Cultural Diplomacy

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.

Before I moved to Paris three years ago, although I’d already been to the city and was lucky enough to call French my second language, I still held more than a few romantic preconceived notions. Every metropolis has a set of stereotypes linked to it, and Paris exists in many people's minds as a charming, luxurious, timeless hub of style and sophistication—in fact, so many people expect the City of Light to be what they want it to be that the reality has rendered some tourists physically sick with disappointment.

“Cuba Libro” is Cuba’s very first English language bookstore. It opened its door to customers last week. Conner Gorry, a New York City native living in Havana, first came up with the idea. She envisioned a comfortable place for book lovers to leaf through English-language books. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Gorry about “Cuba Libro” and the complexities of operating a small business in the island.

An Indian Mufti has declared that posting photos on Facebook and other social media sites is “un-Islamic,” according to an interview with the Press Trust of India (PTI) on Sunday. Abul Irfan Naimul Halim Firagni Mahli, who helps to run two telephone helplines advising people Islam related issues, said that Muslims should avoid social media sites and women in particular should refrain from posting pictures of themselves online.

Would you mind speaking a little louder?” asks the great master of painting as he works through the morning in his studio in Paris, waiting for a phone call from his native Colombia. “I might be going a little deaf,” he remarks. It’s not every day one gets to talk to Fernando Botero (Medellín, April 19, 1932), without doubt the most important Colombian artist alive, known worldwide and considered a key figure in the history of art.

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