Public diplomacy

Paul Rockower, levantine18.blogspot.com About Me Paul RockowerOne of a dying breed of Bohemian, Orientalist Zionists. Also a cunning linguist, phrase-turner, gastronomist and a Public Diplomacy [JB emphasis] Knight Errant. Of late, a PD Guru, Comm Swami, Idea Peddler and Sultan of Spin.View my complete profile -Why the best biscuits come from the South and why they aren't easily replicated. -The problem with cashless restaurants and how they discriminate. -A top chef is using his perch to help highlight foods from Mama Africa's kitchen. -A look at Native American Cuisine. -Culinary diplomacy and what presidents eat. -The gastrodiplomacy fall-off of the current admin -The proper fare for certain occupants of said office.Posted by Paul Rockower at 12:53 PM

Dana Milbank, The Washington Post, December 25; original article contains links Nauert image from Excerpt: Calls to the White House switchboard during this Christmas holiday are greeted by the following message:“We apologize, but due to the lapse in federal funding we are unable to take your call. Once funding has been restored, our operations will resume. Please call back at that time.” Click.Is there a better distillation of the Trump administration after year two? You have reached the White House. We are not functioning. Please try again later. ...Trump’s booby traps ensnare the nation: ...Not a creature is stirring in ... the Trump administration, either. ...Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations resigned, and his pick for the job is a former Fox News personality with little foreign-policy experience [JB: Heather Nauert, former Acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs; her post remains vacant]. ...

A recent mobile video that went viral on social and mainstream media showed Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi being frisked at John F....

serbianinstitute.org Rue De Tolouse 23 | BE-1040 Brussels Tel.: +32 (0)2 230 74 38 | Fax: +32 (0)2 230 74 38 office(*)serbianinstitute(.)org Excerpt: Aleksandar Vucic has told Voice of America (VOA) that he was pleased with the results of Monday's UN Security Council session. The session was called to discuss Pristina's decision to start forming an army in Kosovo - a move Serbia strongly opposes. ...At: https://www.b92.net

publicdiplomacypressandblogreview.blogspot.com (12/24/18) PD Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend me Your Ears: You may have noticed that the Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review (PDPR) "top" three items sent to you via email almost daily in the late afternoon US Eastern Time (please note: transmitted in news-as-it becomes available, not necessarily in headlines-important order) are often in the wrong format, e.g., "I can't [expletive omitted] find an entire sentence on my computer screen.") To avoid this irritation, please click, at the bottom of the PDPBR email message, "View entire message": [Message clipped] View entire message That might spare you of irritation (for now) -- I hope. Best, john P.S. For full, well-formatted (most of the time, I hope) current and archival reports on PD items, please refer to the Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review Blog homepage. Posted by John Brown at 3:54 PM *** (12/25/2018) Meanwhile, far more important: Merry Christmas to you & yours!

William Inboden, thehill.com image (not from article) fromExcerpt: As the new Congress prepares to convene in January, it will face few tasks, if any, more important than adequately funding our nation’s defense. While our armed forces’ most fundamental mission lies in defending our nation and deterring our adversaries, a strong defense budget brings many other strategic benefits. Five years ago, when testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, then-CENTCOM Commander Gen. James Mattis made a memorable plea for the State Department’s budget: “If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately.” In this oft-quoted statement, Mattis offered an arresting argument for the importance of the State Department and diplomacy in preventing armed conflict and security threats to the United States. Yet the opposite also is true: to strengthen the State Department, along with U.S. diplomatic and economic influence, we need a large defense budget. A..

geeskaafrika.com image (not from entry) from, with caption:ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA - MARCH 9, 2018: Russia's Ambassador to Ethiopia Vsevolod Tkachenko, Minata Samate-Cessouma, African Union Commissioner for Political Affairs, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Moussa Fakih Mohamed, Chairman of the African Union Commission, Mikhail Bogdanov, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister and Special Presidential Envoy for the Middle East and Africa, and Smail Chergui (L-R), African Union Commissioner for Peace and Security, pose at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa. Alexander Shcherbak/TASS - Excerpt: Addis Ababa (HAN) December 25, 2018 – Public Diplomacy [JB emphasis] & Financial and Energy investment. HAN sources “Russian Ambassador to Ethiopia Vsevolod Tkachenko told regional news agencies that, Russian companies crave to invest in Ethiopia and eyeing the energy sector as a priority, specially Somali regions.” Russia is engaged in a frantic new scramble for influenc..

onlineindus.com Ucaptioned image from entry image from PESHAWAR: 8, DECEMBER/ 2018: Foreign officer along with her husband died due to gas leakage in a hotel of Hunza, here on Saturday. According to details, Syeda Fatima was commissioned in Foreign office in Public diplomacy [JB emphasis] session. According to sources, Syeda Fatima went to Hunza with her husband, a day before, where she died in a blast due to gas leakage.

Michael Oren, algemeiner.com; see also Image from article: IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot (front left) visits Israel’s border with Syria in the Golan Heights, Nov. 20, 2018. Photo: IDF Twitter account. JNS.org – Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw ‎American troops from Syria shocked many in the ‎United States and the Middle East. In Israel, ‎most of the public discourse about this decision revolves around the ‎challenges of this process, but we seem to be ‎largely ignoring the question of what opportunities ‎it may present: For one, could Israel, as ‎compensation, secure a pledge from Washington to ‎help it in times of war and on other vital ‎diplomatic issues?‎ Given the recent discovery of Hezbollah’s grid of ‎terror tunnels and Iran’s attempts to upgrade its ‎offensive capabilities, it is reasonable to assume ‎that Israel is closer than it has ever been in the ‎last decade to a war in the northern sector. This could prove highly complex from a ‎military standpoint and eve..

Noa Landau (Haaretz), forward.com/news image (not from article) fromExcerpt: Israel’s Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy [JB emphasis] Ministry is using information from the controversial right-wing website Canary Mission, to bar political activists from entering the country, according to documents obtained by Haaretz. The internal documents, some of which were submitted to the appeals tribunal in the appeal against the deportation of American student Lara Alqasem, show that officials briefly interviewed Alqasem, 22, at Ben-Gurion International Airport on her arrival Tuesday night, then passed her name on for “continued handling” by the ministry because of “suspicion of boycott activity.” Israel recently passed a law banning the entry of foreign nationals who engage in such activity. ...