Train a man and you will feed a mouth. Train a woman, and you will feed a family. This adage has found form in remote villages of Tamil Nadu, in the form of “relevant cinema”. A film is being taken by road through the interiors of the state where mainstream cinema is rarely accessible. Surprisingly, the plot of the movie is business management.

It’s the season for embassy soirees in the nation’s capital, and the public is invited to attend a series of concerts and receptions — not just for the music, but also as a way to sample the social whirl of the diplomatic set on a trip to Washington.

Violence is on the rise again in Colombia, especially in cities, even as the military continues its gains against the guerrilla insurgency. Murder rates in Medellín—while still a far cry from their 1990s peak—have tripled in the last three years, largely as the result of narcotrafficking.

Small and impoverished, Kyrgyzstan has seen two "colored" revolutions in five years, the 2005 Tulip Revolution and the events of April 2010. Now it is on the verge of a historic opportunity to create an island of democracy in a region where for two decades president-dictators have ruled with impunity.

At a sun-drenched park on Suva's waterfront, Fiji's rugby-loving military ruler Voreqe Bainimarama extols the benefits of tai chi as a master of the slow-motion Chinese martial art looks on. Bainimarama's conversion to tai chi's gentle techniques...symbolizes his quest since his 2006 coup to forge closer links with China.

Conveying information and selling a positive image is often best accomplished by private citizens; today, the soft sell may prove more effective than the hard sell. The main strength of the government broadcasting and mass media approach to public diplomacy is its audience reach and ability to generate public awareness and set the agenda

During the past few years, Beijing has talked of projecting its soft power, its cultural influence. But that was either a feint or was destined to be a flop. Instead, China is now exercising its influence in the world of hard power, where it makes other countries behave in the way it wants -- and this is especially apparent in the seas surrounding China's 14,500km coastline.