington Post about the State Department, as part of its plan to privatize American public diplomacy, creating a bogus nonprofit corporation and compelling the IRS to give it tax exempt status so that the nonprofit, Shanghai Expo 2010, Inc., could attract corporate sponsors, the State thus avoiding any need to seek funding from Congress

Female students from a local Jalalabad high school recently spent a morning chatting online with three female Soldiers from Forward Operating Base Fenty September 21st. The students were participating in a State Department sponsored program called the Global Connections and Exchange program.

To head this division, the search engine titan has tapped a former State Department official “Jared Cohen” who is credited with assisting to bring social networking and other Web 2.0 tools to US diplomacy now heading to Google to form a new Think/do Tank called “Google Ideas”. Today that became official.

"Our embassies now are sponsoring more events like Generation Change in order to listen to young people, and to help connect young people across the globe, to connect them with other change-makers," Clinton said. The young Muslim leaders who attended the iftar are making a difference at home and abroad.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton declared Wednesday that "a new American moment" had arrived in international relations--"a moment when our global leadership is essential, even if we must often lead in new ways."

Up until last year, according to a report in the New York Times, the US State Department was still doing things the traditional way: through diplomatic cables, official communiqués and government to government transactions involving diplomats travelling to other countries to negotiate agreements.