The Arts and Healing Network awarded Ballet Theatre Company’s Artistic Director and General Manager Roman Baca for his efforts creating war related dance pieces, combining military veterans with dance, and seeking artistic and cultural diplomacy in Iraq. Baca, a U.S. Marine and Iraq War veteran, cofounded the Exit12 Dance Company in 2007 upon his return from Iraq and subsequently embarked on a soothing journey to help fellow veterans and to visualize inspiring conversations regarding worldly differences.

In 2012, Korea and the United Kingdom agreed to allow young people, aged from 18 to 30, to live and work for a maximum of two years in each other's countries in order to gain work experience.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 386 Koreans participated in the program, called the Youth Mobility Scheme (YMS), in 2012, and this number jumped to 965 in 2013. Yet the high rate of Korean participants returning home early increasingly makes the program look like a failure.

A new digital restoration of The Goddess, a 1934 silent movie from a golden period of the city's film industry, was recently shown at the Shanghai Film Festival.  It is one of several remasterings that come as Beijing tries to extend its soft power by exporting Chinese culture around the world, and build a stronger movie industry able to compete internationally.

Japanese noodle-soup shops can be found from Sydney to Stockholm. In Washington, New York and Los Angeles, long lines form at the hippest new ramen restaurants.  The Japanese government is also using ramen as a form of soft power — or at least al dente power.

When you first arrive in Mexico City, your senses are overwhelmed by the sheer size and the never-ending hum of activity. Choosing a focal point can be exhausting. Every facet of the city seems as important as the next.  If you’re an architecture enthusiast, this feeling is multiplied twofold.

State Department work doesn’t just involve diplomats and briefcases. U.S. cultural diplomacy sent “jazz ambassadors” such as Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong overseas at the height of the Cold War in the 1950s and 1960s. The programs and cultural exchanges have only expanded since.