Across the country this is a tough time for small arts groups because state grants have largely shriveled up. Much of America’s artistic activity does not happen in major recital halls and theaters; instead it occurs...where smaller arts organizations are highly dependent on state grants.

A year after controversy engulfed plans to build a Muslim community center and mosque in Lower Manhattan, the project’s developers are quietly moving ahead: In recent months they have hired a paid staff, started fund-raising drives and continued holding prayers and cultural events in their existing building two blocks from ground zero.

Kabul may be short of many things, but it has lots of concrete blast walls. And that is inspiring a group of nascent graffiti artists to give voice, however fearfully, to a biting critique of graft, economic inequality and the second-class status of women in their country. Protest graffiti is a new and still-tentative mode of expression in a society with little tradition of social dissent.

South Africans and private institutions have been “generously” donating money and other resources to relief efforts in East Africa. South Africa recently mounted a media blitz to raise money for a government-established relief fund, as well as for medical supplies and non-perishable foods. The government has tried to widen the reach of the campaign with social media like Facebook and Twitter.

Representatives of Jewish and Roma, or Gypsy youth groups from eight countries are meeting in Hungary. The week long encounter, called "Volunticipate," begins Monday. The youth are gathering to discuss how to build partnerships, plan joint initiatives, and exchange experiences about minority identity and grass-roots civil activism.

Americans' confident belief in the uniqueness, yes the exceptionalism, of their country, rested on an essential faith in liberty, and individualism and anti-statism at home, and in the power of our example, and muscle now and then, in foreign lands. Mr. Obama is ill-at-ease with that worldview. Our country has had pessimism on offer and has invariably rejected it.

Dainius Rutkauskas came up with a novel way of rebranding his little country. Lietuvos Kvapas is Lithuania's "national perfume" ...Developed by Rutkauskas and two other Lithuanian entrepreneurs and produced by the French perfumery Galimard, Lietuvos Kvapas – literally, "the scent of Lithuania" – is an attempt to create a positive national brand.

As his country is ripped apart by a bloody civil war and rebels fight to topple him, Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi is trying to hire a public relations firm to improve his image. Gaddafi is looking for a spin doctor to issue daily press briefings on his 'moral' and 'legal' claims to power, as hundreds die trying to end his 42-year regime.