Ahmad tells RFE/RL it was a transformational moment in his life -- the moment when he declared "rock and roll jihad" against the "ideology of hate." "The Taliban and their brand of Islam is not Islam at all. Islam doesn't teach you to kill innocent women, children, and men. Islam doesn't teach you to commit suicide," Ahmad says. "That's haram," or forbidden.

Most Taiwanese, who do not travel to or work in China, can only learn about Chinese by reading newspapers, watching television or listening to the radio. However, when Chinese come to Taiwan, locals can learn about their cousins from across the Strait first-hand, both the good and the bad. It’s a type of low-level diplomacy that cuts through misunderstandings and prejudices better than any ­government-sponsored effort.

Coaches and players often travel the globe -- Asia, Africa, Europe -- this time of year to spread the NBA gospel, promoting basketball camps that attract adoring youngsters eager to learn the game. Rarely do they find anything as diverse and far-reaching as they do in the little hamlet of Zofingen, Switzerland, which becomes a very popular basketball melting pot for two weeks every summer.

Last December the Beijing-based China Heaven Creation International Performing Arts Company purchased the White House Theater in Branson, a small town in the US Midwest and a popular destination for American vacationers...It is a small example of Chinese culture going international but there could be many more to come. China Heaven Creation is one of the 211 companies listed by the Ministry of Culture as key export-oriented culture enterprises.

'I hope one day I come to see you because, every day here, it's worse and worse." The young man's guarded, disconsolate voice comes distantly from Iran on a bad Skype line. He's a well-known figure in that country's burgeoning but relentlessly suppressed underground rock music scene. Supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei recently declared music to be "incompatible" with the values of the Islamic Republic...

As the debate has grown more heated, Park51, as the proposed Muslim cultural center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero is called, has become a litmus test for everything from private-property rights to religious tolerance. But it is plain that many of Park51's opponents are motivated by deep-seated Islamophobia.

China and Tanzania enjoys deep and traditional friendship with richer and richer cultural exchanges between the two countries, a senior Chinese diplomat said in Dar Es Salaam,on Thursday. Liu Xinsheng, Chinese ambassador to Tanzania, made the remarks at the opening ceremony of the exhibition of "Henan in the Eyes of World Photographers", stressing the role of cultural exchange in enhancing the bilateral relations.

With predictions that more than half of the world’s language will disappear by the end of the decade, and the seemingly ubiquitous takeover by English showing no signs of stopping, many in the Middle East are starting to worry about the future of Arabic.