[Note: Update 2 – September 12 – There is now a website for the Concerned Africans Open Letter along with a list of the signatures to the letter thus far. The website url for the Open Letter is http://www.concernedafricans.co.za/ As of today, there are over 300 names of concerned Africans listed in support of the letter. In addition there are 5 organizational listings. For updates on the names of those in support of the letter, see the website url http://www.concernedafricans.co.za/index.php/support -R]

[Note: Update 1 – August 25, 2011 – I promised to post an update if there were further developments about the Statement of Concerned Africans. A press conference was held in Johannesburg yesterday, Wednesday, August 24. The letter with over 140 signatures was to be released to the press along with statements by some of the signatories. Among those signing the letter were former president of… weiter lesen

[Note:A version of this article was originally published in the English edition of Global Times on 4-18-2011]

Recently Joseph S. Nye, Jr spoke about his new book, “The Future of Power” at the Japan Society in New York City.

During his talk, Nye defined soft power as the ability to attract or persuade others to give you what you want without having to use coercion.

For Nye, it is not the facts that matter in “the information age”. Instead soft power, which includes how the narrative describing a situation is framed, is as important as, or even more important than military action, in gaining one’s objectives. As he says in an online article, “In a global information age, success is not determined just by who has the biggest army, but also by who has the best story.”

In the question period at the end of his talk, Nye was asked… weiter lesen