Can Turkey play a role in the Arab Spring?... Yes, because Turkey has developed newfound soft power in the Middle East. Over the past decade, Ankara has painstakingly built influence in the region by fostering business networks and establishing state-of-the-art high schools to educate the future Arab elite.

“It is a good chance for Saudi families and children to discover more about the world’s largest Muslim country in terms of population, tourism opportunities, civilization and cultural heritage, and meet a number of Indonesian travel and tourism agencies,” said A. Fauzy Chusny, information officer from Indonesia Information and Cultural Affairs.

Not much imagination is required to appreciate the impact in Indonesia of Barack Obama‘s recent visit.  There he was, using phrases of the Indonesian language not like some stumbling tourist but rather as one who has real roots in the nation.  His reminiscences of his boyhood exploits stirred the spirits of this rising Pacific power that can claim the President of the United States as one of its o

Guangzhou's new Waqqas Mosque is one of many of China's recent forays into Islamic infrastructure -- a market that promises to earn Beijing as much in soft power with the resource-rich Muslim world as it does contract revenues.

AT the Oscars last month the gap between what interests Hollywood and what the rest of the world seems to be doing was sharp and clear. Of the five nominees for the best foreign-language film, all but one, among them the winner, “In a Better World,” from Denmark, dealt in some way with relationships between the West and Islam.