Canada

Now that I have moved to Berlin, I get to hear VOA and NPR Worldwide and the European version of BBC Worldwide and I am pretty excited. I can finally hear US propaganda "outside the border" which is fascinating. As part of NPR Worldwide's broadcast this AM (104.1 FM), I got to hear a show this morning about the history of Public Diplomacy, which I found amazingly interesting. From 1914, I think they said, the US has had a real desire to educate and engage the world, which ended abruptly once we won the cold war. And then it all went to pot, especially since the responsibility of Public Diplomacy has been rolled into the US Department of State. Well, I am all for Public Diplomacy as a strategy that is much more effective than either PR or a propaganda war. One of the most useful past strategies, which is being gutted because of post 9-11 paranoia, was the global encouragement of students to study in the USA. One lad from Egypt spoke of his experience in Washington State at the University of Washington, saying, "I got to experience that most Americans live the American Dream on two parents working two jobs, which is something I would never have known from my experience of the USA from TV from Cairo." Amazingly interesting. Here's some more info on Public Dimplomacy via Wikipedia via Because the Medium is the Message.

Gag me with a chainsaw! Canada removes U.S., Israel from torture watchlist 19 Jan 2008 Canada's foreign ministry, responding to pressure from close allies, said on Saturday it would remove the United States and Israel from a watch list of countries where prisoners risk being tortured. Both nations expressed unhappiness [!] after it emerged they had been listed in a document that formed part of a training course manual on torture awareness given to Canadian diplomats. Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier said he regretted the embarrassment caused by the public disclosure of the manual, which also classified some U.S. interrogation techniques as torture. [See: Canada puts U.S. on torture watch list: CTV --Canada's 'torture awareness' watch list includes Syria, Iran, China, Afghanistan, the United States, Guantanamo Bay, and Israel. 16 Jan 2008.] Via Citizens For Legitimate Government and Reuters