Beijing appointed a senior propaganda official as its culture minister yesterday, making him one of the spearheads of the government's drive to project China's soft power abroad.

Russia appears striving to boost the demand for its language in North Korea, amid signs that the Cold War allies try to build up strong bilateral relations. Russia's Maritime Province of Siberia donated as many as 1,400 Russian books to North Korea, the Russian news agency Interfax said Wednesday. 

The visit ... would have taken the children to Arab towns in Israel, southern areas targeted by militants' rockets in the conflict, a mixed-race school and the beach in Tel Aviv.  But Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since 2007, said the cancellation was justified to protect children from "the politics of normalisation" with Israel.

Obama clearly views Hollywood as an expression of American soft power, and its ability to shape the preference and perceptions of other nations.  As for the North Korean regime ... Hollywood movies, in their most surreal forms, constitute a direct assault on political fantasies, which underpin autocracies and their megalomaniac leaders.

Australia has begun formalising the use of koalas as a "soft power" diplomatic strategy, with a 600-page manual having been drawn-up by the foreign affairs department and the marsupials increasingly being given to regional allies.

Established powers' resistance to their rising counterparts' demands for a larger role in setting the global agenda fuel tensions and disrupt the existing world order. That is precisely what has been occurring lately between China and the United States, and is the impetus for China's "Asia for the Asians" policy.

One of the most admirable aspects of Obama-era foreign policy has been the decision to use American soft power to actively promote LGBTQ rights, including in Europe.