Turkey currently is building 18 large Islamic religious centers around the world. The projects include a mosque in Tirana, Albania which will holdmore than 4,000 worshippers. Turkey will also build mosques in the UnitedStates, Russia and Kyrgyzstan.

More than a century ago, Japanese authorities gifted Washington 3,000 cherry treesto brighten up the city's swampy Tidal Basin. It's still one of the most effective (and affecting) acts of public diplomacy to this day.

On Tuesday, the Limón company was announced as one of three companies selected for the fifth iteration of DanceMotion USA, an initiative of the State Department, produced in partnership with the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Joining the Limón company are Dance Heginbotham and Bodytraffic, a Los Angeles troupe.

Why did the US State Department sponsor international dance tours during the Cold War? An official government narrative was sanctioned and framed by the US State Department and its partner organization, the United States Information Agency (USIA—and USIS abroad). However, the tours countered that narrative.

In China, there has been a trend recently to use Sun Tzu and The Art of War as a source of soft power for China’s peaceful development strategy. This trend is present in the 2014 9th International Symposium on Sun Tzu’s Art of War hosted by the Chinese Academy of Military Science titled “Sun Tzu’s Art of War and Peace, Coopberation and Development.” 

The religionization of politics and the politicization of religion, especially in the current environment on the global war on terror, means that increasingly religion plays a role in diplomacy both as an opportunity for engagement and as a motivation inspiring actors.

Free Russian language courses organized by the Russian-Georgian community center, together with the Russian Foundation for Public Diplomacy named after Gorchakov, began being held in Tbilisi. 

Duquesne University professor Greg Barnhisel skillfully shows how modernist art and literature was used to influence the Cold War game.