Iran is starting to use its soft power, agreeing last month to lend works from the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art’s (TMoCA) collection of international and Iranian art for an exhibition in Berlin next year. The show, a symbol of Iran’s rapprochement with the West, could travel beyond Berlin, a spokeswoman for the Tehran museum tells us. The exhibition will include works by international and Iranian artists.

The Ministry of External Affairs is getting ready to promote the global discipline of Indology as a soft diplomatic platform.[...] Indology, which includes the study of the Vedas, Vedanta, Upanishads and the Sanskrit classics, has a global pool of scholars who can project India’s core civilizational values effectively on the global stage, said Karan Singh, former president of the ICCR and one of the prominent speakers at the event. 

Considering the importance of public diplomacy in cultural and people-to-people exchanges, we encouraged and supported the foreign ministries of the three countries to continue consultations on a trilateral forum on public diplomacy to enhance understanding and friendship among the peoples of the three countries.

The Embassy of Switzerland, in collaboration with the Satrang Gallery of the Serena Group, hosted a Sculpture Exhibition on October 30 - 31, 2015 within its premises to promote cross-cultural understanding and creation through visual art. 

Jean-Claude Bader brings showbiz sparkle to regional elections in December, when the Front National hopes to capitalise on refugee crisis. He is the Gallic equivalent of an Elvis impersonator, a dead ringer for the ageing French rocker, Johnny Hallyday.

Today sees the close of the current ‘World’s Fair,’ in Milan, Italy. The six-month-long Expo Milano 2015 showcased tech innovation, especially from Italy, and while much will be written about the cost and legacy of the event, I’d like to argue that the host country made a clever use of this opportunity to show off its startups.