April 11

"[U]ntil we annex Denmark, there's just not much benefit for an American political campaign to be dealing with foreign press."

-- Jesse Benton, spokesman Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, cited at; image from, with caption: Prince William's Wedding: HM The Queen of Denmark

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

U.S. Visa Rules Deprive Stages of Performers - Larry Rohter, New York Times: "In the decade since the attacks on the twin towers, American visa procedures for foreign artists and performers have grown increasingly labyrinthine, expensive and arbitrary, arts presenters and immigration lawyers say, making the system a serious impediment to cultural exchanges with the rest of the world. ... A foreign artist seeking authorization to perform in the United States must navigate a system that involves a pair of government departments. Homeland Security, created in 2003, evaluates the initial application and then, if approval is granted, the State Department, assuming it is satisfied with the results of an in-person interview with the performer, issues a visa at an embassy abroad. Congress requires the process

to be financially self-sustaining, rather than depend on taxpayer support, which in practice means that fees are typically higher than those of other countries. Homeland Security even offers an expedited 'premium processing fee' of $1,225 per application — over and above the standard $325 filing fee — that is supposed to guarantee a response within two weeks, but arts administrators complain that the agency sometimes fails to meet its own deadline. ... In many cases foreign troupes must also pay a 'consultation' fee of up to $500 to an American union to certify that its performances will not adversely affect the interests of American artists. ... As a result, some large ensembles are now simply avoiding the United States." Image from

Welcome to America - Philip Seib, PD News–CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy: "Public diplomacy efforts to showcase the United States to the world are doomed if the first American a visitor meets is ignorant and hostile."

Pajamas and press outreach - Laura McGinnis, manIC: "[A] quick highlight from the realm of public diplomacy, this one courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, which reports that the foreign press is often marginalized while covering the U.S. presidential race:  ‘They show us pictures of Ron Paul yard signs in their country and say 'See, there are signs and stickers all over Stockholm,'  ’ said Ron Paul spokesman

Jesse Benton. ‘I'm not without some compassion and sympathy for them. But until we annex Denmark, there's just not much benefit for an American political campaign to be dealing with foreign press.’ However, the Journal reports, the U.S. State Department's Foreign Press Centers have stepped in to create an outreach opportunity out of what might otherwise be seen as a snub." Image from

State Department to Acquire Own Drone Fleet - Peter Van Buren, We Meant Well: "According to NextGov, the State Department plans on acquiring its own fleet of (so far unarmed) aerial drones. Because sure, why not? Nothing says 'diplomacy' these days better than showing some swag violating foreign air space because we freaking can. This development can only make the US more popular overseas, that is for certain. Just as a thought experiment, how do you think the US would feel if say the Chinese or the Iranians wanted to fly drones over the US to watch over their own diplomats (the Iranians have a UN mission in New York)? Any issues there? The State Department has issued a request for proposals for contractors to provide the aircraft, crew and support on a turnkey basis.

The procurement request released last month and updated Monday marks the start of a project to provide the department with UAV assets that could be deployed anywhere in the world. State did not say how many aircraft it eventually planned to deploy. ... The State UAV project has already attracted 62 interested bidders, including manufacturers such as General Atomics and a number of aerospace companies, as well as systems integrators such as Computer Sciences Corp., General Dynamics Information Technology, L-3 Communications and Lockheed Martin Corp. Bids are due April 23. Maybe the State Department’s public diplomacy social media people can get in on this, say holding a contest on Twitter, the winner gets his/her house buzzed by a drone. Or something on Facebook where whomever gets the least 'likes' has a Hellfire missile sent down their timeline? Image from entry

She remained silent. We do not - Peter Van Buren, We Meant Well: “Countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century,” said SecState Hillary Clinton. Clinton has made internet freedom and the rights of bloggers and journalists a cornerstone of her foreign policy, going as far as citing the free use of social media as a prime mover in the Arab Spring. At the Conference on Internet Freedom at the Hague, Clinton said: [‘]When ideas are blocked, information deleted, conversations stifled, and people constrained in their choices, the internet is diminished for all of us. In China, several dozen companies signed a pledge in October, committing to strengthen their – quote – [']self-management, self-restraint, and strict self-discipline.['] Now, if they were talking about fiscal responsibility, we might all agree. But they were talking about offering web-based services to the Chinese people, which is code for getting in line with the government’s tight control over the internet. [’] The United States wants the internet to remain a space where economic, political, and social exchanges flourish. To do that, we need to protect people who exercise their rights online. Yet inside her own Department of State, Clinton presides over the censoring of the internet, blocking objectionable web sites that refer to Wikileaks, such as TomDispatch ... , while allowing sites that play to State’s own point of view, such as Fox.com, which also refer to Wikileaks. The use of specialized software and VPNs that State recommends to Iranians to circumvent the firewall block placed by the Tehran government are prohibited by the State Department to its own employees to get around State’s own firewall blocks. While Clinton mocks Chinese companies, claiming terms like 'self-management, self-restraint, and strict self-discipline' equate to censorship, her own Department’s social media guidance reminds employees to

‘be mindful of the weight of your expressed views as a U.S. government official,’ and to ‘Remember that you are a Foreign Service USG employee.’ Official guidance reminds employees that 'All Department organizations with a social media site must monitor user-generated content,' and cites 27 laws and regulations that must be followed to be acceptable to the government. Self-censorship is the byword at State, as it is in China. Government bureaucrats know that this sort of slow-drip intimidation keeps people in line. They are meant to see what’s happening and remain silent. One web site reported that when Matt Armstrong was hired as Executive Director for the now defunct Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, a condition to his hiring was to stop blogging. The condition was set by the office of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Whistleblower Ray McGovern was arrested merely for physically standing and turning his back on Clinton at a public rally where she was speaking about the importance of freedom of speech. Did Secretary of State Clinton say anything about the arrest?  She remained silent.  We do not." Image from

