The director of Taiwan's National Palace Museum (NPM) said she hopes upcoming historical exhibits of NPM cultural treasures in Japan will showcase Taiwan's 'soft power'. Fung Ming-chu's remark came as over 200 sets of precious works from the NPM are set to be exhibited at the Tokyo National Museum from June and later this year at the Kyushu National Museum. It marks the first time NPM treasures will be displayed in an Asian country other than Taiwan.

In a country with little or no place to gather for the free expression of ideas and no place to talk politics without fear of repression, these new kitchens made it possible for friends to gather privately in one place.  These "dissident kitchens" took the place of uncensored lecture halls, unofficial art exhibitions, clubs, bars and dating services.

China's most celebrated sage has become the emblem of the country's soft-power drive and of its people-to-people diplomacy in Africa. Todd Balazovic reports.In Africa, it's Chinese businesspeople who sign multimillion-dollar deals, top politicians who sign major cooperation agreements and people who embody China's most famous thinker who act as cultural ambassadors.

Meridian International Centre and the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have launched Past Forward: Contemporary Art from the Emirates, a groundbreaking cultural diplomacy programme that brings Emirati artwork and artists to the United States.The exhibition tells the story of the UAE’s rich history, culture and rapid development through the works of 25 notable Emirati artists. Past Forward represents the first major touring exhibition of Emirati art in the world. 

‘Art is committed to telling truths, even if unpalatable. This can make life uncomfortable for governments’. Abraham Oghobase is a Nigerian photographer in his mid-thirties whose witty and original pictures are gaining him an international reputation. His work is based on the documentary tradition, but it is given a distancing quality by the artist’s own presence in the photograph. This combination of reportage and performance art, while not unique, compellingly adds layers of complication to otherwise straightforward depictions of the socio-economic tensions of his homeland.

At the height of the Cold War, the US State Department deployed a new weapon in its fight against communism – jazz. Over a period of 20 years, it dispatched some of the greatest musicians – Dizzie Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington –to play in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and even the Soviet Union, where Benny Goodman tooted his clarinet in Red Square, in a battle for hearts and minds. The New York Times of 6 November  1955 reported on its front page: “America's secret weapon is a blue note in a minor key.” Louis Armstrong was named as “its most effective ambassador”.