The North Korean women’s soccer team arrived in Japan on Thursday for Olympic qualifying matches in what Tokyo called “an exception” to its entry ban imposed over Pyongyang’s fourth nuclear weapons test and a rocket launch.

The Ethiopian Football Federation and representatives of one of America's leading professional women's soccer teams, the Seattle Reign, met today in Addis Adaba and took the first steps in forging a strategic partnership aimed at forging international linkages and strengthening Ethiopian women's soccer. 

As Chinese New Year is celebrated across the globe, it is increasingly clear that the 2015-16 transfer window, closed in Europe but still open in China, marks the emergence onto the world stage of a major new football superpower. 

India’s Rural Olympics, formally known as the Kila Raipur Sports Festival, is held annually each winter in Kila Raipur on the outskirts of Ludhiana, Punjab. The festival has been running since 1933. The four-day festival is a celebration of, well, rural Indian culture. 

It wouldn't be senate estimates without senior Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials having to justify the presence of a $6300 ping-pong table in the 'InnovationXchange' ideas hub.[...]  "Senator you call it a ping pong table, I call it a meeting table," he said. "It is used all day for meeting and not for ping pong. It is actively used throughout the day and sits 10 or 12 people around it."

The partnership opens doors to broaden the two sides’ people-to people relationship. [...] Having a sense of appreciation and understanding of each other’s culture and values can potentially broaden and deepen mutual understanding between states and peoples. In 2014, amidst tensions in the South China Sea, Vietnamese and Filipino naval personnel played football, volleyball, and tug-of-war. Both sides displayed the importance of camaraderie through sports diplomacy.

A different form of engagement with China – like through sports or cultural exchange – might help the Philippines resolve its maritime spat with the Asian giant, Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said yesterday.

The Canadian man who once helped basketball hall of famer Dennis Rodman get into North Korea now wants to bring former NHL players into the isolated country to play hockey.