Social Media and the Embassy - Kitty Non Grata, mlab555.wordpress.com: “Social Media is the new cool thing in the State Dept, and the USG over all.  The messaging power of Social Media is real, as my amazing team in Public Affairs has proven. A few weeks ago, Facebook switched to the Timeline format for organizations and my team was ready with tons of updates and a detailed timeline that goes back to the 1950s when we first opened up diplomatic relations with Cambodia. A few people tweeted back at us about how much they like our Embassy Facebook page. I’m really only involved in Twitter and Facebook for the Embassy in a supervisory capacity, but it makes me so proud of my team when they get that kind of feedback! A blogger in Cambodia reached out to us recently and asked us to answer some questions about the Embassy’s use of social media.  Again, my team was hard at work (and making me look good!) Here is the article the blogger wrote: The U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh Talks Twitter, Facebook, Social Media.” Via

The Downside of Focusing on Influencers in Social Media for Public Policy - mediabadger.com: “When it comes to companies and brands looking to engage in social media for marketing purposes, the emphasis is on people who have influence or authority…in other words; reach. If you’re a brand, you want to engage with someone who has an audience, that way if they something good about your brand, they reach a lot of people. That’s okay for marketing, but not so much when it comes to public diplomacy or policy issues. Even in marketing terms, it has a downside and here’s why. Really valuable information, the kind of information that becomes intelligence

remember, it’s intelligence we use to make a decision, not information…and we’re not talking espionage type intelligence) may be a single ‘tweet’ or blog post from someone who perhaps doesn’t have a very big audience. But the quality of their content is critical. In public policy terms, it may be a blog post that can play a critical role in shaping a policy through a suggested improvement or approach. In marketing terms, it may be a comment on a product feature/function the company had never thought of that provides for a whole new revenue stream. Too often in our research projects (over 200 of them) into social and news media, we see public and private sector clients looking for the big ‘wow’ or the thought leader they can then instantly form a rapport with – without a clear understanding as to ‘why’ it has to be someone with a big audience. This can mean the most valuable of information gets completely overlooked. With so much industry news media and pundit ‘hype’ over social media and size mattering more than substance, it is not the fault of the governments, NGO’s and corporations who fall prey to looking for big numbers over substance. If you’re researching into digital media, in this case specifically social media, then be cautious about focusing on  just those who have a big audience; they often have different value to their content.” Image from

The US and the paradox of Latin America - jtothelo, Public and Cultural Diplomacy 2: A group blog by students at London Metropolitan University: "In reality any country especially the United States cannot operate on the basis of a one sided mode of public diplomacy and one knows how the pursuit of the unipolar turned out during the Bush years. ... US needs to hand over the PD to private and NGOs instead of trying to dominate the narrative themselves."

American National Security Strategy: The Leadership Factor by Richard Wetiz - Mastermind Century Group: [A]nalysis of recent U.S. biodefense strategy concludes

that a critical weakness of present USG endeavors stems from the fact that DOD, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Department of Health and Human Services all lack a single focal point by which to conduct intra-agency coordination. Analysis of public diplomacy in the 1990s illustrates the atrophying of the innovative interagency International Public Information Group under the pressures of Foggy Bottom bureaucracy after it was moved there from the NSC." Image from

"What’s the Best Way To Foment Unrest in a Foreign Country?" A media guide (updated with RFE/RL response) - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting: "Response to Slate from from Martins Zvaners, depurty [sic] director of communications, RFE/RL, Inc.: "Concerning Radio Free Europe and the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, to which you refer in today's Explainer -- the tapes of all of the Hungarian Service broadcasts from that time were preserved by chance by the German government. These tapes, along with the findings of several internal and external investigations, refute the charges that RFE incited the revolution, promised

Western military assistance, or provoked the Soviet crackdown. What RFE’s programs were most guilty of, according to researcher and former RFE executive Ross Johnson, was 'project[ing] to Hungary the sympathy and moral and humanitarian support of the Western world. In the context of the revolution, this reporting--with few exceptions both accurate and journalistically responsible--inadvertently became a source of false hope.' To read Johnson's "Hoover Review" article on RFE's performance during the Hungarian Revolution, visit http://bit.ly/I9vbQt. Johnson examines the issue in more depth in his December 2010 book, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty: The CIA Years and Beyond, while Arch Puddington discussed the question in his May 2000 book, Broadcasting Freedom: The Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. Image from

BBG Reception iho New Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Soneshine - John Brown, Notes and Essays: "April 10, I had the pleasure of attending a late-morning Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG)- organized reception in honor of Tara Sonenshine, the new Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs at the State Department. ... The BBG has been under immense criticism in recent years. I may be a sucker for people-to-people encounters but this modest one-hour event -- coffee and pastry were available, and no official speeches were given, at least when I was there, all of which cost the US taxpayer little -- showed the human face of the BBG."

CIPG doubles showcase titles at London Book Fair - china.org.cn: "The London Book Fair, one of the three biggest book fairs in the world, will open on April 16 with a strong presence of Chinese culture. China International Publishing Group (CIPG) is planning to showcase 972 titles – twice the number of the previous year – in 43 languages for the exhibition. CIPG, established in October 1949, is China's leading publisher for international readers. The organization annually publishes over 2,000 book titles, 21 printed periodicals and 25 cyber journals in 20 languages in over 100 countries and regions around the world. ... [A] panel discussion on topics surrounding China's public diplomacy will feature panelists including Zhao Qizheng, press spokesman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), Liu Binjie, president and Party chief of the General Administration of Press and Publication and president of the National Copyright Administration, and other renowned Chinese and foreign experts."

