As the global economic balance of power shifts from the West to the East, it is becoming increasingly evident that we are living through the tail end of half a millennium of Western supremacy.

President Ma Ying-jeou says that the European Union's decision to waive visa requirements for Taiwanese visitors is the best validation of the island's soft power. The president was speaking in a meeting with Harvard University Professor Joseph Nye on Wednesday.

With 24x7 news channels setting public agenda and new age media influencing discourse on key global issues, the ministry is organising a day-long conference Friday and a workshop the next day where experts would focus on soft power and public diplomacy.

Taiwan's democracy and emphasis on human rights are its most effective forms of 'soft power, ' and its adherence to these values will influence China positively in the long run, Harvard professor Joseph Nye said in Taipei on Wednesday.

Early Friday morning, fire-fighting planes and firefighters began pouring in from countries around the world, answering Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s call for help in fighting the largest forest fire it had ever known...The first arrivals were toy-like yellow planes, sent from Greece. They flew low over the Mediterranean, scooping up seawater. Then they moved inland, pouring the water over the flames.

Leaking diplomatic dispatches used to be a recognized diplomatic art. In the not too distant past, American ambassadors in Central America or the Middle East who thought Washington was ignoring their cables would share them with correspondents, knowing that news reports would have a better chance of reaching the secretary of state’s desk than almost any memo the ambassadors wrote themselves.

Amid budget cutbacks and a 'diminishing appetite' for war, Europe has turned increasingly to the 'soft power' assignments like training and institution-building.

Beginning today the capital city plays host to a mega arts fest that brings together exponents from the performing arts, films, poetry, literature and cuisine, all aimed at making Delhi a tourism hub as well as to draw attention to India's soft power through the arts.