How can a million people be made to feel welcome as our guests? How can Palmyra be saved? How should the world see Germany? The right approach to cultural policy can give answers, says DW's Gero Schliess.

A security strategy consistent with this circumstance would be one that is more multi-faceted, that deals with long-standing issues that affect relations with its neighbours in the region. [...] its diplomacy and foreign policy in years to come has to be welded into Asian coalitions. 

Under the Obama administration, U.S. policy toward North Korea largely has devolved into the president sitting in the Oval Office, closing his eyes, and hoping the nuclear monsters will go away [...] If Pyongyang is ever going to talk about human rights, it will do so only after it feels more secure. If there is any hope for evolutionary change within the North, such a process will be advanced by greater cultural and economic cooperation.

Global health diplomacy is the interdisciplinary field where health sciences, including medicine, meet policy-making. A simple definition would struggle to capture the broad spectrum covered by this emerging field, which exceeds the disciplinary boundaries of public policy and health sciences. The discipline relies on training, advanced research and critical exploration of cultural, social and political affairs and their relation to healthcare.