2012 Global Forecast -csis.org: "[In] Risk, Opportunity, and the Next Administration [one of the authors] Walter Douglas explores why public diplomacy has ceased to be at the forefront of public debate and how the next administration should think about the challenge at hand.

Global Forecast 2012 provides a snapshot of CSIS’s collective wisdom on the challenges facing the next administration in the years ahead. Although the focus is on foreign and defense policy, this is a year when our domestic debates are intrinsically tied to long-term success abroad. Failure of the next Administration to recognize the risks and opportunities in both settings will have consequences for years to come." Image from entry

Some Lessons from ISA 2012 - Craig Hayden, Intermap: "So I’m still trying to digest all that I learned from this year’s International Studies Association annual convention. For the first time, there was simply no way to attend all the panels pertaining to public diplomacy and strategic communication. That’s a good thing. I also learned that issues central to public diplomacy and strategic communication studies – information and communication technologies, the politics of information, and the mediatization/mediation of politics – are being eagerly studied across a range of related fields of international studies.

I felt the sneaking suspicion that public diplomacy studies, in particular, needs to 'get with the program' or else be left behind by more traditional forms of international studies research. This was made evident in my participation in the New Media and Foreign Policy” working group, and in many other panels. ... There was a clear sense that while maybe some theories relevant to international studies may yet hold, our sense of the practice of things like public diplomacy needs to catch up with reality. It was also clear that insights from outside the traditional sphere of international relations/political science might yet shed some light on communication and media effects, the cultural foundations of new media ecologies, and the constitutive effects of communication on international institutions." Image from

Propaganda v. Public Diplomacy …. ‘We’re just misunderstood…’ - thebricsarecoming, Public and Cultural Diplomacy 4: A group blog by students at London Metropolitan University: "The very term public diplomacy I would argue is propaganda in its finest form."

“Welcome to Rice. Now go away!” - Owl Admission Blog: Learn from current Rice students about Rice University: "[U]niversities have realized there’s a lot more other countries have to offer aside from their classrooms, and so now you can find internships, fellowships, research, and service opportunities in other countries. Rice fully embraces this expanded view of study abroad, and has lots of resources you can consult to find the the experience

that best suits you. ... The sophomore after sophomore year, I got to go to Japan for 10 weeks to learn Japanese and do nanotechnology research through a Rice-sponsored program called NanoJapan, and it was an amazing experience. One of my friends liked being abroad so much, she decided to apply to go abroad the semester after she came back. Or you can be like one of my more policy-minded friends. While I was in Japan, he participated in a Baker Institute trip to American University Cairo where he got to meet Egyptian students through the Public Diplomacy and Global Policymaking program. He enjoyed that trip and learning about public diplomacy, and this year he helped organize a student trip to Qatar to meet with Qatari college students and attend a science policy conference. Image from article

RELATED ITEMS

Terrorists in Court: Abu Hamza and friends may get the U.S. justice they deserve - Review and Outlook, Wall Street Journal: When it comes to what George W. Bush used to call "the war on terror," Europeans often seem divided on what they think is worse: terrorism itself, or the means the U.S. government has used to prosecute it. On Tuesday the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) took a stand on the subject by ruling in America's favor.

The case concerned the U.S. attempt to extradite several alleged terrorists from Great Britain. Happily, the European court decided that their rights would not be in jeopardy in American courts (where they would be accorded the presumption of innocence) or even in places like the "Supermax" prison in Colorado, where the worst terrorist offenders often go. That ruling is a triumph over a mountain of anti-American prejudice. Image from article, with caption: Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri with a masked bodyguard.

A U.S.-Brazil respect deficit: Op-Ed This week's U.S. visit by President Dilma Rousseff could set the stage for meaningful economic agreements between the two nations that have long neglected the need for a robust relationship - Peter Hakim, latimes.com: The two countries need to be more respectful of each other. Frequently, the U.S. treats Brazil as an interloper in world affairs, which does not match the status it has achieved. For its part, Brazil seems intent on demonstrating its influence by flaunting its independence of the U.S. and, on many issues, showing off its opposition, even when bedrock U.S. interests are at stake. Changes in approach would benefit both nations. For now, however, they seem comfortable with the status quo, with two governments tolerating and accommodating each other, while maintaining their distance. Unfortunately, neither is prepared to invest very much in building a more robust relationship.

The U.S. has little leverage to stop North Korea’s missile test - Editorial Board, Washington Post: The cycle of actions with which North Korea has manipulated the United States for nearly two decades remains unchanged: It promises a freeze on its nuclear and missile programs in exchange for economic and diplomatic concessions; it breaks those promises; and then it lashes out when it is held accountable. Now the cycle has been radically compressed.

Only 16 days elapsed from the announcement of a freeze-for-food deal between the Obama administration and Pyongyang to the North’s revelation that it would launch a ballistic missile. The launch is expected as early as Thursday, and there are signs that it could be followed by a nuclear weapons test. Image from, with caption: North Korea 'preparing to unveil missile capable of striking continental US' telegraph.co.uk

Islamists Inside the Gates: It is tempting, but dangerous and premature, to write off Egypt and its dominant Muslim Brotherhood - Matthew Kaminski, Wall Street Journal: "We never think of our leaders as divine or holy," said Abdul Mawgoud Dardery, who represents Luxor in parliament for the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, in Washington last week. "That's the European experience. Don't impose it on us." As intended, the audience laughed at the reference to the centuries when Europe's royalty claimed to rule by divine right. For democracy to stick in the Middle East—as it has in Europe, where today's Christian Democrats were some of the religious populists of the 1930s—Islamists will need to mature politically. The next, tough step will be to get them and their countries to that second free election without any detours.

