For the second year in a row, #OscarsSoWhite has dragged America’s diversity problem back into the global spotlight. [...] Yet the recent report by USC’s Annenberg School found that not much has changed—only seven percent of films in the past year had casts that accurately reflected the nation’s actual demographics. 

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awards its Oscars on Sunday, and one of the nominees in the category of Best Documentary Feature is “Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom,” a chronicle of the 2013-14 protests in Kyiv. 

Beijing's Capital Museum is expanding its exchanges with other countries as part of the city's renewed focus on building a national cultural centre. [...] In the two years since President Xi Jinping visited the museum and decreed that preservation of China's cultural industry should be one of Beijing's key roles, the museum has been working to set an example for the city's arts institutions.

Bolshoi Theater is playing the role of a “cultural ambassador” of Russia to the United States, promoting friendly relations between the two countries under the conditions of sanctions, Bolshoi’s Press Secretary Katerina Novikova told Sputnik.
 

China’s diplomacy has truly gone global. Over the past forty years China has traveled a path from a nation isolated from the international community to one integrated into it. Today, Beijing enjoys diplomatic relations with 175 countries, is a member of more than 150 international organizations and is party to more than three hundred multilateral treaties. 
 

Thinc Design is in the hole $1 million, after the State Department failed to raise enough private money to fund the display — and its owner wants John Kerry to help pay him back, [...] Behind the scenes, many in the State Department blame Congress for putting the secretary in this awkward position of having to rely on outside funding and inexperienced operators to mount a major public diplomacy initiative.  

To tell a good story should not be a risk. To paint on canvas or shoot a picture should not land you in jail. A tweet, a blog, a film — non should cost you your life. Look around the world, though, and worry. Storytellers are in jail, exiled or dead. [...] The full spectrum of art and culture is under duress in many countries because words and images are powerful and when there is distress, repression follows.