Young Iranians today have more access to American cultural products than ever before [...] In his new book, After the American Century: The Ends of U.S. Culture in the Middle East, Brian Edwards writes how popular, cinema, literary, digital, and academic culture from the U.S. reaches North Africa and the Middle East, is stripped of its Americanness, and is recontextualized in a different light. 

This driving energy has taken the group to global venues like Australia's Womad, Lisbon's Music Box, and Malaysia's Rain Forest World Music Festival. It's bringing them to the U.S. for the first time this autumn for a tour as part of Center Stage, the ambitious cultural exchange program initiated by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Cuba is in a position where it could use some soft power appeal, particularly on the same social issues—like unemployment or the treatment of Afro-Latinos—that neighboring countries are going through. If Cuba is aiming to have a rap scene with actual international appeal beyond the club circuit, the state should relax its hold.

he University of Kentucky’s Confucius Institute is now offering a student ambassador program as an opportunity for students to get involved and help represent the best of what the Confucius Institute has to offer. Student ambassadors will promote events and programs, strengthen relationships between communities through Chinese cultural outreach at UK, and provide support from CI to UK students, faculty and staff.

Pop culture has worked a powerful magic in South Korea, turning it into one of the coolest places on the planet, which begs the question: How can Singapore get in on the act? The Hallyu fever, which started around 20 years ago, had overtaken Japanese pop that held sway from the 1980s to the early 1990s, and shows no sign of cooling.

President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has urged the Cabinet to enhance the soft-power approach to improve Indonesia's image, highlighting national branding as a strategy to improve the country's competitiveness in trade, tourism and investment.

Under the "Adelaide Consensus" reached during the dialogue, both countries agreed to strengthen cultural diversity through the exchange of ideas, nurtured by constant exchanges and interaction. It was also agreed that Australia and China will commission an academic research piece on current activity in the cross cultural sphere, including exhibitions, films, arts and cultural festivals...

At a time when Islamic State militants around the world have sledgehammered antiquities, French President François Holland helped launch a cultural heritage initiative at the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meeting. [...] The French President announced the creation of a $100 million public/private fund, with the United Arab Emirates, to safeguard endangered cultural heritage sites.