[...] Public diplomacy has been embraced as a key tool for boosting Korea’s national image as a relevant international actor. [...] Korea is ever more focused on winning the hearts and minds of citizens across regions through the active showcasing of its cultural products, with “hallyu” as the crucial piece of the puzzle.

President Obama will become the first sitting American president to visit Hiroshima, Japan, the White House announced on Tuesday, making a fraught stop this month at the site where the United States used an atomic bomb at the end of World War II.

“Can we make ‘made in Asia, designed in Asia’ become cool, I think yes we can because the stigma that Asian brands had is disappearing and we have all the right ingredients and the manufacturing base,” said Joowon Park, director at Seoul-based Simone Fashion Company.

The Pakistan Embassy arranged a range of educational and cultural programming in collaboration with the Cultural Tourism DC that increased public awareness about Pakistan.

Titled “Azerbaijan: Land of Hope, Tolerance and Inspiration,” the booklet contains information about Azerbaijan’s history, rich musical and cultural heritage, long-standing traditions of multiculturalism and interfaith tolerance, economic opportunities, energy strategy and diplomacy, as well as tourism potential.

Finland’s official promotion body is taking a new approach with its YouTube channel by handing it over to ten young experts in the medium. They will produce their own videos with just two stipulations: they have to be in English and in Finland. ThisisFinland, which operates under the Foreign Ministry, thinks this could be the first time a country promotion body has allowed guests to run its YouTube channel.

Larry Macaulay first arrived on Italy's shores in May 2011 after taking a dinghy from war-torn Libya. […] He recalls the long journey from Nigeria and how he ended up in 2014 as the founder and editor-in-chief of the Hamburg-based Refugee Radio Network (RNN) […] Between January and April of 2015, RNN started by taking phone calls from refugees and broadcasting an hour-long Refugee Voices show […]

Nigeria's vast and rich cultural heritage should be strategically repositioned to partner tourism as its driver to lift the Nigerian economy. Tourism cannot effectively flourish without the cultural components. The desire to position culture and tourism as the lever of Nigeria's economic growth and development rests with the Ministry of Information and Culture as it must plan to mainstream both sectors into a monolithic entity to galvanize national economic development.