Great Britain is a very different place from Cool Britannia. Coolness might have been the single most impressive human quality, according to the guitar-wielding Tony Blair and his baby-boomer cohorts, but the Conservative-dominated government of today prefers an adjective of stiffer stuff.

The Indonesian minister, said that deeply rooted cultural affinity and commonality between Iran and Indonesia prepares grounds for upholding relations and cooperation between the two countries. In cultural diplomacy, all parties should look forward to commonalties....

Ma’s push to reposition Taiwan on the international stage as a peacemaker... “We are trying to deliver on this goal by utilizing our soft power assets in a variety of fields spanning humanitarian aid and cultural exchanges, and as a creator of business opportunities and high-tech devices.”

When Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi took the stage to accept the Oscar for A Separation, he spoke of his film as a counter narrative to talk of war and offer a view of Iran “through her glorious culture, a rich and ancient culture that has been hidden under the heavy dust of politics.”

When Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi took the stage to accept the Oscar for A Separation, he spoke of his film as a counter narrative to talk of war and offer a view of Iran “through her glorious culture, a rich and ancient culture that has been hidden under the heavy dust of politics.” During times of escalating political rhetoric, films can help shape and, as Farhadi hopes, reshape national images. For public diplomacy, the Oscars offer lessons not only in culture, but in the persuasive power of storytelling.

The Iranian Embassy opened "Iran Cultural Week" in Jakarta on Wednesday in an effort to open up a cultural exchange between the two allies.

Figures from Germany's culture and language promotion agency, the Goethe Institute, show that people in southern Europe -- where unemployment is high, particularly among the young -- are clamoring to learn German. Other official data show immigration to Germany from Spain, Greece and Portugal is up sharply.

What the United Kingdom can offer to India that other countries cannot, says the new British High Commissioner to India James Bevan, is the English language.Britain is providing English language training to a million Indian teachers, a programme that will indirectly reach a third of India’s population.