International broadcasters accuse international broadcasters of "fabricated" reporting about Syria - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting

Syria's "Rogue Islamist Opposition": US-NATO’s New Lie in its Bid for Regime Change - globalresearch.ca: Finian Cunningham, The Western propaganda offensive against Syria looks like tripping over itself in the rush to cover up the increasingly threadbare lies and deception that the mainstream media have been shamelessly churning out over the past year.

"If viewers perceive a bias...": As Al Jazeera's audience grows, so does the number of its critics - - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting

Sky News Arabia will launch on 6 May, "with an independent editorial mandate at the heart of everything we do" - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting

Iran Not Shutting Down Internet, Merely Building Walled Garden - Andrew Tarantola, gizmodo.com.au: Iran has issued a strongly worded statement denying reports from yesterday that the country planned to shut itself off from the rest of the Internet.

Quite the contrary — Iran is just building its own, closed version. Totally different!  Iran’s Communications ministry published a statement on its website (which isn’t available outside of Iran) that the original story was the work of “the propaganda wing of the West and providing its hostile media with a pretext emanating from a baseless claim.” Communications Minister Reza Taghipour did confirm via the statement that while the government isn’t going to shut itself off from the rest of the Internet, it will instead build an Iran-only national intranet — the so-called Clean Internet. This network would reportedly operate much like a large corporate intranet — that is, easy to control and monitor — though Iranian officials have not commented on whether or not the Internet access will be cut once the national network is in place. [AFP via Mashable] Image from

Gunter Grass: Israel’s response to poem akin to dictatorship - jta.org: German literary giant Gunter Grass said Israel's decision to bar him entry following publication of his controversial poem resembles the behavior of a dictatorship. Writing in the German Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Grass said the decision puts Israel in the company of Communist-ruled East Germany and junta-ruled Myanmar -- the only two regimes that ever have barred him entry. Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai declared the Nobel Prize-winning writer persona non grata this week after Grass published a short poem

that suggested that Israel's saber-rattling on Iran was a greater threat to world peace than the prospect of a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic. "It's the alleged right to a first strike that could destroy an Iranian people," Grass wrote in his poem. "Why only now, grown old, and with what ink remains, do I say: Israel's atomic power endangers an already fragile world peace?" After the poem caused a firestorm of criticism in Israel and Germany, Grass said he should have phrased the poem differently to make it clear that the current Israeli government was his target, not Israel as a whole. Image from, with caption: A screen shot from a German news site showing a copy of a controversial new poem by Günter Grass, published on Wednesday in the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.

South Korea deplores Israeli TV channel's anti Iran propaganda‎ - Islamic Republic News Agency: South Korean Ambassador to Tehran Bark Chi Young in an statement on Tuesday deplored Israeli TV’s anti-Iran propaganda. He expressed regret over the trade show by Israeli TV channel using Samsung products. He decried the "unacceptable action of an Israeili cable TV channel and unawareness of Samsung." The ambassador said in the statement that Samsung called for a rapid end to the misusing advestisement of Galaxy Tab products by the channel. The Diplomat underlined Iran-South Korea friendly relations and expressed hope the misuse of advertisement would not affect the historical and respectful ties of the two nations. Samsung has extended an apology to Iranian Ambassador to Seoul in this regard.

WikiLeaked cable: Invisible Children helped Ugandan security forces arrest government opponent -  Joshua Keating, Foreign Policy. Just days after releasing its new video, Invisible Children -- the U.S.-based NGO behind the phenomenally successful "Kony 2012" campaign -- has yet again found itself in the midst of controversy over a U.S. diplomatic cable released last year by WikiLeaks, which reports that the group cooperated with the Ugandan military to facilitate the arrest of a former child soldier who was allegedly involved in the formation of a new rebel group. Via  KK on Facebook

State of Cool - Maureen Dowd, New York Times: "I asked the dazzling Diana Walker — the Time magazine photographer who took one of the totemic pictures of Hillary on a C-17 flight last fall from Malta to Tripoli for a cover story on

'Hillary and the Rise of Smart Power' — what made her black-and-white shot such a sensation. 'I don’t think she was meaning to be cool,' Walker said. 'She just reached in her bag to get some glasses to read her BlackBerry before the plane took off for Tripoli.'” Image from

AMERICANA

Nearly 900 wrongly told they're admitted to UCLA - AP, USA Today: UCLA is apologizing for mistakenly sending almost 900 applicants emails congratulating them on getting into the highly competitive school.

MORE AMERICANA

Dude breaks up fight on NYC subway with bag of chips [VIDEO] - Xeni Jardin, Boing Boing

RUSSICA

Via AT on Facebook

April 10

"We have no discipline in this bureaucracy. We never fire anybody....We always promote the sons of bitches that kick us in the ass.... When a bureaucrat deliberately thumbs his nose, we're going to get him.... The little boys over in state [State Department] particularly, that they are against us, we will do it."

