Rice, beans, pork – and lots of it. That's a typical restaurant meal in Cuba, widely regarded by travelers as a culinary wasteland where the variety and quality of raw ingredients leave much to be desired.

George Little, the Pentagon spokesperson, appeared to make an important announcement last week, saying "strategic communication" had been banned from the Pentagon's lexicon. Sounded like a good thing; strategic communication was a brainchild of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in full flower of his moment when the Pentagon could not only "do it all," it should "do it all."

The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs will host 392 Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistants from 50 countries for an enrichment workshop in Washington, D.C. from December 13 to 15.

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy added his voice to the growing calls to switch the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup to the winter when he made his first public speaking appearance since May today by addressing the conference here.

Since 1999, the sister cities of Worthington and Sayama, Japan — a suburb of Tokyo — have participated in a cultural exchange involving visits from city officials, resident delegations, school groups and other representatives of each area. For the latest phase in the relationship, the long journey has been made not by contingents of people but by works of art.

In 2002, Blackwell founded a company called Killerspin, based in Chicago. The idea came to him when he was asked to help host a table tennis exhibition in Chicago in the early 2000s, an event meant to celebrate the anniversary of the good-natured exchange of table tennis players between the U.S. and China later known, of course, as Ping Pong Diplomacy.

A US official is taking a novel approach to diplomacy in Pakistan - singing in a local language to build bridges in Pakistan, where anti-Americanism runs rampant. Shayla Cram, a public diplomacy officer assigned to Peshawar, has not only learnt Pushto but has penned her own Pushto-style song.