Forty-five years ago, Cold War tensions between the United States and communist China were lessened thanks to an unlikely diplomatic tool: ping-pong. On April 10, 1971, the U.S. table tennis team arrived in China for a 10-day visit, becoming the first group of Americans in over 20 years to get a peek behind the “Bamboo Curtain.” 

After more than six decades, United States Forces Korea (USFK) and its mission on the Korean Peninsula are a misunderstood aspect of U.S. foreign policy. [...] Furthermore, the majority of media attention and public debate regarding the perennial security threat posed by North Korea have centered on the DPRK’s weapons of mass destruction

Originally given to the United States as a goodwill gesture from China during the restoration of relations between the two nations in the early 1970s, the current family of giant pandas remain here on long-term loan.

Following U.S. President Barack Obama’s trailblazing visit to Cuba, a free concert by the Rolling Stones in Havana might seem like a relatively minor event. Obama revived relations with Cuba after more than a half-century of deep hostility. The septuagenarian Stones just played some very loud music. And yet, symbolically, the concert was not minor at all.

Worries about ineffective U.S. government response to foreign propaganda campaigns and calls for coherent, coordinated and compelling American messaging are growing. Having failed to pass reform in the last session, Congress is again deliberating how to restructure U.S. international broadcasting (USIB) to match the challenges facing American interests around the world. But the International Communications Reform Act, intended to “improve the missions, objectives and effectiveness of U.S.

The day after President Obama ended his historic trip to Havana, Cubans turned on their TV sets and watched his surprise guest appearance in a skit on the popular weekly show Vivir del Cuento (Live by Your Wits). [...]  It was actually Obama’s second appearance on Vivir del Cuento; he’d taped a mock phone call with Pánfilo from the Oval Office for an episode that aired just before his arrival in Havana. 

"My cheeks are sore from smiling," says Loyce Maturu. The 24-year-old, who lives in Harare, Zimbabwe, is posing for a photo at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C. She's come to be interviewed about her activism. She's a champion for people with HIV/AIDS and TB (she's been diagnosed with both). So really, the pain of smiling is nothing compared to what she's been through.

It's 9:30 on a Thursday night and Chinese and foreign jazz fans descend on the JZ Club in Shanghai's former French Concession. Glasses clink and the splashing sound of cymbals ripple through a cabaret setting bathed in soft red light. Andrew Field, an American historian, says clubs like JZ represent a return to Shanghai's cosmopolitan past.