--President Richard Milhous Nixon; cited in Hannah Gurman, The Dissent Papers: The Voices of Diplomats in the Cold War and Beyond (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), p. 174; image from

VIDEO

Fergus Hanson, Visiting Fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, discusses, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Senior Adviser for Innovation Alec Ross, the reaction at the State Department to his (Hanson's) paper on ediplomacy. Via YO on Twitter

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Urgent Challenges for New Public Diplomacy Chief - Helle Dale, heritage.org: "Rolling up her sleeves should be new Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy Tara Sonenshine’s first act in office. For the chief of the U.S. government’s outreach to the foreign public, urgent business is waiting. Moving into her office at the State Department on Monday, with her swearing in scheduled for April 24, Sonenshine, the former executive VP of the U.S. Institute of Peace, is reportedly ready to jump right in. As her position holds a seat on the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), Sonenshine will be able to influence the BBG’s strategic planning process. This process has in recent years threatened to gut the U.S. international broadcasting services by redirecting resources from broadcasting toward Internet-only platforms, which are unavailable in many developing countries. According to the website BBG Watch, Sonenshine is planning to attend this month’s BBG meeting at the Office of Cuba Broadcasting. Radio and Television Marti, which broadcasts to Cuba, are

among the entities targeted by the cutting knife. Sonenshine will also need to hear from Members of Congress who have taken a strong interest in the future of international broadcasting, such as Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R–CA). Another issue demanding attention is the challenge from China, whose aggressive public diplomacy advances are well-documented and were the topic of hearings in the House Foreign Affairs Committee recently. China is investing heavily in public diplomacy and international broadcasting, openly challenging the U.S. ideologically on its own turf. Sonenshine would do well to visit some of the 260 Chinese-funded Confucius Institutes at academic institutions all over the U.S. The U.S. is under pressure from China and others in the field of public diplomacy and communication and desperately needs to focus on outreach. Lots of other issues will be on her plate, but most fundamentally, Sonenshine has to answer this question: Is the U.S. still engaged in the war of ideas globally? If the answer is 'yes,' then there is no time to waste." Image from

Create Yer Own Blog Post: Web Hypocrisy - Peter Van Buren, We Meant Well: "The Department of State lately is very concerned about web freedom for other countries ('smart power') because it has convinced itself that if people in other countries had full and free access

to the internet, they would be nice and we would not have to bomb them with drones ('policy'). ... If only the State Department would afford the We Meant Well blog the same freedom it demands for Iranians." On Van Buren, see. Image from entry

WikiLeaks, public diplomacy 2.0 and the state of digital public diplomacy - an extract - Nicholas J. Cull, statesmansyearbook.com: "Secretary of State Clinton has argued that connectivity is an absolute good and pledged the United States to work to make the blessings of the information society as widely available as possible, but the voters of the United States will have to accept that the voices they empower will be diverse and will include some that are critical and even openly hostile. ... In planning new technology ventures I would propose the following. Rule 1: Be relevant. Don't assume that what is important to you will matter to your audience: tweet the issue. Rule 2: Be cooperative. Look for partners and be ready to pass on messages from others and by the same token craft your messages so as to make them easy for others to pass them on.

Rule 3: Know your audience. Understand the ways in which they use social media and be consistent with that culture as you would if you were physically entering a conversation. Understand the credibility that comes from being 'like' your online interlocutor. Rule 4: Be realistic. Public Diplomacy 2.0 can't make a bad policy good any more than its 1.0 variety could. The prime need is not to say the right thing but to actually be the right thing, especially in an era of growing transparency. Rule 5: Listen. Do not let the 1001 new ways to speak that you have discovered online keep you from exploring 1002 new ways to listen. In the old media or the new, public diplomacy begins with listening." Cull image from

Dozens Die as Suspected Muslim Terrorists Target Easter Service in Nigeria - Patrick Goodenough, CNSNews.com, posted at: "The U.S. government is planning to open a consulate in Kano, a flashpoint city in the northern shari’a belt, to help advance U.S. development assistance activity and public diplomacy programs in the north. The U.S. had a consulate in Kaduna in past years, but when Nigeria moved its federal capital from Lagos in the south-west to Abuja in the center in the early 1990s, the consulate was shut down and a consulate opened in Lagos."

Чикагский Симфонический Оркестр [Chicago Symphony Orchestra]  - afisha-lj.livejournal.com: “18 и 19 апреля на сцене Большого зала консерватории выступит один из величайших оркестров мира – Чикагский симфонический оркестр. Гастроли коллектива являются кульминацией программы 'Американские сезоны в России', проходящей под эгидой Двусторонней российско-американской президентской комиссии при поддержке посольства США. (April 18-19 at the Bolshoi Hall of the [Tchaikovsky] Conservatory one of the greatest orchestras in the world will perform – the

Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The tour of the musical ensemble is the culmination of the program ‘American Seasons in Russia,’ undertaken under the aegis of the Bilateral Russian-American Presidential Commission with the support of the USA Embassy.”) Via HS on Facebook. Image from article.

Iran's culture ministry criticizes Iranian website for Q and A with US diplomat - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting

Fox News domestically disseminates VOA story as apparent pretext for provocative headline - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting

Kyrgyzstan court overturns conviction in murder of journalist who had reported for RFE/RL and VOA - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting

Facebook Entry - Mark H. Teeter: "Hey, d'ya hear who won the Masters? Booba Uatson! No, that's not some comical Russian mistransliteration of 'Bubba Watson' -- it's a comical mistransliteration by the, er, Voice of America.

