On a Chinese hospital ship off Hawaii, crew members demonstrate traditional massage techniques to U.S. sailors. The mood is one of collegiality, even after China opted out of Japan-led humanitarian drills at the world’s largest international naval exercise.

While U.S. and Iranian negotiators labor to reach a long-term nuclear agreement, other Americans and Iranians are stepping up contacts in a new wave of people-to-people diplomacy. In recent months, three American religious delegations have visited Iran while the first group of female Iranian seminary students came to the United States. Sports exchanges are also on the rise again,spearheaded by American wrestlers who find far more numerous and passionate fans in Iran than in many countries, including the U.S.  

The Russian Cultural Centre in the city celebrated the Day of Family, Love and Faith.  The celebration was attended by members of the Russian-Indian Family Club that functions at the Centre. The programme was jointly inaugurated by the president of the Club Kadakampally Sanilkumar and co-chairperson Viktoria Ajay.

As tensions between Palestinians and Israelis remain high, there is a moment of hope in the middle of everything that is bleak: The father of a murdered Palestinian teenager was consoled by the uncle of a slain Israeli teenager.  "We expressed our deep empathy with their sorrow, from one bereaved family to another bereaved family," said Yishai Fraenkel, the uncle of Naftali Fraenkel, one of three Israeli teenagers found dead after being abducted on June 12.

China's most celebrated sage has become the emblem of the country's soft-power drive and of its people-to-people diplomacy in Africa. Todd Balazovic reports.In Africa, it's Chinese businesspeople who sign multimillion-dollar deals, top politicians who sign major cooperation agreements and people who embody China's most famous thinker who act as cultural ambassadors.

...If we want our people-to-people exchanges to remain central to our public diplomacy engagement, we have to open new channels. We have to communicate government to people, and people to people. And one of the best ways we can leverage those conversations is through social media and other connective technologies, such as video teleconferencing.

New Delhi : Cultural and linguistic boundaries blurred as Rabindranath Tagore's poetry was set to a dance and Hungarian poetry composed by national icons like Endre Ady was recited in Hindi and in Hungarian.

This weekend, I talked to Rick Steves, the travel guru, about the unrest in the Middle East and he underscored the importance of travel as a means of bridging cultural divides. It might sound like a cliché, but it's true: Americans needs to travel because our diplomats can't do all the heavy lifting for us, security restrictions or not.