Arts Minister George Brandis also attended the dinner in the Prime Minister’s private dining room at Parliament House. Mr Abbott told guests that he wanted to learn from the arts sector, and heard a discussion about its successes and challenges. The conversation included the importance of private-sector support for the arts, and the international role of arts organisations in cultural diplomacy.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi basked Sunday in a rock star welcome to the United States as he vowed to work tirelessly to make his nation a major power. In a massive show of support for a right-wing leader once shunned by Washington, some 18,500 people of Indian origin from across the United States and Canada packed into New York’s Madison Square Garden...

Thai 'soft power' is highly visible in Indonesia through every-day encounters such as consumer products, entertainment, fashions, food and fruits, to name but a few.  Somehow, Thai authorities who are promoting the country's smart power have no idea of utilising this popular and neutral medium. Na

A 21-member troupe of Chinese artists from Soochow University in southeastern China's Suzhou City has performed a variety of Chinese arts here and triggered zeal from Cambodian spectators.

A cultural relationship that started in 1999 was celebrated on Thursday night in southwest China.  Montana governor Steve Bullock and Guangxi governor Chen Wu took down the cover of the ceremonial wall of friendship between the two locations.

Anthony Bourdain's television travelogue "Parts Unknown" goes to Iran to discover how people live behind the geopolitical smoke screen and to small-town Massachusetts to chronicle the heroin scourge. But even if the fourth season of his Emmy Award-winning CNN show fosters cultural diplomacy or raises drug awareness, this outspoken New York chef insists he is on no kind of socially minded mission. 

Brazilians are starting to pay attention to a different type of football the one played with the hands. American football, once the sport nobody could understand, is quickly gaining space in the land of soccer, attracting a growing number of fans and participants. Brazil already has two well-established semi-professional leagues in place, and television ratings for the NFL are increasing rapidly.

If there was something threatening about the incursion of Western cultural and political influence ten years ago, the China of today seems a bit more confident about its standing in the world. Not that this newfound swagger has supplanted the paranoic tendencies inherent to authoritarian rule...