Synthetic ivy and orange blossoms climb walls adorned with paintings of stirring Korean landscapes, silk flowers fill the vases and the karaoke machine is pumping out the hits as the dinner crowd fills Pyongyang, an incongruous outpost of North Korean culture and cuisine in the capital's teeming streets.

The festival, featuring nine bands from across the globe, is the maiden inroad of the Indian Centre for Cultural Relations (ICCR) into jazz as a tool of cultural contact spanning Asia, North America and Europe and linking them to jazz lovers here, ICCR director general Suresh Goel told IANS.

The Korea Furniture Museum, which hosted luncheon for spouses of G20 leaders during the G20 Seoul Summit in November, launched an academic program on Tuesday for spouses of foreign ambassadors to Korea and expat CEOs to help them discover traditional Korean heritage.

A 46-member team of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) reached Tokyo on Monday morning to help Japaneses authorities in relief and rehabilitation works in tsunami affected areas. The team, on their way to the earthquake and tsunami affected areas...

For Beijing youth Pakistan’s National Day Reception is a popular, much anticipated event. It provides them an opportunity to mingle with top diplomats and high officials of the Chinese civil and military bureaucracy and gives them a chance to taste Pakistani cuisine and enjoy Pakistani music and dance.

A NATO representative called on Tuesday for women to be allowed greater representation in international negotiations and conflict resolution. "Women still remain underrepresented at all political levels," Assistant Deputy Secretary General for Public Diplomacy Dr. Stephanie Babst said at a video news conference.

News flash: “We are in an information war, and we’re losing that war.” This source for this conclusion was not one of the at least 15 reports on U.S. public diplomacy that have appeared over the last decade...

Women's rights issues in Taiwan rank fourth in the world and number one in Asia. That's according to a domestic survey based on United Nations methodology. Premier Wu Den-yih attended a national conference for women's issues on Monday. Wu said that these impressive statistics are a result of long-term efforts by the government.