The Pacific Alliance is a new initiative among four Latin American nations with the potential to reinvigorate the regional trade agenda in an exciting way. Having grown weary of waiting for meaningful hemispheric trade expansion in the wake of the collapse of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) a decade ago, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru agreed to link their economies more closely through trade, finance, and labor market integration. Others, including Costa Rica, are on deck to join.

In discussions and writings about the Asia Pacific, India often seems to get short shrift—despite its size, record-breaking economic growth, and growing regional and global influence. Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to pose some questions to the renowned economist—as well as Columbia University professor and my CFR colleague—Jagdish Baghwati about his terrific new book with Arvind Panagariya on India, Why Growth Matters: How Economic Growth in India Reduced Poverty and the Lessons for Other Developing Countries.

Brazil has something of an identity crisis right now. As protests continue, the world has been exposed to the massive social unrest in the country over inequality, corruption, and the adverse economics of preparing to host global sporting events like the upcoming World Cup. Still, as one of the so-called BRIC countries — a term that has become less vogue as investors take a wider look at emerging market countries — Brazil is uniquely positioned to keep growing.

It’s Independence Day, which means celebrating our core values as a nation -- freedom from tyranny, constitutional democracy, prosperity. Which are also ‘brand values’ for the United States as a global venture. We promote and sell America to the world -- with music and movies, technology, leadership in international financial institutions such as the IMF and G-8.

Regarding Argentine pressures on the economy and its inaccuracies campaign, the message read by Governor Nigel Haywood is enthusiastic about the reaffirmed support from the UK to the Falklands (the Queen’s speech opening Parliament), the recent overwhelming results of the referendum on the Falklands’ future and the Islands’ international public diplomacy strategy to explain to the world the Falklands’ right to self determination and the fact it is a democratic, modern community with a self sufficient successful economy.

The French and the Germans have a duty to shape a new European vision. Precisely because we are different, precisely because our histories and our cultures are sometimes so antagonistic, only we have the size and credibility to outline a new European compromise.

In reality branding and marketing a nation encompasses many more activities than most people realize, and depends on a wealth of formal concepts, processes and models not implied by the soundbites just listed. At any rate, this is still a sophisticated subject to our society's level of establishment. Even a large section of influence makers might not be acquainted with how real nation branding would be operationalised to yield an economic value.

Pakistan can learn lessons from Brazil, which has pursued this course in the last two decades and has emerged as the leading nation of South America, they said. The conference on Pakistan-Brazil relations was jointly organised by the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) and the Brazilian embassy.