It’s a classic image of England, but “classic English” isn’t what I’ve come looking for today. Quite the opposite, in fact. I’m here in Bristol to explore a side of this historic port city that hasn’t always been smiled upon by the establishment, including the local police. I’m here to see graffiti. Walls and walls of graffiti.

A Cirque du Soleil performance left a Beijing audience audibly shocked when a banned image of the iconic Tiananmen "tank man" protester was displayed on giant screens in front of 15,000 people. The politically-charged image -- of a sole, unarmed protester blocking a line of tanks during a 1989 government crackdown in Tiananmen Square -- was displayed for about four seconds as part of a montage of protest imagery during a performance of Michael Jackson's "They Don't Care About Us," according to a post on That's Beijing magazine's website.

In a recently televised broadcast of Chinese Character Dictation Conference — China’s equivalent of a spelling bee — the nation’s best and brightest were asked to write, in its traditional form, a word that stumped 70% of the teenage contestants and a startling 90% of the grown-up audience (who, as voluntary spectators at a spelling bee, were probably no literary slouches themselves). The word that eluded this extremely well-read crowd was toad. Pause and consider that for a moment.

“Art-Culture-Life”: So beckoned the humble sign. Being a fan of all three, I made my way inside. Art came first in a portico lined with rich, Dalí-esque landscapes; in the craft shop, stocked with mottled straw purses and hand-carved bowls; on restaurant walls, splashed with multihued graffiti. There was culture, yes, in the form of eclectic sounds: a D.J. spinning house music and an open-mic session showcasing poets and singers from Africa to America.

This year’s Malmo Arab Festival in Sweden will screen more than 100 Arab films in a bid to facilitate cross-cultural exchange, it is set to run from September 2-8. Directed by Mohammed Keblawi, the festival will showcase films from countries around the region including Palestine, Qatar, Syria, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. The festival will also honor a number of Arab actors and industry experts for their contributions to the world of Arab cinema, television and theatre.

As part of the United States Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence Globally, U.S. Embassy Bridgetown is addressing gender-based violence across a range of diplomatic, policy, and programmatic areas in the Caribbean region. These efforts build upon the priorities outlined last December at the first-ever Caribbean Dialogue on Rule of Law and Gender-based Violence, hosted by the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Global Women’s Issues (S/GWI).

I got into the public diplomacy game as a local hire as a Foreign Service National (FSN) working for the Israeli Foreign Ministry as a Press Officer for the Consulate General of Israel to the Southwest. As such, I have a deep appreciation for others who work as FSN for various foreign ministries and the U.S. Department of State.

Though things sure aren’t looking good for US universities, Wisconsin has it unusually bad. Decades of plummeting investment in higher education has left it among the US’s 10 worst states. Fear of debt mean Wisconsin students are balking at paying for college, denting revenue even more. But what can Wisconsin universities do to drum up funding? The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has a plan.