Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Mike Hammer will travel to Asia from September 10 to 15. He will visit Ulaanbaatar, Beijing, and Hong Kong.

“The Broadcasting Board of Governors is structurally a mess,” a former chair of the governmental organization that runs the premier Voice of America and Radio Free Europe told a panel discussion on countering Islamist Extremism at the Hudson Institute Wednesday afternoon.

Zingerman’s Roadhouse executive chef Alex Young is among the first group of American chefs and culinarians to be tapped for the American Chef Corps, part of a wide-ranging new State Department program called the Diplomatic Culinary Partnership.

The Washington Post reports that the James Beard Foundation is teaming up with the State Department to launch the Diplomatic Culinary Partnership Sept. 7, hoping to "elevate the role of culinary engagement in America’s formal and public diplomacy efforts."

The U.S Department of State announced today that the Papermoon Puppet Theatre will travel from Yogyakarta, Indonesia, to communities across America September 5-October 1, 2012 as part of its Center StageSM initiative

The “Culinary Diplomacy: Promoting Cultural Understanding Through Food” exchange will provide an opportunity to explore the role of food in bringing people of varied backgrounds together. The participants will meet with chefs, farmers, and culinary experts across the country.

The escalating tension is not only increasing the chances of conflict, it is also leading to a hemorrhage of any "soft power" that China previously possessed in the region. Regardless of the intentions of the U.S., it would be wise for Chinese officials to preserve and, if possible, rebuild any form of "soft power" that it can in the Asia Pacific region.

The wide-ranging effort creates an American Chef Corps, a network of culinary leaders who could be deployed to promote U.S. cooking and agricultural products abroad. “They might meet with an embassy, cook a lunch, post blogs or [write] articles, speak at events,” says [U.S. Chief of Protocol Capricia Penavic] Marshall, listing the many ways participants might engage.