In seven months on loan from the British Museum to the National Museum of Iran [the Cyrus Cylinder] has been seen by more than a million Iranians. MacGregor believes that the cylinder -- and objects like it -- can do what politicians often fail to do and bring antagonistic countries closer together.

India's strength does not lie with its nuclear weapons or its missiles or the size of its armed forces. India real strength lies with the IT, its culture, its civilization and its vibrant democracy. Today, India's soft power is everywhere, in every nook and corner of the world and you see India through its dance, through its music, though its food...

“Five million Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan have become a beacon of light for the 35 million Kurds who live in Turkey, Syria, and Iran. That beacon of light is keeping us awake at night and is filling our hearts with hope.”
-Kani Xulam, Director of the American-Kurdish Information Network

The Scottish organisers of an international cultural festival have been forced to abandon plans to stage events in Syria next month. Reel Festivals 2011 had planned part of its programme in Damascus as part of a trilateral cultural exchange between Scotland, Lebanon and Syria.

The hockey heads of Pakistan and India are attempting to renew ties later this year in the wake of last month's successful "cricket diplomacy." Efforts are underway between the federations of the two countries, who have not played in a bilateral series since the 2008 Mumbai attacks, to play matches in both countries.

A group of 17 North Korean taekwondo performers will visit the United States from late next month through early June to present the Korean traditional martial art to an American audience, according to the Voice of America, a U.S.-funded radio broadcaster.

Football authorities, from Fifa to the FA, are keen to argue that the sport is a benign force, an agent of positive social transformation even. They portray football as the universal game for a global world, an instrument of soft power and peaceful diplomacy and a device for overcoming social divisions.

A hulking sculpture meant to promote reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia became an accidental emblem of their historic enmity after workers erected scaffolding towers and began to demolish it this week.