Conflict and militancy may be first things that occur to many about Iraq, but a group of young fashion-conscious Kurds are hoping to help project a brighter, more optimistic image - and perhaps effect social change along the way.

The new director of the Vatican museums, Barbara Jatta, presented a new multimedia web site to journalists at the Vatican press office on Monday. The user-friendly site, available in Italian, English, French, Spanish and German, contains thousands of images plus over fifty videos and virtual tours and has taken almost three years to complete.

“There’s something young happening here,” DJ Walshy Fire says late into the sprawling, inspiring concert documentary Give Me Future. [...] They’re talking with reverent awe about Cuba’s music scene, and how rapidly it’s changing. A little over a year after President Obama eased the 54-year trade sanction against Cuba, Major Lazer went to Havana for an unprecedented mega-scale outdoor concert. 

Representatives of seven Cleveland cultural and educational institutions met Cuban counterparts face to face and saw firsthand evidence of the rapprochement with Cuba started under President Barack Obama in 2014. The visit also provided a snapshot of Cuban life at an unusual point after the death of the country's longtime president, Fidel Castro, in November, and the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, who could freeze or reverse the normalization started by Obama.

The partnership was formed in August last year, after the third edition. “We have a large North Eastern community here. We wanted to support their effort to showcase their culture and, in the process, also showcase ours to them. We felt the event can be a cross-cultural exchange platform. Also, Bengaluru has been called the most dynamic city in the world.

The Minister for Sports and Culture Julienne Uwacu has expressed confidence that the Rwanda-China cultural exchanges are growing from strength to strength. [...] “We appreciate the embassy of China in Rwanda for having organised such a wonderful event. Cultural exchanges between Rwanda and China will continue. They (Chinese) will also be inviting our artistes to go and perform in China showcasing our culture there,” she said.

Filipino historians, along with arts and culture professionals, discussed the need to revisit details and connections in history to further deepen relations in countries. The symposium, which was held in Ateneo de Manila University Ricardo Leong Hall and was organized by the Japan Foundation Manila, brought together Fukuoka Prize recipients in the Philippines to lecture on the relations between the two countries going way back to prehispanic times as trade partners.

Nicholas Thomas is the director of Cambridge’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. He likens museums to regions and nations in which all sorts of disparate elements are brought together [...] The thrust of his ruminations on the nature of collections is that, like collections of people, the sum is greater than the parts because of the dialogues, conversations, connections and interactions between inanimate objects as well as people.