Culture is helping to bolster the country's "soft power" and build its influence. It's a success story that may offer important clues for China as it seeks to use culture to bolster its own soft power and a reminder of the halcyon days when Hong Kong's Canto-pop stars seemed destined for global fame.

Nowadays, the news about Russian-Iranian arms deals and fueling the Bushehr nuclear power plant might overshadow the less spectacular information about cultural activities, but they are happening, nevertheless.

Jeff Koons discusses his work on the occasion of being bestowed with a Medal from Department of State, as part of the 50th anniversary of the "Art in Embassies" cultural exchange program.

A couple of weeks ago, I was speaking to a funder from a major philanthropic organisation at the Open Up! conference on international development in London. We acknowledged that philanthropists should be in a position to take more risks, such as funding creative projects that might deliver development outcomes in unexpected ways, because unlike government aid agencies they are not accountable to a nation of taxpayers.

Recently, Beijing has launched what Joshua Kurlantzick deems a “charm offensive”- China’s rising soft power. In the quest for closer relations and natural resources, China has begun to transform the world balance of power.

Lobbying for foreign interests is a half billion dollar industry in the U.S. and nearly every country in the world devotes considerable resources to lobbying officials in Washington... In fact, just one lobbying firm, Patton Boggs, lobbies for nearly half of the world's population. And, one in every ten dollars spent on lobbying in the U.S. comes from foreign governments."

The U.S. Embassy in Hanoi has deactivated its account on a popular Vietnamese website that's full of suspected pirated music and Hollywood movies, the State Department said Wednesday. The embassy had used its social media account with ZingMe to promote American values, including respect for intellectual property rights. But its presence had raised questions about digital piracy on the site and led to a review.

“Creating an LGBT-welcoming workplace is not just the right thing to do, it’s also the smart thing,” Clinton said. “And part of that is because the nature of diplomacy has changed and we should and need to keep up. Today, we expect our diplomats to build relationships not just with their counterparts in foreign governments...”