SESAME actually stands for 'Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East' and will be the region's first major multi-country scientific research center. It's being developed under the auspices of UNESCO and is scheduled to open fully in Jordan in 2015.

But the rapid-fire pace of social media helped to quickly undercut the official line on what had happened just hours after the agreement was announced, spurring journalists worldwide to follow up. Experts said it was the first time that the digital world has had such a strong sway. In the past, "it might have taken days or months. It wouldn't have taken minutes," said Nicholas Cull, a USC professor of public diplomacy.

Unlike Augustan Rome, the Song Dynasty that inspired Qingming Shanghe Tu exerted a different kind of power.... Its entrepreneurs and scholars invented technologies still in use today, technologies that enabled widespread education, encouraged trade and travel, inspired artistic excellence and not only tolerated but encouraged diversity and openness.

India was known for tolerance, spices, camels and austerity. Shashi Tharoor said that India has developed not only through trade and politics but through its soft power. This takes place through its ability to share its culture with the rest of the world via food, music, technology, and Bollywood.

What's Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's (METI), then, come up with as a solution? Jumpstarting international interest in its other endeavors, of course — fashion, design, anime. And to put a little umph in its appeal, they named their latest campaign Cool Japan.