Public diplomacy

France Regains #1 Spot: The 2019 Soft Power 30 Oct 24, 2019 France tops the rankings of the newly released 2019 Soft Power 30 index and report, released jointly by strategic communications consultancy Portland Communications, Facebook and CPD. "France reclaims its top spot after a mixed year for the French government," reads the report. "[Macron] doubtless been strengthened by an economy growing at a faster clip than most large, developed countries." The Soft Power 30 methodology considers the following factors when ranking a country's soft power strength: enterprise, culture, digital, government, engagement and education. The release is accompanied by a report that includes dozens of essays by leading experts in soft power, nation branding, global communications and beyond. Now analyzing countries' performance during 2018, the index has seen the U.S. dropping annually in the rankings since the 2015 analysis, when the U.S. placed first. Here's a glance at the top..

Skip to content Leigh Turner Ambassador to Austria and UK Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other International Organisations in Vienna Part of UK in Austria 25th October 2019 Vienna, Austria White trees, blue skies and a green plan Have you ever wondered why the trees are painted white in Vienna? To stop cars running into them, protect them from dogs? The special paint protects new bark from the summer sun! Woodland trees don’t require sun cream but the intense environments of our cities means it’s not only humans who need protection from harmful rays. I recently had a wonderful opportunity to meet Austria-based British Tree Surgeon Martin Speariett, whilst he was dangling precariously from a Robinia tree he had been pruning in the Embassy’s garden. He said that increasing the amount of ‘green coverage’ in cities helped regulate temperature and reduce air pollution. More trees meant cleaner air but, in man-made environments, we were responsible for keeping the trees ..

The idea that our “democracy” is under attack by foreign adversaries rings hollow to anyone who thinks about it for more than a second...

Emir Kusturica i njegov „No smoking orkestra“ održali su večeras u prepunoj sali u sedištu Uneska u Parizu spektakularan koncert i podigli na noge publiku, uglavnom strane diplomate iz celog sveta i članove delegacija u toj međunarodnoj organizaciji. Oko 1.200 zvanica sa ushićenjem i ovacijama pozdravilo je Kusturicu i njegov bend, a oni su, obučeni kao meksički oficiri, briljirali na sceni Uneska.

The Oxford Food Symposium has not always held an obvious link to foreign policy, but diplomacy was there at its conception. It was co-founded by a diplomat named Alan Davidson, whose Foreign Office career ended as Ambassador to Laos in the early 1970s. It was while on a posting to Tunisia that Davidson, frustrated at the lack of a decent book on the local seafood, embarked on a parallel career as a food writer, with Seafish of Tunisia and the Central Mediterranean. Food guru Elizabeth David took the book under her wing, or perhaps fin, and it reappeared in expanded form as a Penguin publication with the snappier title Mediterranean Seafood. Following his retirement from the Foreign Office, Davidson spent an academic year at St Anthony’s Oxford in the late 1970s, conducting research on science in the kitchen from an historical perspective..

Il Festival della Diplomazia, diretto verso la X edizione, nasce nel 2009 dalla consapevolezza della centralità di Roma in ambito internazionale. Nella città, infatti,...

Public diplomacy—or official efforts to inform and influence foreign public audiences—has been an essential component of U.S. efforts to build stronger bonds with the Russian people since the end of World War II

This is the first chance that I have had to sit and reflect upon my first month in a new home, a new city, and a new role as UK Ambassador to Serbia.

Skip to content Sian MacLeod UK Ambassador to Serbia Part of UK in Serbia 18th October 2019 Belgrade, Serbia First Impressions It’s a beautiful October day as I write. As I sit in my Belgrade garden I see clouds of newly hatched late ladybirds, the first yellow leaves shaken by a mild breeze, warm weak sunshine and distant haze. Around me the hum of urban life is punctuated by hammering and bursts of drilling from nearby building sites. This is the first chance that I have had to sit and reflect upon my first month in a new home, a new city, and a new role as UK Ambassador to Serbia. I have travelled widely as a diplomat for over thirty years, but my first visit to Belgrade was as a music student crossing Europe by train sleeping in stations, on beaches, with an old rucksack and a very small tent on my back. I remember the fields of sunflowers, the buses and the cobble stones of Skadarlija. This summer I set out again by train from my home corner of rural England, heading for a region..

18 Oct 2019 — DFAT Working together is key to strengthening resilience across the Asia-Pacific This year’s International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, or “DRR Day”, is a time to reflect on how risk-informed development can minimise the impacts of natural hazards on our communities. Urbanisation and climate change mean that disaster risk reduction is more important than ever. To solve these complex problems we need coordinated and clever solutions. It’s a challenge most Australians are all too familiar with. It’s also something our neighbours across the region are grappling with. Australia sits in the centre of the Asia-Pacific, the world’s most disaster-exposed region. A person living in the Asia-Pacific is almost twice as likely to be affected by a disaster as a person living in Africa. We share common issues and challenges with our Asia-Pacific partners, especially our range of rural, remote, urban and coastal communities and our increasing exposure to highly vola..