For the first time, Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) has launched a cultural events week in a foreign country. It aims to offer a chance for the Lao audience to learn more about the Chinese army's culture and the friendship between the two countries, through paintings, photos and calligraphy exhibitions, art performances and film playing.

India has an oft-overlooked friend – Indonesia. While the two countries have so far had a generally cordial relationship, much remains to be done if Jakarta and New Delhi want to take full advantage of the opportunities available to both. With this in mind, there really needs to be greater interaction between journalists, business partners and scholars of both countries.

The Global Partnership for Education has launched a three-year effort to put 25 million children in the classroom for the first time and train 600 thousand teachers in developing countries. It calls education one of the most important investments a country can make in its people and its future.

Since 2007, Cambodia has seen a rapid increase in cultural investments from China. China’s projection of soft power is generally limited to language training and the marketing of cultural products such as books and movies, and the long-term effect on the foreign policy of recipient countries has yet to be determined.

The ripple effects of Kim’s death extended from Russia to China to Washington and, most improbably, to this restaurant, whose regular clientele is working-class locals – not Koreans. Mr. Egan says that through “barbecue diplomacy,” he became “Kim Jong-il’s guy in New Jersey.”

The spread of Korean pop culture - a phenomenon nicknamed hallyu, or Korean wave - was driven by television and has become one of South Korea's most notable exports in recent years. Having already conquered the East, Korean pop music is beginning to make serious inroads in the West for total world domination.

Christians are a tiny minority in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. However, in Israel, there's a concerted effort to get more Christian tourists to visit the Holy Land and visit the churches, and shrines that dot Israel and the West Bank. They're hoping to make each tourist a sort of ambassador of Israel.

False narratives, even heartfelt ones, will only keep conflict buzzing. Stratfor's findings may be the first time a mainstream US-based intelligence-gathering firm openly questions the existing narrative on Syria. It begs the question: what are we basing our policy initiatives on if our underlying assumptions are inaccurate?