Recognizing the role coaches play in empowering women and girls through sports, the U.S. Department of State announced today a soccer exchange program that will bring 11 Egyptian soccer coaches to the United States May 9-21, 2012, to work alongside their American counterparts.

The State Department has announced some much-awaited changes to the Summer Work Travel Program, made after a review process stemming from revelations that some international students had been exploited during their participation.

These exchanges can be not only the warmest and most meaningful, but also most consequential and enduring form of our diplomacy. They are absolutely critical to our relationship, because while we in government are working at the highest levels to strengthen communication...

In Afghanistan and across the Arab world, U.S. public diplomacy and coalition-building efforts seek to distinguish between the religious traditions of Islam and archaic tribal practices that oppress women — like honor killings, genital mutilation, denial of education and property rights.

I have spent some time as of late picking through the now infamous train wreck that was the American pavilion at Shanghai. Cynthia Schneider offers her opinion on what went wrong here. Here’s my take:

Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara Sonenshine will travel to Beijing May 3-4 to serve as co-coordinator of the third annual U.S.-China Consultation on People-to-People Exchange (CPE) with Chinese Vice Minister of Education Hao Ping.

This week, Tara Sonenshine was formally sworn-in as the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs by Secretary Clinton. Secretary Clinton’s introductory remarks were personal, insightful, and deeply supportive of public diplomacy and of Tara.