Unlike Yo-Yo Ma’s ongoing Silk Road Project, which since 1998 has celebrated the Silk Road’s melange of cultures and history of exchange through chamber music and educational programs, the China Philharmonic’s tour takes a traditional approach to cultural diplomacy. The orchestra is playing Chinese and Western repertory and effectively showcasing its strengths to China’s not-so-distant geographical neighbors.

On August 15th 2015, Global Day of Peace for Iran, thousands of people are gathering in cities across the world to show support for peace and prevent another war in the middle east. This is a grassroots movement organized by dozens of volunteers in over 100 cities in 20 countries in 4 continents. Hundreds of volunteers, with no affiliation to any organization or group, have joined this grassroots movement.

Thousands of people are expected to march in cities across the globe on Saturday in support of Iran's deal with world powers over its controversial nuclear program, activists said. The "global day of peace", as organizers describe it on Facebook, is aimed at showing support for the deal, which must be approved by US lawmakers before being implemented. 

"In Iran today, freedom of the press remains a dream," Cohler-Esses writes. "But freedom of tongue has been set loose. I was repeatedly struck by the willingness of Iranians to offer sharp, even withering criticisms of their government on the record, readiness sometimes even to be filmed doing so."