Japan and Cuba plan to hold the first meeting of a joint public-private conference in early November in Havana as part of efforts to expand bilateral economic ties, a Japanese government source said Sunday.

Alice Roosevelt's 1905 journey to Japan, Korea and China is documented in rare photographs held by the Freer and Sackler Galleries....The timing of this voyage made certain that amid an 83-member diplomatic delegation including seven senators and 23 congressmen, headed by Secretary of War, future president and chief justice William Howard Taft, Alice would be a brighter star than ever. 

South Korea’s Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se said Thursday that Seoul has capitalized on its public diplomacy to respond to the rightward political shift and revisionist views of history in Japan that have worsened anti-Japanese sentiment here.

Soft Power as opposed to Hard Power is not at all new to the developing world. The concept of Non-alignment, for example, is a manifestation of this species of power which, essentially, is an expression of a country’s or a group of countries’ humanistic values as opposed to their military or coercive capability. Accordingly, Soft Power has its origins in spirituality and religion and pertains to those qualities of heart and mind which play a key role in fostering world solidarity.

MANILA - Three Japanese minesweepers have arrived at the Manila South Harbor for a three-day goodwill visit which started Monday. The ships, which are part of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF)’s Minesweeper Division 51, are commanded by Capt. Toshiro Takaiwa.

Sino-ROK normalization has brought enormous economic and trade benefits to both countries, but over two decades of ever-closer “partnership” between Beijing and Seoul, South Korea has never gained the level of strategic support from Beijing that it has desired as leverage in dealing with North Korea. 

The Narendra Modi government has decided to make India's Buddhism links the centrepiece of its cultural diplomacy thrust through a blitzkrieg of novel projects, after the Prime Minister feted East Asian leaders through his first year in office with references to this religious bridge.