North Korea's current foreign policy is based around only two things -- surviving and respect. "Ultimately they want to be recognized as a nuclear power and then reset their relations with some of their antagonists, South Korea and then the US, as a nuclear power," he said.

A new global “soft power” ranking recently reported that the democratic states of North America and Western Europe were the most successful at achieving their diplomatic objectives “through attraction and persuasion”. Countries such as the US, the UK, Germany and Canada, the report claimed, are able to promote their influence through language, education, culture and the media...

Thirty-three years ago this week, Soviet fighter jets shot down a Korean Airlines passenger jet that had strayed into Soviet airspace while on a scheduled flight from New York to Seoul. Two hundred and sixty-nine passengers and crew were killed, including a U.S. Congressman. At first, Moscow denied that this had happened, then it claimed that the commercial flight had been gathering intelligence. No apologies were ever made.

In April 1966, legendary jazz musician Duke Ellington travelled to Dakar, Senegal, with his orchestra to play at the first World Festival of Negro Arts. Organised against the backdrop of African decolonisation and the push for civil rights in the US, the festival was hailed as the inaugural cultural gathering of the black world.