Major Lazer will become the first major US act to play Cuba since the two countries began restoring frozen relations in July 2015. The DJ group will play a free show in Havana on 6 March, in front of the US Embassy.

People start bands for all kinds of reasons, but most of those reasons fall under the general heading of “I have musical desire/skill/wherewithal and time to kill/a rehearsal space/likeminded friends.” Such reasoning generally does not include considering what music the world needs to hear, and tends to be focused squarely on more self-serving considerations.

The cultural dimension of Turkish-Iranian relations and the scope of Turkey's soft power were discussed at a seminar jointly organized by the Ankara-based Center for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies (ORSAM) and the Tehran branch of the Yunus Emre Institute over the weekend in the Iranian capital of Tehran. 

In new photographs, the American artist Taryn Simon captures a different kind of flower power: bouquets that sat on the tables where world leaders were brokering deals. [...] Simon imported four thousand botanical specimens from the world’s largest flower market, in the Netherlands, and created three dozen still-lifes, evoking diplomatic accords made between 1968 and 2014.

When Starbucks first opened in China in 1999, the company's future seem doomed in a country that has thousands of years of tea-drinking history. However, in just 17 years, Starbucks changed and revolutionized the way the Chinese view and drink coffee. […]It's been reported that Starbucks intends to double its locations in the country by 2019.

Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group has acquired Legendary Entertainment, the Hollywood production company behind “The Dark Knight,” “Jurassic World” and “Godzilla” movies. […] The deal represents the largest acquisition to date of a U.S. production company by a Chinese firm and the latest sign of the deepening ties between Hollywood and the world's most populous country.

A Congolese hip-hop artist exiled in a Malawian refugee camp is determined to fight xenophobia with his music.

In 2013, North Korea conducted its third nuclear test, and the world responded by inducing a period of brinksmanship that came dangerously close to spiraling the unending Korean War out of control. [...] Any creative collaboration one could possibly imagine between the US and North Korea is not only theoretically possible, but an actual reality.