Piracy, the scourge of Hollywood, may have become one of America's powerful diplomatic tools – is it the new propaganda? [...] "The last thing they think is that it [pirated movies] represents a tool of cultural diplomacy, involving a foreign culture or government, and that its illegality could even make this mainstream fare more alluring than originally planned.”

Dr. Eusebio Leal, Cuba’s leading preservationist who is lauded for saving the country’s Habana Vieja district, will give a talk on his lifelong endeavors at Flagler College on Sunday, Oct. 11.

The Grand Valley State University baseball team made history with an unprecedented trip to play their sport in Cuba. Now they’re ready to share their experience in a brand new documentary.  The Laker baseball team went to Cuba in January 2012 on a humanitarian mission with a local non-profit organization. The documentary “A Lesson in Diplomacy: Grand Valley State University Baseball in Cuba” tells the story of that historic trip… from the baseball games to the players to the cultural experience.

President Barack Obama met his Cuban counterpart, Raul Castro, on Tuesday at the United Nations — all smiles after both renewed their calls for an end to the US trade embargo against Havana.[...] “The president also highlighted steps the United States intends to take to improve ties between the American and Cuban peoples, and reiterated our support for human rights in Cuba,” it said. 

Japan and Cuba plan to hold the first meeting of a joint public-private conference in early November in Havana as part of efforts to expand bilateral economic ties, a Japanese government source said Sunday.

Cultural exchange between skaters in the U.S. and other countries can help improve relations between nations from the bottom up, according to Neftalie Williams, Cuba Skate’s Chair and Research Director at USC Annenberg’s Institute of Sports, Media and Society. Williams compared the potential of skate diplomacy with the role that ping-pong played in restoring U.S.-Chinese relations in the early 1970’s.

In his first major address during a 10-day trip combining visits to the long-isolated but neighboring nations of Cuba and the United States, Pope Francis on Sunday gave a wide-ranging treatise on the Christian call to be at service to one another. [...] [T]he pope continued: "Service is never ideological, for we do not serve ideas, we serve people."