January 2012 is the U.S. Department of State’s 21^st Century Statecraft month, and the Department and its overseas missions have developed a range of initiatives to showcase America’s diplomatic leadership in harnessing digital networks and technologies in service of its foreign policy goals.

Throughout the month, officials in Washington and missions overseas will host digital engagements across multiple platforms on a wide of array of issues to directly engage publics, domestic and foreign, on the foreign policy issues that matter to them. Full schedules, complete with links to specific platforms that will host engagements, will be forthcoming.

Beginning this week, the Department’s Spokesperson, Victoria Nuland, will take questions from the worldwide public selected from the Department’s 10 official Twitter feeds (Arabic, Chinese, English, Farsi, French, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Urdu) and answer them at the podium during the Daily Press Briefing each Friday afternoon during the month of January. These questions can be submitted using the hashtag#AskState to any of the Twitter feeds listed below:

@StateDept (English)

@USAbilAraby (Arabic)

@USA_Zhongwen (Chinese)

@USAdarFarsi (Farsi)

@USAenFrancais (French)

@USAHindiMein (Hindi)

@USAemPortugues (Portuguese)

@USApoRusski (Russian)

@USAenEspanol (Spanish)

@USAUrdu (Urdu)

Video clips of those questions responded to will be subtitled in the language of the original submitted question and made available on the Department’s YouTube Channel athttp://www.youtube.com/user/statevideo.