On Thursday, August 18th, Food Republic, a food website that features extensive food news and culture, will be hosting a live Twitter chat with Chefs John Besh, Andrew Zimmern, Aaron Sanchez, Beau MacMillan, Michael Voltaggio, and sites Foodspotting and Food + Tech Connect about our roles using social media to raise awareness about food and other causes, such as the crisis in East Africa.

5 Days of War is a new action movie set during the 2008 Georgia-Russia war. The backers of this project seemed to have something in mind along the lines of Hotel Rwanda or The Killing Fields, films that effectively raised awareness and framed a certain narrative of international tragedies that got little attention in the U.S. while they were going on.

The Takshashila Institution, in collaboration with the Public Diplomacy Division of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and Hewlett-Packard have announced the launch of "India Impressions", an online international photography competition, to capture perspectives of an emerging India by engaging the photographer community. The competition will be conducted on Flickr, a popular photo sharing platform.

A well-defined and accurate national identity is, in many ways, a defined national strategy and as the world's focus has shifted for a moment toward its own economic woes and unrest, South Sudan and nations around the globe in a similarly early or developing stage, will need to muster as much internal strength, of character and otherwise, that they possibly can.

Harpa—the Reykjavik Concert Hall and Conference Center—is too new to be in guidebooks. But as Iceland’s latest attraction, it’s a sign that this country, which essentially went bankrupt during the global financial crisis, is crawling back onto its feet. Harpa adds a cultural dimension to Iceland’s appeal...Visitors are coming not only to see performances, but also to shop and to eat.

Better World Books, a bookseller that calls itself "the online bookstore with a soul," announced an initiative this week to donate a book to the company's non-profit literacy partners--Feed the Children and Books for Africa--every time a book is purchased on their website. Books for Africa will receive used textbooks, while Feed the Children will (obviously) get children's books.

Late last month the USDA announced that the first shipment of mangoes imported from Pakistan had arrived in the United States. Previously, Pakistani mangoes had been banned because of concerns they might bring pests into the country. In celebration of this first shipment, the Pakistani consulate in Chicago hosted a "mango party" at which mango-based delicacies and desserts were served.

Many of the problems that plague Central Asia are the result of neighbors who see each other more as rivals than allies. But institutions like the OSCE Academy are trying to reverse that trend by providing rigorous educations for future politicians, entrepreneurs and civil-society workers, while also encouraging them to think beyond their national borders by considering the Eurasian region in its entirety.