Oh well, you can't win 'em all. But you sure won this one, Booba! Бубба Уотсон – победитель турнира по гольфу Masters. Watson image from

Hu jintao met with overseas Chinese communities in the world congresses fellowship - yukifans001.typepad.com: "The world overseas Chinese Chinese societies fellowship the theme of the congress is to 'promote Chinese excellent culture · show a good image of overseas Chinese'.From 110 countries and regions, about 570 overseas Chinese Chinese community leaders to the conference. The great hall of the people in the golden hall, be permeated with the happiness and laughter. 9:00 am 30 points made, hu jintao comrade came to the leadership of the delegates to the conference middle, then sounded long time warm applause. Hu jintao and other glad to shake hands with delegates kind, and posed for pictures. State councilor DaiBingGuo at 9 in the morning and addressed the opening ceremony at the conference. He points out that China's party and government has always attaches great importance to cultural construction. 17 of plenary meeting of the communist party of China on deepening the reform of the cultural management system, and promote socialist culture development and prosperity of big problems and to make decision, fully embodies the Chinese party and the government think highly of the culture construction of consciousness, reflects the common aspiration of people of all ethnic groups of China, accord with Chinese people at home and abroad and carry forward the Chinese excellent culture inheritance of the common desire. 50 million overseas Chinese is not only the great development of China's unique resources, which is in the Chinese nation overseas show the image of an important window, also is the important the inheritance of Chinese culture and marriage. The overseas Chinese

in melt into the mainstream of society live in countries at the same time, pay more attention to keep national characteristics, propagating Chinese culture, this not only is to national culture inheritance, also is to live in countries of the rich cultural diversity. DaiBingGuo said the government will support overseas Chinese actively developing Chinese and foreign cultural exchanges. He put forward three points of overseas Chinese expect: one is to improve Chinese and foreign cultural exchanges, and show the Chinese culture new image; 2) to overseas Chinese affairs public diplomacy, show contemporary China new image; Three is to promote the construction of harmonious Kenneth k.m. liao, show the new image of overseas Chinese." Image from

Iran, Bosnia emphasize will for strengthening ties, expanding cooperation - irna.ir: "IRI Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast and Bosnian Deputy FM Suada Dilberovic in a meeting here Monday evening stressed need for strengthening bilateral ties and expanding cooperation. ... The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said in the meeting, 'In order to expand the level of cooperation we need to take advantage of the entire open opportunities and unused potentials, and

introduce these capabilities to the people and possibilities to the people and the economic activists, which would doubly accelerate improvement of relations.' The head of public diplomacy and media communications of the Foreign Ministry elaborating on hidden potentials in the two countries’ diplomatic and public communications fields, added, 'A part of pursuing the public relations work in general atmosphere of the two countries, and a more important part of work in the field of the mass media, is on the shoulders of the countries’ friendship associations and NGOs.' He reiterated, 'We welcome increasing the people’s interactions.'” Ramin Mehmanparast image from article

Some Armenian MPs came to Baku 'to score propaganda points' - news.az: Azerbaijani political expert Tabib Huseynov: "A mutual lack of confidence and trust is indeed one of the major obstacles in resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Increasing public diplomacy and people-to-people contacts are one of the ways

to overcome these barriers to peace. However, it is equally important that people who engage in such interactions should be genuinely interested in finding a peaceful resolution and not in promoting ethnic divisions. And in this regard, it should be stressed that not all of those MPs visiting Baku recently shared the goal of peace and co-existence between Armenians and Azeris." Huseynov image from article

Call for papers – Countries of the European Neighborhood Policy - blackseango.org: “The call for papers on the subject ‘Countries of the European  Neighborhood Policy East and South: particular issues and common solutions for  sustainable development of Europe’ is now open. This contest is provided by Youth Club “Social  Diplomacy” (Russia), jointly with The Autonomous non-commercial  organization “Center For Socio-political Studies ‘Premier’ ’ (Russia). ... The competition  aims: To conduct a survey by the most active young researchers on proposed issues  and region development with a primary focus on macro-ENP (within different  dimensions East and South), and in connection with the Black Sea region  processes to develop mutually shared scenarios of  local problems solving and to facilitate a  sustainable development of Europe. ... Key subjects of the  works [include]: Security problems in the macro-ENP (East and South) and  the Black Searegion, including the pending inter-state  conflict and peacekeeping initiatives. The influence of public diplomacy to conflict resolution process.”

Influence grows faster with business than politics and diplomacy – evidencex: "Here it goes, here it is. The power of business is so important now, that the way we drive “relations” is no really efficient confronted with private efforts, taking markets, shares and business stakes. Long is sometimes the road for public diplomacy but the real angels now are more blue boss than politic icons. When you stare for example at Indian area and the crossroad to complicated relations with Pakistant, Russia and China in the same zone, we saw the importance of the last first trade exposition, focused with the influence of business private sector in the tough situation in stranger policy. More and more, economy and trade lead the diplomatic relationship in this area, and drive the international scene."

RELATED ITEMS

US-Russia: from reset to upset - Nicu Popescu,euobserver.com: "A year or so ago, while doing research for the post-BRIC Russia report, I spoke to a US diplomat dealing with Russia about the ‘reset’. He sounded (naturally) very positive about its effectiveness. Among its two key achievements he mentioned cooperation on transit to Afghanistan and  halt of anti-US propaganda on the Kremlin-controlled media and a subsequent decrease in anti-Americanism in Russia society. With Putin’s return, protests in Russia and the US elections all talk is now about the end of the reset. In the last few months anti-American propaganda made forceful comeback in the Russian media. Many thought it was just electioneering in the run-up to the March presidential elections.

