In 2016, New Zealand and the Philippines celebrated 50 years of good diplomatic relations with a series of activities that included sports events, seeing how such is a good platform to bring people together. And taking cue from it, the two countries recently engaged in another session of sports diplomacy with a couple of rugby matches. [...] “Rugby is a huge part of New Zealand culture. We are delighted to see how much rugby has grown in the Philippines,”

A horde of foreign fun-runners took to the streets of Pyongyang on Sunday for an annual marathon that has become one of the North Korean capital's most popular tourist events. Officially called the Mangyongdae Prize International Marathon, the race became an instant hit with tourists looking to run in possibly the world's most exotic locale when it was opened up to amateur foreign runners in 2014.

Days after attacks on African students in Greater Noida, a group of Indian and African students came together for a friendly football match on Friday at Sharda University. The 90-minute match was played between two teams, Chancellor's 11 and Embassy 11, which had the same composition - four students from Africa, one each from Nepal, Bhutan, Vietnam and Afghanistan, and three from India.

The league, launched by India's ambassador to Japan Sujan Chinoy in the presence of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, will be headed by Hakubun Shimomura, former minister for education, culture, sports, and science and technology [...] Chinoy said that the establishment of the league comes at an opportune moment. "India and Japan have a special strategic and global partnership based on our shared values of democracy, rule of law, tolerance and transparency..." he said. 

As superstar players from around the world step up to the plate this weekend for the start of the 117th Major League Baseball (MLB) season in the United States, a far smaller league is already in full swing in Taiwan, an island falling back in love with the nearest thing it has to a national sport. [...] First introduced to Taiwan more than 100 years ago by Japanese occupiers, baseball has become so ingrained in the island’s culture that it is even depicted on the NT$500 (HK$128) note.

The World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) has given a "wide-ranging" demonstration and seminar at the United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York City as part of celebrations for the upcoming International Day of Sport for Development and Peace. The event was jointly organised by the Permanent Mission of Monaco to the UN and Peace and Sport.

That could be coming soon with the NHL looking at China as hockey's next great frontier. With the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China is eager to step up its game and the league is intrigued by the potential of a new nontraditional market with 1.4 billion people that might take to hockey like it did basketball. "It's a place that hasn't had that much of an opportunity to be introduced to what everybody acknowledges is a great game,"

A goal kick away from the Toa Payoh Stadium are reminders of the once-close ties between Myanmar and this Singapore neighborhood, home to the Burmese Buddhist Temple and streets named for the towns and rivers of the Golden Land. The arena hosts Balestier Khalsa Football Club, of Singapore's professional soccer league, and sits in the middle of a community which arrived from the country then known as Burma in the 1940s and 1950s.