Drive along Atlantic Boulevard in Monterey Park and you'll see signs of every shape and color written in Chinese characters. It's a testament to the city's large Asian American population. Most also have wording in English – and officials in the San Gabriel Valley city want to make that a requirement.

The last time they were in Hong Kong, two filmmakers from Wong Fu Productions got “pop-star style” hair cuts and ate McCurry burgers at McDonald’s. The two Chinese American YouTube stars embraced the local culture for what it was – a mixture of flash and culture. Wesley Chan and Philip Wang, who founded their film company in California with a third member, Ted Fu, said their roots were here in Asia. That’s part of the reason they keep coming back.

The friendship and cooperation between California and Jiangsu started in the 1980s, and the two sides made it an official sister-state relationship in July 2011. The cooperation covers science and technology, education, economy and trade, two-way investment, culture and tourism.

Sonoman Bill Boerum was the final and featured dinner speaker on Saturday night at the 50th anniversary celebration of the Culver City Sister City Committee. Boerum is vice chairman of the board of directors of Sister Cities International, a Washington, and D.C. based organization promoting citizen diplomacy.

Shasta County Board of Supervisors started its day in Redding (California, USA) with Hindu prayers on December four for the first time since its 1850 creation, containing verses from world’s oldest existing scripture.

Marketing Sri Lanka's image abroad using the basics of public affairs, public diplomacy and strategic communication, as Sri Lankan watchers have observed, seems to be a dueling task for Sri Lankan authorities.

The United States will not be able to maintain its global advantages if the country fails to craft policies that maximize information-age soft and hard powers.... But before defining an ideal high-tech foreign economic policy, one has to recognize that, as often as not, the sources of most policy lay in particular economic interests.

Such "food diplomacy" allows Taiwan to demonstrate its soft power and helps strengthen trade in agricultural products between Taiwan and the United States, said Chang.