The festival's incorporation into the forum - held in the provience's Xiamen city - highlights cultural ties between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan, according to organizers. The forum opened on June 15 and will last through Friday.

Landing a job at a summer camp or at an amusement park is a rite of passage for many young Americans. Those jobs also appeal to foreigners participating in a cultural exchange using J-1 visas. But with U.S. youth unemployment at 25 percent, Congress is now taking a close look at the J-1 visa exchange program.

The United States seeks to support the people of the Middle East and North Africa as they work to realize their aspirations for greater dignity, justice, and opportunity. So said Tara Sonenshine, Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum.

A provision in the immigration bill now being considered by Congress could change things. Bill Gertz, CEO of the American Institute for Foreign Study, the organization that sponsored Davies, says the proposed legislation could kill these exchange programs.

Scores of hand-woven carpets were laid across the plaza—a sea of red surging over the steps to the library in Mary. A Turkmen drill team, in white uniforms fringed with green, paraded on the sidewalk in preparation for National Carpet Day. The plastic sheeting stretched across the steps forced us to pick our way up the granite siding to the entrance.

That venture was part of the two-year Global Dialogue on the Future of Iran that Ottawa is sponsoring through the Munk School in order to increase digital communications with and among dissident Iranians.

Answering the question of whether China exerts soft power in the world depends heavily on the point of view of the critic, according to Trefor Moss in The Diplomat: “China has little attractive power – in the West. But then not everyone is watching China through Western eyes,” he writes.

Digital Diplomacy is a topic that, for most people, conjures up images of embassies conversing with foreign governments and broadcasting information, messages and well -- propaganda -- to impact foreign policy goals.