“We are one in nine billion,” states a striking stainless steel sculpture at the entrance to the U.S. Pavilion at Milan Expo 2015: “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life." That visual statement is intended to get visitors thinking about the fact that in 2050, the world’s population is estimated to reach 9 billion, and more sustainable ways to feed people must be found.

One more important task of the pavilion is to present Kazakhstan as the host of EXPO 2017. Considering the difficulties that Milan faced while preparing EXPO 2015, Kazakhstan will take this experience into account in arranging for its exhibit in Astana and hold it at the highest level, said First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and the national EXPO commissioner Rapil Zhoshybayev.

The Expo 2015 world's fair showed potential as a backdrop for serious diplomacy as it opened Friday for a six-month run, even as it also served as a lightning rod for anti-globalization protests.(...) Not all of the diplomatic signals around Expo have been positive. India, in a drawn-out dispute with Italy over its determination to put two Italian sailors on trial for the shooting deaths at sea of two fishermen, skipped the global event due to the tensions, Expo organizers said.

North Korea stepped out of its isolation as a last-minute participant, and there are signs that Turkey may use the occasion to reach out to the Vatican weeks after it recalled its ambassador to the Holy See over the pope describing the slaughter of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide.

The Expo is not only to be experienced, but also remembered. As it is a concentrated temporal social occurrence, the outsized event rivets visitors’ attention and fascination. Transient as the Expo experience is, one’s impression of it can be long-lasting.