The festival has struck a multi-year deal with the Japan Foundation’s recently created Asia Center to help it bring in Asian films and film-makers to Tokyo and also to expand Japanese cultural influence in Asia.

Brazilian Embassy cultural attache Raphael Tosti de Almeida Vieira has an ace up his sleeve. (...)His ace is Brazilian music. “It’s the Brazilian soft power,” Tosti says of his country’s rich musical heritage that includes internationally beloved genres such as samba and bossa nova.

But fearing that the West wants to prosecute their leader, Kim Jong Un, for human rights abuses, North Korean officials are beginning to rely on soft words instead of hard power.

The more Japan’s global relevance in economic, political and military terms seems to decline, the more it cares about projecting soft power. 

Foreign policy experts are saying that the back-and-forth is demonstrative of how public health issues are building bridges between countries that have a history of being at odds with one another. 

Harun Yahya in this opinion piece advocates that Turkey should always be on the side of diplomacy, soft-power, and effectively administer an intellectual struggle to defeat the opponents that resort to violence and persecution. 

Russian propaganda, often masquerading as legitimate news, is disseminated through state-controlled media to confuse, obscure, and shift the debate about Putin and to legitimize Russian aggression abroad.