Can India win 20 gold medals in the 2020 Olympics? A preposterous suggestion, most would argue. After all, the tally in Beijing in 2008 was a paltry three, with a solitary gold for shooter Abhinav Bindra. To believe there could be a 20-fold increase in the matter of a decade defies good sense.

At the end of May, it was announced that a South Korean band called Super Junior would perform at the Shanghai World Expo. Free tickets would be released for those who arrived early on the day of the performance, which was scheduled for the evening of May 30.

In viewing a traditional Chinese painting, the eyes do not have to follow a linear perspective from a fixed and external position to a vanishing point; they move within a scroll and, like a movie camera, capture a shifting focus.

All of these qualities have transformed Turkey into an attractive place for business, media, artists, diplomats, students and non-governmental organisations from around the world. Turkey's ever-increasing soft power is becoming one of its most significant traits, which we will continue to use to enhance regional and global peace.

Turkey's non-permanent membership on the UN Security Council for two years, which started at the beginning of 2009, may be marked as its most significant international mission in recent years as it came after almost a half-century-long hiatus since it last held the same post.

When Fifa announced earlier this month to a stunned world that tiny Qatar will host the 2022 football World Cup, it signalled the arrival of the Gulf era. Clearly the events in our region have climaxed and caused this titanic shift, changing stereotypes about the insignificance of our region.

Most people can probably remember the moment when they first realised the seductive power and global pervasiveness of American culture.

The recent conclusion of negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA) between the United States and South Korea was heralded in domestic and international media as an important step forward for both nation-states’ economies.