The Vatican - once the world’s premier art patron - is again reaching out to artists, organizing an exhibit of contemporary works. Sixty living artists, including two Americans, were invited to reflect on the theme of truth and charity. The exhibit is part of the Vatican’s bid to reconcile with contemporary art.

It is therefore important that the debate on how diplomatic missions can facilitate trade relations between Kenya and their host countries considers several other factors, including capacity-building at the ministry level and the ability of Kenyan suppliers to deliver goods on time.

The Poland-Korea Education and Science Conference will bring together leaders from their field in both countries to better understand and share good practice of Korea’s quick progress in the educational sciences.

Cultural relations work really looks different if you make the connection with the role of nationalism in European politics in the period after 1850. The theory and practice of nationalism places language and culture at the heart of what makes the nation. It was the rise of nationalism that corroded multinational empires and consolidated national states in Europe.

Part of the plan is to hire nationals of the target markets with right skills and networks to head the charm offensive instead of sending Kenyans with little or no connections...he move not only marks a major shift in the country’s diplomatic positioning but also makes a significant departure from the way Kenya has traditionally staffed its embassies and high commissions abroad.

More than 750 million people have a Facebook account and more than 200 million people use Twitter, but the EU’s European External Action Service (EEAS) has only 4,132 followers on Twitter and 1,774 ‘likes’ on Facebook. The EEAS, the EU’s main foreign policy group, has all the presence of an ant on social media compared to Barrack Obama, who has more than 9 million Twitter followers.

Remember Czech artist David Cerny's "Entropa"? The sculpture, which showed stereotypes of all 27 EU member states, was perhaps the most memorable symbol of the otherwise ill-fated Czech EU presidency in the first half of 2009.

Harvard professor Joseph Nye talks of a world shaped by the shifting distribution of power from West to East and the growing dispersal of power from state to citizens.The “Arab Spring” is the most spectacular example...