But that was too optimistic, it seems. In the last few weeks things became even more heated. NTV, a Russian TV channel owned by Gazprom Media, has been following US ambassador Michael McFaul pretty much everywhere, which lead to an outburst of indignation from McFaul, as well as accusations that his phone (and therefore calendar) is hacked, and a formal US State Department protest over the harassment of the US ambassador. McFaul also claimed that upon arrival to Moscow last January he felt like he was back in the Cold War and that ‘it has been surprising that there was so much anti-Americanism, because we thought we were building a different kind of relationship, and it makes some people nervous that it could so quickly and reflexively go back to – in terms of rhetoric – an era that we thought was behind us’. Then, on a different occasion, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called McFaul ‘arrogant.’ In other words, the dismantlement of what was considered a key achivement of the reset is well advanced.  For all the controversies around McFaul – the truth is that he was not just the architect of the ‘reset’. He was one of the strongest voices for engagement with Russia in the US and in this sense if not Russia’s best friend, then surely Russia’s best ‘friendly non-adversary.’ Back in autumn his designation as ambassador was even delayed for a few months by a hawkish Republican Senator over fears that Obama’s administration might be sharing classified information with Russia. Attacking McFaul only strengthens a much more adversarial approach to Russia in the US, not least by the likes of Mitt Romney who called Russia ‘number one geopolitical foe’. Despite increasingly heated language the other key achievement of the reset might see better times. In the fog of pre-election anti-Americanism last January, Russia and the US actually agreed on a NATO logistics base (the Russian government prefers to call it a ‘transit centre’) in Ulyanovsk, the birthplace of Vladimir Lenin, which apparently has a convenient 5-km runway at its airport and can receive large aircraft. Of course, a NATO base in Lenin’s birthplace was too much a symbolic blow to Russian communists who staged protests under slogans like ‘while we disarmed, NATO encircled us’. The base might move somewhere else in the end, but the bigger point is that for all the trading of niceties on the political level, actual cooperation between Russia and the US on some concrete issues continues." Image from

US propaganda on Russia - As'ad, The Angry Arab News Service: A source on politics, war, the Middle East, Arabic poetry, and Art: Look at the headline and look at the picture.  "White ribbons fill Red Square as Russian officials allow protest."  The square clearly does not look filled.

Image from entry

Win-win international cooperation the only option: Chinese official - xinhuanet.com: The world should find a new pattern of interaction featuring win-win cooperation as nations are becoming increasingly interdependent, a Chinese Foreign Ministry official said on Tuesday. "Countries should not repeat history by maximizing their own interests, vying for spheres of influence, conducting arms races or competing viciously in a zero-sum game," China's Assistant Foreign Minister Le Yucheng said at a forum held by China Institute of International Studies. "In this networked world of a myriad of challenges, win-win cooperation is not an option rather is the only option," Le said, adding that "we must abandon the so-called 'seesaw' mentality which contends one's rise is another's fall." Le quoted U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, saying that the world needs to "find a new answer to the ancient question of what happens when an established power and a rising power meet." At the forum, Le also criticized some developed countries' attempt to change rules "unilaterally and willfully."

The U.N.’s failed plan for Syrian peace - Editorial Board, Washington Post: Twenty days have passed since the U.N. Security Council endorsed the Syria peace plan of former secretary-general Kofi Annan. It’s been eight days since Mr. Annan said the regime of Bashar al-Assad had agreed on a deadline of April 10 — Tuesday — to withdraw heavy weapons from cities, and five since the Security Council ratified that date. So the entirely predictable outcome of the initiative ought now to be recognized: Mr. Annan and his backers have merely provided cover for Mr. Assad to go on slaughtering his own people. A civil war is taking place in Syria. Mr. Obama may believe that by fleeing from leadership through figments such as the Annan plan, he is avoiding “militarization.” In fact, he is ensuring that thousands more people will die.

It would be a mistake for Israel or the US to attack Iran - greatersurbiton.wordpress.com: Before President George W. Bush, US leaders had pursued the policy of leaving Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship in power while strangling Iraq with sanctions over many years – at enormous cost to the Iraqi people. Although the Bush Administration bungled the occupation, the argument that a short war was a price worth paying to free Iraq from dictatorship, sanctions and isolation was not unreasonable. A pity, therefore, that the war was justified on the grounds of the Baathist regime’s supposed development of ‘weapons of mass destruction’.

Even before the coalition failed to discover them, the grounds for invasion were not deemed sufficient by international opinion. The war was from the start a propaganda disaster from which the West’s reputation is still struggling to recover. An Israeli or US attack on Iran would most likely be another such propaganda disaster. It would have no humanitarian justification, nor would it advance the cause of democracy or human rights in Iran or the Middle East. The argument that it would constitute a pre-emptive act of self-defence by Israel – which we shall come to – is not to be sniffed at but is nevertheless misguided. We are left with a purely strategic argument: the need to limit the power of a barbaric Islamist regime with an aggressively anti-Western ideology and foreign policy, that is promoting bloodshed and strife in the region. While this argument, too, is not to be sniffed at, it is not sufficient to go to war, and would not be accepted as such by world opinion. Image from entry

Squandered leverage over Iran - Michael Singh, Washington Post: The United States holds a strong bargaining position going into Friday’s scheduled nuclear talks with Iran. Washington must keep up the pressure. Doing any less would waste precious leverage that has taken years to build and would validate the Iranian regime’s strategy of defiance, provocation and delay.

White House warns media on North Korea - Dylan Byers, politico.com: “The White House is pushing back against the media for what it sees as oversaturated coverage of this week’s forthcoming North Korean missile test. ‘You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know this is a propaganda exercise,’ National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor told me. ‘Reporters have to be careful not to get co-opted.’ The long-range missile test, which Pyongyang is touting as a peaceful satellite launch, has given networks, newspapers and wires a rare opportunity to report from within the country. NBC’s Richard Engel, ABC’s Bob Woodruff and CNN’s Stan Grant are among those who have already produced curtain-raising segments on the days ahead. The Associated Press is turning out blow-by-blow coverage, and reporters are tweeting and filing frequently. But Vietor fears that by flooding the zone in North Korea, U.S. media outlets are providing the country’s leadership with propaganda tools that will only embolden their efforts to enhance its intercontinental ballistic missile capability. ‘North Korea is trying to sell this to the world as being about space exploration, when really it’s about testing missile technology,’ he told me. ‘They’re using the press, using this angle of a space mission, to hide their real goal.’”

