The U-20 is Colombia’s biggest-ever international sports event. This time around, the country is embracing the challenge. The games will be played in Bogota, Medellin, Cartagena and five other cities and watched on TV by 500 million people around the world. Spectators will learn about the country’s improved security, booming economy and natural beauty.

The Israeli Chamber Orchestra will break with tradition to play a work by Hitler's favourite composer, Richard Wagner, in Germany. It is rare for Israeli musicians to play the anti-Semitic composer's work, which was appropriated by the Nazis. Musical director Roberto Paternostro said that while Wagner's ideology was "terrible", the aim was "to divide the man from his art".

The United States has increased its funding for the binational Fulbright Program to $8.5 million per year, making it one of the largest Fulbright programs in the world. The U.S. government has committed $15 million for a new five year Fulbright Indonesia Research, Science, and Technology Program – or FIRST Program - to support American and Indonesian students and scholars.

Heidi Wastweet is a Seattle sculptor and medallic artist, but one of her passions is to design money — coins, specifically...and now she gets to design the future of the United States' coins. Coins may be viewed as chump change, says Wastweet, but the image on a penny, nickel or quarter can influence the way we and the world view America.

What better way to build bridges across borders than with some light entertainment and gripping love affairs? The soaps and serials that are being scheduled into primetime viewing slots region-wide are creating a desire for cultural exchange, a sort of knowing me, knowing you effect. The frenzy caused by the popularity of Turkish soaps is capturing the imaginations of its viewers.

"The contemporary Indian dance stage reflects the spirit of globalisation," Kuchipudi dancer Kaushalya Reddy who hosted an international dance festival here early this year told us. Traditional Indian dance even translates world literature...

Welcome to the Ask the Ambassador, in which Eater meets with different diplomats to discuss their eating and drinking preferences and where they can get a taste of home while they serve their mission in New York City.

Nowadays, we call this phenomenon globalization: "the intensification of economic, political, social and cultural relations across borders,"... But make no mistake: the world that Ibn Battuta experienced in his travels nearly 700 years ago was as globalized as the world we live in today.