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.

The young culinary student learned paella thanks to exchange cooking classes put on by UNIFIL’s Spanish contingent in south Lebanon. The five-week course seeks to broaden the culinary expertise of a dozen or so hospitality students in addition to teaching some of the Spanish UNIFIL members Lebanese dishes.

Water-related conflicts arise largely due to inadequate resource management and poor governance. Traditional Cultural Diplomacy would thus prove beneficial in terms of providing clear and accurate information, diffusing mistrust and tensions, and improving communication between riparian states. Improved dialogue between countries would allow for the assessment of mutual benefits of cooperation, and consequently assist the process of converging national water agendas.

U.S. Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara Sonenshine rejected the idea that relations between the U.S and Russia are deteriorating and said social networking should be used to forge better ties during her visit to Moscow.