Extensive Googling has not revealed a single mention of North Korea as evil or awful, however when examining US-North Korean relations, I cannot help but think of a masterful piece of cultural diplomacy – one of my favourite films – Team America.

The 24-year-old host of "OMG Meiyu," a trendy, cross cultural English teaching feature produced by Voice of America’s Mandarin Service, has become an overnight sensation in China...More than 2-million people have now clicked on Jessica Beinecke’s quirky videos, which teach Chinese speakers about common English expressions used by young Americans.

It might be the end of American hegemony in the global political and economic order, but unemployed and underpaid Americans can at least take heart at today's news. Social networking site Badoo.com conducted a poll of 30,000 people in 15 countries to name the coolest nationality. Despite a sinking economy, pathetic politics, and increasingly suspect pop culture exports -- Americans are still number 1.

As Russia tries to undo its reputation as the most unwelcoming tourist destination in Europe, Moscow is investing $3 billion to make the country more enticing to visitors and has set aide $82 million for its 200 nature preserves, some of which are unique natural wonders that have never been open to even the Russian public, much less foreign tourists.

A research carried out by The News International shows that there are nearly 510 million Chinese-speaking people using the internet currently—-the second most after those who talk in English. Mandarin is the most widely spoken language on earth as over 1.372 billion humans residing on the planet express themselves in this lingo.

Cowboys and Aliens was the biggest, shiniest fruit yet to fall off the tree planted in July 2009 by Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks and India's Reliance Entertainment. What Reliance are attempting – to perform locally within India as a Bollywood production house, and step up to the international stage, too – is extremely difficult.

As the government slowly ousts the traffickers and regains the upper hand — part of an organized cleanup ahead of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro — companies are starting to understand that there is cash in what was once chaos. Taking products, services and jobs back into the pacified favelas is the latest challenge facing a city hoping to reverse decades of neglect as it prepares to host not just the Olympics but also the soccer World Cup final in 2014.

Religious art, arguably like religion itself, ultimately deals with the trials of being human, and this is something those of all faiths and none can share in. The pope is right when he says that "art can express and render visible humanity's need to go beyond what one sees, revealing a thirst and quest for the infinite", but that "infinite" is the unfathomable in ourselves, whether we call that "God" or not.