An amendment quietly inserted into the annual National Defense Authorization Act by Republican House leaders would abolish the broadcasting board and place VOA, RFE/RL and other international news and information operations under the direct control of a chief executive appointed by the president. The new executive would hire and fire senior media personnel and manage their budgets.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has reiterated some aspects of Russia's foreign policy agenda with Africa in speech delivered on November 9, when receiving letters of credence from new foreign ambassadors including six from Africa. The six new African ambassadors are from Burundi, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Mali and Somalia.

On the cusp of a war in which millions lost their lives, borders shifted and modern warfare was revolutionized, Winston Churchill made an observation of Russia: “It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.” For decades, Russia has fascinated historians, politicians and the public alike.

When the world’s nations sit down to talk nowadays, there is a distinct difference to the way diplomacy is done. Influence is no longer defined only by special relationships and old alliances, but which WhatsApp group you are invited into. The rise of WhatsApp diplomacy is transforming the negotiating chamber. 

Lithuanian troops are teaching their British counterparts how to identify and fight Russia propaganda as part of an ongoing attempt to fight the country’s attempts to influence public opinion. Officers from the Baltic state – which is said to be at the front line of Russia’s “soft power” war in Europe – shared their experiences with the 77th Brigade, a new British Army unit set up to deal with information warfare. 

America’s historical quest for freedom and democracy has been all but stamped out under the Obama administration in its quest to weaken American power, hard or soft. During Soviet times, Radio Free Europe and other Western media outlets did a good job of telling the world [...] We need to restore this vision and capability with similar, modern media efforts around the globe to tell the American story.

This month, the Chinese government plans to introduce codes for some 3,000 Chinese characters as part of a grand project, known as the China Font Bank, to digitize 500,000 characters previously unavailable in electronic form. Until now, only 80,388 characters have been encoded in the international computing standard, Unicode.