Culture Secretary Maria Miller today launched a tourism partnership strategy for Britain which calls for the travel industry and the government, together with key public and private sector bodies, to unite behind a long-term ambition for growth that would see Britain welcome 40 million overseas visitors by 2020, spending £31.5 billion and supporting an additional 200,000 jobs across the country.

Archaeology often has a lot to do with politics - the current argument between Germany and Turkey is a prime example. Hermann Parzinger, head of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, last December accused Turkey of displaying "almost chauvinistic behavior." In reply, the Turkish culture minister Ömer Celik told German news magazine "Der Spiegel" that he demanded an apology, and he asked for five ancient objects to be returned that are currently shown in museums in Berlin.

Detroit is not exactly among America's top 10 tourist destinations. But a local nonprofit hopes to alter public perceptions of one of the nation's poorest big cities, where more than a quarter of its residents live below the poverty line.

Last week, DreamWorks Animation (DWA), the Hollywood studio behind the worldwide blockbuster Kung Fu Panda films, announced that it will cooperate with the China Film Group (CFG) on an animated feature called Tibet Code, an adventure story based on a series of recent Chinese novels set in 9th-century Tibet -- even as China's policies on Tibet are regularly targeted by Western human-rights critics and are a persistent challenge to Beijing's efforts to improve China's international image.

Battered by a French-led military campaign in Mali, al-Qaida's North African arm is trying something new to stay relevant: Twitter. The PR campaign by the terror network seeks to tap into social grievances and champion mainstream causes such as unemployment, all in bid to reverse decline and win new followers.

From a foreigner`s view, Korea is a very impressive country. In just 50 years or so, Korea overcame the disasters of war and division of two Koreas through utmost effort and sacrifice, and became the world`s seventh largest exporter. The country exhibited an unprecedented pace of economic growth as exemplified by the "Miracle of Han River," the story of which is much touted among foreigners.

Indeed, for much of recent history, Iran and al Qaeda have essentially been enemies. As Jonathan Kay points out in Canada's National Post, Iran almost went to war with the al Qaeda-friendly Taliban in 1998 after Taliban fighters killed nine Iranian diplomats in the Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif. What followed were threats by the Taliban to attack Iranian cities, and the massing of nearly 70,000 Iranian troops near the Afghanistan border.

In his interview with Foreign Affairs (“Generation Kill,” March/April 2013), Stanley McChrystal, the retired U.S. general, argued that the United States should compel all Americans to serve their country through some form of national service. Conscription, however, is not the answer to the United States’ challenges at home or abroad.