Almost 315 years after Russian Czar Peter the Great’s first visit to Holland, six Russian students and six of their Dutch counterparts are tenaciously working on a joint cultural project dedicated to the bilateral year between the two countries.

Social media have become one of the few places where young people from Armenia and Azerbaijan can meet. Yet, not without risks. While it might be nearly 19 years since a May 1994 ceasefire put the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh on hold, analysts are increasingly viewing the situation on the Line of Contact (LOC) with alarm.

Indonesia shared its experience with common developing countries at a South-South and Third Parties Cooperation Forum (SSTC) here on Wednesday, attended by among others, representatives from Palestine and Afghanistan. "This is part of our South-South and Third Parties cooperation programme aimed at sharing our experience particularly in sectors that we have been good at," the director general of information and public diplomacy of the ministry of foreign affairs, AM Fachir, said.

China's Cultural Minister Cai Wu has urged the government to manage the cultural realm with adequate space and freedom given to the commercial market. "Traditional culture is essential in our cultural exchange with the overseas, but modern and pop arts should also be high on the agenda in cultural export efforts in order to strengthen foreign people's understanding of the current China," Cai said.

Following significant critical acclaim and audience enthusiasm for its Pakistan and Morocco seasons, Caravanserai: A place where cultures meet returns for a third installment featuring artists from Turkey. Caravanserai is an innovative cultural exchange program produced by Arts Midwest on behalf of its fellow U.S. Regional Arts Organizations.

Too many times in the past decade, the state of Israel has demonstrated weakness opposite the Palestinians in the public diplomacy war for hearts and minds, because it did not prepare appropriately for an era in which wars are also waged in the public diplomacy arena. This is the conclusion that Knesset member Nachman Shai (Labor party) presents in his new book, Media War Reaching for Hearts and Minds [in Hebrew].

A. Iain Johnston has the lead article in the latest issue of International Security. It's available for free right now, and it's quite the doozy. Entitled "How New and Assertive is China's New Assertiveness?", Johnston picks apart the claim made by many (including your humble blogger) that China's post-2008 foreign policy represented anything all that much out of the ordinary.

This week will see the Korean Association of International Studies and the Korea Foundation host an international conference on the role of middle powers in the 21st century. The significance of the conference being held in South Korea is twofold ― it marks Korea’s prominence as a source of innovative and influential scholarship on middlepowerism, and it marks Korea’s growing acceptance of middlepowerism as a national role.