Hollywood star Angelina Jolie has used her time in Scotland to visit the global headquarters of a charity which specialises in landmine removal. The Jolie-Pitt Foundation has provided "hundreds of thousands of pounds" worth of financial support to Halo, funding humanitarian mine clearance teams in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Kosovo and Afghanistan.

Chinese-U.S. co-productions are on the rise, and Christian Bale, Kevin Spacey, and Keanu Reeves are among the stars who have sought projects here. So eager are American studios to crack the Chinese market that MGM recently edited Chinese villains out of the remake of Red Dawn, replacing them with North Koreans.

Yet again we are confronted with a dilemma: when is culture an instrument of soft power? We talk about cultural diplomacy, cultural exchanges and even cultural influence. What is less discussed is how cultural paraphernalia connect to, integrate with, and ultimately enhance a nation’s soft power capital.

While government officials have been rushing to relate achievements of various sectors with “improving Korea’s image globally,” many citizens still remain unsure of just where the sources of nation branding come from or what the term even means. The Presidential Council on Nation Branding (PCNB) is hoping to enlighten citizens on this issue through the “Korea Nation Branding Convention 2011”.

The See No Evil project on Nelson Street in Bristol will see several multi-storey buildings in the street covered with art over the coming days. Organisers hope that the project, which has involved top graffiti artists from all over the world, will become a major tourist attraction for the city, often said to the spiritual home of Banksy.

It must be a testament to the dearth of interesting diplomatic discussions that a brawl between the Georgetown Hoyas and the Bayi Rockets became the headline news out of the U.S.-China summitry between Vice Presidents Biden and Xi. For many, the event became a metaphor for the animosity presumed to underpin the U.S.-China relationship and, possibly, a lack of respect to Biden.

While stereotypes of Colombia remain stuck in the 1990s, that country has moved on. The northern coastal city of Cartagena, long a vacation spot for Colombians, has blossomed over the last five years into a major culinary and cultural destination. Many of its best restaurants have opened in just the past two years, some by chefs fleeing economic collapse in the so-called First World.

Yet again we are confronted with a dilemma: when is culture an instrument of soft power? We talk about cultural diplomacy, cultural exchanges and even cultural influence. What is less discussed is how cultural paraphernalia connect to, integrate with, and ultimately enhance a nation’s soft power capital.