What Obama could learn from Muhammad Ali - Stephen M. Walt, foreignpolicy.com: How many of you know what the phrase "rope-a-dope" means? For those who don't, the phrase describes the strategy that Muhammad Ali used to defeat the heavily favored George Foreman in their heavyweight championship fight in Zaire in 1974, the so-called "Rumble in the Jungle." Foreman had demolished former champ Joe Frazier in two rounds in a previous bout, and most observers expected him to make short work of the older and smaller Ali. But Ali had prepared a clever strategy, and he spent the early rounds of the fight covering up and leaning against the ropes. Foreman landed lots of ineffectual blows, punched himself out, and became exhausted. Ali came off the ropes and knocked Foreman out in the 8th round.

What, you ask, does any of this have to do with international politics? I'll tell you. The "rope-a-dope" is a nice metaphor for an effective strategy for great power competition, somewhat analogous to the strategy of "bait and bleed." During the Cold War, for example, it made good sense for the United States to let the Soviet Union waste blood and treasure trying to win meaningless victories in places like Angola, or Afghanistan. By the same logic, Soviet leaders were smart to let us fight for years in Vietnam. In both cases the outcome of these conflicts didn't really matter very much to the overall balance of power, so letting the opponent punch themselves out trying to win was a clever approach. Today, one could argue that China (and maybe a few others) are employing the "rope-a-dope" against us. Image from article. Via PR.

Israeli soldiers answer your questions online - Israel Today: One of the more regrettable results of the incessant propaganda campaign against Israel is that Israeli soldiers, many of them young men and women between the ages of 18 and 20, are made out to be soulless and even bloodthirsty creatures. In many places, it is enough to just say you have served in the Israeli army to be immediately ostracized, or at best not taken seriously. Over the past few years, Israel has greatly improved its ability to fight the public relations war. Much of that has happened on an official level, with the Foreign Ministry, IDF and Prime Minister's Office taking vigorously and regularly to online social media. But a growing number of private initiatives are also doing their part to get a more accurate picture of Israel and Israelis out there to the world. One such initiative is "Friend a Soldier," a new website that allows visitors from anywhere in the world to personally connect with active Israeli soldiers and reservists.

The exchange is simple. Visitors to the site choose one of 20 or so Israeli soldiers and fill out a short form with their questions. The soldiers, who all volunteer for the website, then post their answers to "Friend a Soldier" for the whole world to see. The experience is made more personal by the fact that each soldier has a profile and recent photograph posted to the site. Friend a Soldier has already received thousands of emails from around the world, including many enemy nations right here in the Middle East. Many of the questions are accusatory, as would be expected, but the young soldiers do their best to answer politely and honestly in order to show the human face of the Israeli army. Image from article

ANC starts its campaign in Ashtarak and Aparan with violations - times.am: Municipalities of Ashtarak and Aparan towns of Aragatsotn region have released an announcement which especially says: “On April 10 Armenian National Congress

starts its pre-electoral campaign at Aragatsotn region. Ashtarak, Aparan towns and some near-by villages are elected as a place for propaganda. But they did not escape from the violations just on the first day of the campaign and have already violated some claims of the law." Image from article

Terror and Terrorism are Meaningless Propaganda Terms - decryptedmatrix.com: The entire concept of a “Terrorism expert” is invalid, as it is an honorific title typically assigned due to ideology and interests served rather than actual expertise. In U.S. political and media discourse, Terrorism means little more than: that which

America’s Enemies du Jour(generally Muslim Enemies) do to it, but not what America and its allies do to anyone. Terrorism is not a real concept in which one develops “expertise”; it is, and from its introduction into world affairs always has been, a term of propaganda designed to legitimize violence by some actors while de-legitimizing very similar violence by others. Image from entry

Vintage Chinese Propaganda Poster for Children (Translated) - pleated-jeans.com: My Chinese is a little rusty, but I’m pretty sure these translations are 100 percent accurate…:

AMERICANA

Teen births are at their lowest level in almost 70 years, federal data report today. Birthrates for ages 15-19 in all racial and ethnic groups are lower than ever reported - Sharon Jayson, USA Today

WASHINGTON, DC HISTORY

Tommy Tucker, Fashion Squirrel [PHOTOS] - Washington Post: In the 1940s a cross-dressing squirrel from Washington, D.C., took the nation by storm. With more than 100 outfits to choose from — and such accessories as hats and pearl necklaces — Tommy Tucker

captivated adults and children alike. He sold war bonds during World War II and encouraged members of the Tommy Tucker Club to be kind to animals. Image from

GRAMMAR

"[I]n the first line of 'Pride and Prejudice' (1813), Jane Austen wrote:

'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.'

By about a century later, comma rules had been codified such that both commas in the sentence (after 'acknowledged' and 'fortune') would be dispensed with."

--Ben Yagoda, a professor of English at the University of Delaware, writing in The New York Times

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

President Barack Obama, accompanied by first lady Michelle Obama, reads "Where the Wild things Are" during the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, Monday, April 9, 2012, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington.

MORE AMERICANA

"And President Obama attended church services yesterday. You know, he hasn't been attending services regularly since becoming President because he feels his presence disrupts the services. Though this is election year, he goes every week to that new church the I Am Not a Muslim Cathedral. Have you seen that one?"

--Talk show host Jay Leno, cited Bulletin News, LLC