My career in anime cultural diplomacy started in 2007 when I was asked by the Foreign Ministry to give a lecture to diplomats prior to their overseas postings. The lecture covered the anime industry and its goals...One of the diplomats in attendance asked me to give the same lecture in Europe...

As a Nepali diplomat who pushed 'cultural diplomacy' during my assignments in the US and UK I felt I was just continuing on with my work, making musical connections with a Nepal of 50 years ago.What was surprising to me was how the volunteers still remembered the songs...

Whatever Joe Biden says, for the women who were beaten, forced to quit school, and bartered in marriage, and civilians who were deprived of freedom, the extremist group remains a threat to humanity and progress, says Afghan-American author Fariba Nawa.

Sending pandas to Japan is a diplomatic way of boosting civil exchanges and building China's soft power said Feng Zhaokui...of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences...China gave a pair of pandas to Japan in 1972 to commemorate the normalization of bilateral relations.

It’s a new twist in the practice of “nation branding,” which has floated ever higher on the radars of governments around the world in recent years. For decades – even before they thought of themselves as brands – nations have sent ambassadors, artists, and academics abroad to be their public face.

“So we are trying to find ways of moving forward in our economic, political and cultural relations,” said del Rosario, who visited Germany early this month. The country’s chief diplomat said Germany is an important trading partner and source of investments of the Philippines...

The Turks are selling pasta to the Italians, educating Papua-New Guineans in their universities, building airports in Egypt...Turkey has not felt and acted like the confident global player it is today since the heyday of the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century.

Fresh economic initiatives, supplemented by cultural, educational and humanitarian exchanges, could encourage restraint by North Korea. Despite gunfire and nuclear construction, Pyongyang has continued to support North-South commercial cooperation through the free trade zone...