As Skopje 2014 nears completion, it continues to divide Macedonia over its cultural legacy and role in society. “The new area is just about making money – it isn’t anything about culture,” says one older merchant in the Old Bazaar, the heart of the former Ottoman city, dismissing the new development. “That is one thing, this is another.” Mr. Nikoleski disagrees. “Skopje 2014 will be great for Macedonia," he says. "With cheap flights and this new development more and more people will visit here and see our own culture.”

"We know our performances are a fantastic way for people to demonstrate their connections to lead politicians in both countries and to forge relationships at a cultural diplomacy level. We have a five-year vision and we would like some people who want to be part of that journey," she says. Tours are expensive for the company that, with a turnover of A$50 million (about HK$361 million), receives just 16.3 per cent of its funding from state and federal governments. 

A Japanese wrestler-turned-politician hopes his vision of "sports diplomacy" can repair his country's fraught relationship with North Korea, as he prepares to host an extraordinary sporting event in Pyongyang. And Kanji "Antonio" Inoki has form: he helped secure the release of Japanese hostages in Iraq in 1990 after impressing tyrant Saddam Hussein, and more recently used his old bouts with Pakistani wrestlers to foster goodwill between the South Asian country and his own.

“For Muslim youth, music [is a way] to proclaim your identity, to proclaim your politics, to explain who you are, to mobilize, to build community,” Hisham Aidi told chief arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown.  In his new book, “Rebel Music: Race, Empire and the New Muslim Youth Culture,” Aidi explores the cross-cultural trends in political activism and movements throughout history, and how it’s all brought together with music.

The number of foreign fighters who have flooded into Syria throughout the past three years now exceeds the total number of jihadists who fought invading Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s, according to a report by the Soufan Group.

The main purpose of DanceMotion USA, a cultural diplomacy program run by the Brooklyn Academy of Music for the State Department, is to send American troupes abroad. Yet the program also benefits New Yorkers directly by having an American company bring back a foreign one for a free, collaborative performance here. These visits have proven illuminating, even if the arranged artistic alliances haven’t always gelled.