My career in anime cultural diplomacy started in 2007 when I was asked by the Foreign Ministry to give a lecture to diplomats prior to their overseas postings. The lecture covered the anime industry and its goals...One of the diplomats in attendance asked me to give the same lecture in Europe...

Cultural diplomacy, or the more pejorative alternative – cultural imperialism, has become important player in global events. Cultural diplomacy may be seen as a tenet of international relations. It is one of the ‘soft’ aspects of state interactions. This is dissimilar to the ‘hard’ items of statutes, treaties, blocks, pacts, multilateral bodies and the military.

According to the latest Pew survey, in almost all the countries surveyed, the use of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter didn't change much from 2010 to 2011. Two notable exceptions were Egypt, where 28% of respondents now use social networks -- up from 18% last year -- and Russia, where social-networking use rose from 33% to 43%.

The rise in emerging market (EM) hard power over the past decade has been dramatic. The crucial question that arises then is whether soft power in the emerging world has risen commensurately to its hard power. If it has, then the combination of rising soft and hard power will give many EM countries more global clout.

Because of this governance gap, it is critical that states use all possible soft power means to dissuade NNWSs from attempting to become nuclear threshold states. Among those means, Russia and NATO members are well placed to promote legal and structural nuclear fuel supply guarantees and the strict implementation of updated NSG guidelines.

Moscow is hosting a CIS youth forum of public diplomacy today...The main goals for discussions between young people are modern challenges and public youth diplomacy, main trends for cooperation of youth organization on the post-Soviet space, advanced methods and technologies of public diplomacy and social obligations.

With 40 percent of Russian adults online, many say social media, including the Russian social networking site VKontakte, has made it possible for a long stalled opposition movement in Russia to organize a rally that size.

Some U.S. democracy activists and government officials claim that the advent of new information technology and social networks can bring democracy to places like Russia, Central Asia or the Middle East. They talk in terms of the “TV Party”...