A celebration of 130 years of diplomatic relations between Korea and France launches next year. A host of cultural programs will be held in both Korea and France for a year from Sept. this year to the end of next year. It is being called “The Year of France in Korea” and “The Year of Korea in France” events.

As one of its new initiatives, the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), the cultural diplomacy wing of the Ministry of External Affairs, is organising an International Conference about Princess Suriratna of Ayodhya, who is believed to have married a Korean King.

Violinist Won Hyung Joon wants to bring North and South Korean musicians together next month to perform on each side of the world's most heavily armed border. Standing in the way is the rivals' long, frustrating inability to move past their painful shared history.

When one of Richard Stone's contacts in North Korea asked him four years ago if he knows any Western volcanologists who might like to study Mount Paektu, a volcano on North Korea’s border with China, he saw a rare chance.  [...] Two related scientific papers are now in preparation, said Stone at a panel discussion he moderated about science diplomacy in North Korea at the 9th World Conference of Science Journalists in Seoul, South Korea, this week (10 June). 

On the Korean peninsula, the tense boundary known as the demilitarized zone is not the only thing that separates the North and South. The war seven decades ago also created a division in how Koreans speak their language. And for many newly arrived North Korean defectors in the South, learning new words and expressions makes resettling even more challenging. A new smartphone app could help these refugees overcome the linguistic division.