The BBC has unveiled a proposal to launch a radio service in North Korea, but the U.K. government will never fund it without a dramatic shift in foreign policy, experts say. "The BBC is trying to justify its public funding by showing that it can do something political that the private sector wouldn't do," said Aiden Foster-Carter, a senior research fellow specializing in both Koreas at Leeds University. 

The Ambassador to Germany is a career diplomat who has had vast experience of representing the country in various countries of the world; including China. He is considered an authority on Chinese soft power and its role in the emergence of that economy as a global superpower.

Opera, therefore, is one of Italy's key avenues of soft power. It has spread around the world, and leading singers come from everywhere, great performances are sung from New York to Beijing. But opera's soul is still in Italy.

After January 2015’s  presidential polls—otherwise known as the Rainbow Revolution—that ousted “friend of China” Rajapaksa, Beijing’s influence over Colombo was said to be gradually receding from the sandy shores of the island traditionally seen as within India’s periphery of influence.

German is also becoming popular among adult Israelis, and not only the more than 20,000 who have moved to Berlin in recent years. This reflects a broader shift in perceptions. Fifty years after Germany and Israel established diplomatic relations, 70% of Israelis have a positive view of the country, according to a poll by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a German think-tank. Many find Germans honest and trustworthy. With the possible exception (at least lately) of Greece, people elsewhere agree, polls show.

The 6th Cultural Communication Forum (CCF) organized by the Corea Image Communication Institute (CICI) held a meeting of leading cultural figures from G20 member countries on the topic "Cultural Combustion in the Smart Age" at The Westin Chosun, Seoul, Wednesday.

In the past few years, Turkey has taken upwards of two million Syrian refugees into the country and provided large quantities of aid to them as well. Aid to Syrian refugees has increased the overall humanitarian aid Turkey gives each year and this spending is seemingly aimed at increasing Turkey’s soft power internationally, and regionally with the Middle East. Often we in Turkey hear ideas from major media outlets about supporting the Middle East based on shared culture and religion, or a shared historical Ottoman legacy.