In recent years, massive open online courses (MOOCs) have enabled millions of people across the world to have access to free higher education. While the original purpose of the MOOC model may have been to make higher education more democratic, it is increasingly being used as a tool to foster mutual understanding between the United States and other countries, and provide an opportunity for students across the world to “test drive” a U.S. higher education experience.

The U.S. State Department is the same body that it has always been: handling relations between nations, maintaining peace and balancing tense situations around the globe.  But one office is doing that in a new way.  Moira Whelan is the deputy assistant secretary for digital strategy.  “It’s digital diplomacy,” she told the Centre Daily Times in an interview.

The U.S. Department of State will explore the effects of mobile technology and their impact on diplomacy at Tech@State: Mobile Diplomacy on Friday, October 3, 2014. The event is designed to stimulate conversations between Department of State personnel and a wider community about ways mobile technologies can transform the work of diplomacy and development.

As you may have heard, America's diplomats are struggling these days with a few distracting and unpleasant events in far-off parts of the world. But they're rising to the challenge: They're sending in the chefs. The U.S. State Department launched a Diplomatic Culinary Partnership two years ago in order to "elevate the role of culinary engagement in America's formal and public diplomacy efforts." 

We asked State Department veteran Tara Sonenshine to watch the premiere episode of the series, which centers on an unconventional secretary of state, a former CIA analyst played by Tea Leoni, with us to see how accurately the show gets Washington and the world of Foggy Bottom diplomacy.

Last night Ribab Fusion kicked off their month long tour in the United-States with a concert on the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. Ribab Fusion’s music celebrates Morocco’s Amazigh (Berber) culture, moving from 70s-style funk to Afropop dance vibes, from slow jams to high-energy call-and-responses choruses.

One of this fall’s newest political TV shows trades in the drama of an Oval Office affair for foreign affairs — and PTA meetings too. Adding to the growing line up of political programs, CBS will premiere “Madam Secretary,” on Sunday, Sept. 21, at 8 p.m. EST. The show, with executive producers Lori McCreary and Morgan Freeman, stars Tea Leoni as Elizabeth McCord — a former CIA analyst who is suddenly asked to leave her life in academia behind to take the reins at the State Department.

According to The New York Times, a senior State Department official speaking before the meeting with Arab foreign ministers said Kerry planned to not only ask the Arab states to increase their public condemnations of ISIS, but also to “ask them to use their state-owned media, too.”