Open letter to the German Ambassador: I have found it necessary to address this letter to you in view of certain developments at your Lagos Consulate with regard to visa requirements which have very adverse implications for academic practice in Nigeria.

The ROC Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced May 22 that it will stage a fashion show and culture exhibition in Taipei City to celebrate Africa Day. “The initiative is in line with President Ma Ying-jeou’s cultural diplomacy approach,” the MOFA said in a statement. “It is also an opportunity for the people of Taiwan to experience African traditions.”

Fifth Avenue in Manhattan will turn blue and white June 3 as 29 floats with musical performers, 18 marching bands and 35,000 marchers entertain hundreds of thousands of spectators for the largest yearly gathering of support for Israel in the world, New York City’s annual Celebrate Israel Parade.

Five major literature festivals - the Jaipur Literature Festival, Mountain Echoes in Bhutan, the Kathmandu Literary Yatra, the Galle Literary Festival in Sri lanka and the Karachi Literature Festival - which have been showcasing literature as a medium of holistic exchange together with music, performing and visual arts and local lifestyles are forging a new south Asian solidarity on the strength of the region's soft power.

The popularity of local culture, otherwise known as “hallyu,” has brought along new challenges in promoting Korea to the outside world. One of them is building online and offline database of hallyu, which the Korea Culture and Information Service (KOCIS), the state-run overseas PR agency, has started to embrace as key responsibilities.

India’s policy towards Afghanistan is the embodiment of the ‘soft power approach’. Soft power, in the crude sense, is the capacity of a state to influence others without twisting arms, threatening or compelling; in other words, it is the capacity to attract the target people and make them do your bidding.

It is also noteworthy that its diplomatic efforts in Somalia presented Turkey with an important opportunity to illustrate its soft power in Africa. It is certainly an indication of Turkey's foreign policy ambition to become a major economic and political player in Africa.

Yet if Serbia can now bring itself into the post-national European mainstream at last, this confirmation of the EU's soft power in transforming and democratizing its post-communist environs could help mitigate the EU's present self-doubt over the euro crisis.