Tuesday, March 29, 2016

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Mar 28, 2016

THE ATLANTIC
There’s something strange about the controversy surrounding Barack Obama’s recent visit to Cuba: It’s largely revolved around whether the Castro government deserved restored relations with the United States and a visit from the U.S. president. [...] If diplomacy is three-dimensional, the political debate in America over U.S.-Cuban affairs has been occurring on only one plane.Read More...
ADVOCATE
The Advocate hosted Marco Jaramillo, a Colombian journalist who launched one of the country’s most prominent LGBT multimedia outlets, EgoCity. Jaramillo was the first out journalist to take part in the International Center for Journalism’s multipart fellowship [...] which brought experienced journalists from five different Latin American countries to the U.S. to work in 10 different newsrooms. Read More...
KUWAIT TIMES
Kuwait is one of the masters of soft power in the Middle East. As I was having dinner with two Emiratis, two non- Kuwaiti Arabs were having dinner at a table beside ours; the two non-Kuwaiti Arabs were stuck to one phone watching the second episode of “Swar Shuaib,” Kuwait’s Shuaib Rashed’s popular talk show. Read More...
FAIR OBSERVER
There are a number of no-go zones in the world for President Barack Obama these days. [...] But this week, President Obama is in Havana, and the greeting crowds have been enraptured. Such a trip was inconceivable back in 2008, when Obama was running for president. But as he finishes his last year in office, the president is determined to make his détente with Cuba irreversible.Read More...
DAILY SABAH
The culture and education organization of the Yunus Emre Institute has laid out a 15-article road map for its 2023 goals during a recent advisory meeting in Ankara. The meeting [...] set forth that the institute will strive to establish 55 centers on five continents by 2017 in efforts to strengthen communicative ties with the international community. Read More...
THE JAPAN TIMES
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made a ¥600 million grant-in-aid pledge to Zimbabwe on Monday to help bring more Japanese companies back to the former agricultural powerhouse amid an aggressive foray by China. [...] also said Japan would maintain close consultation with Zimbabwe to counter the severe food shortages there. Read More...

Mar 27, 2016

SALON MEDIA GROUP
The incident was the latest in a string of cultural flashpoints surrounding the centuries-old Indian practice, and has made many a yogi rethink the lines between cultural exchange and cultural appropriation. Read More...
BUSINESS SPECTATOR
In some respects the editorial direction of China’s international media reporting can be seen as an extension of the nation’s diplomacy. While the first principal of diplomacy is that it is the pursuit of national interests, one of the foundations of successfully diplomacy is promoting common interests. Read More...
THE HINDU
More than 1,700 chefs in 150 countries are conjuring up French feasts in bars, restaurants, embassies and even a prison as a part of the “Good France” festival, a massive diplomatic push to promote the country’s famed gastronomic culture. Read More...
TIMES OF OMAN
“The Global Village encourages social sustainability, world awareness, and cultural understanding. [...] It revives the general concept of the world being a ‘global village’ and inspires people to understand and appreciate the uniqueness and differences of each other, which further contributes to peace." Read More...
DOHA NEWS
The prominent network has been seen as a foreign policy tool during Qatar’s attempts to play an influential role in the region. But many say Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani has pursued a quieter approach to diplomacy since becoming Emir. Read More...
THE ECONOMIC TIMES
He spoke about India hosting the FIFA Under-17 World Cup football tournament next year and said it is a great opportunity for branding the country at the international level, for which immense awareness needs to be created within the nation. Read More...

Mar 26, 2016

NEW CHINA
At the invitation of President Milos Zeman, I will be paying my first state visit to the Czech Republic as the Chinese President. I look forward to having in-depth exchange of views with President Zeman and other Czech leaders on boosting bilateral ties and on major international and regional issues. Read More...
THE GUARDIAN
The artwork, called Solar Reserve (Tonopah, Nevada) 2014, was created by Irish artist John Gerrard and illustrates the changing views of the solar arrays from day to night. The actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who has used his fame to publicize the perils of global warming, bought and donated the work to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Read More...
MIC
A new video campaign seeks to turn the "see something, say something" mantra on its head. Released by progressive nonprofit People For the American Way this week, the 49-second advertisement urges viewers to "pledge that when I see anti-Muslim bigotry, I'll call it out and make clear that religious discrimination has never been the American way." Read More...
DEUTSCHE WELLE
Volunteers from Greece, Syria, Spain, the Netherlands, England, the United States, Finland, Germany, Australia, Ireland and Iceland gather at the Hermes laundry in Anaxos, on Lesbos island. They glove up and sort through the wet clothes [...] discarded after aid groups provide the newly arrived refugees and migrants with the warmth and dignity of clean, dry clothes. Read More...
PROJECT SYNDICATE
Armenia and Turkey have long been at odds. Divided over a tragic past, the neighboring countries do not have diplomatic ties, and their border remains closed. Despite this, in November 2014, a group of Turks traveled to Armenia for Startup Weekend, an event where aspiring entrepreneurs hone and pitch their ideas to investors and experts. Read More...
THE ATLANTIC
The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform launched a wide-ranging probe this week to find out how much money the federal government is spending on art. Chaffetz, the chair of the committee, signed a letter dated March 21 and addressed to 25 different agency leaders, including every cabinet-level secretary. Read More...

Mar 25, 2016

THE WASHINGTON POST
Google’s video giant has become not just the Web's biggest petri dish for the funny, weird and astronomically popular. With its 1 billion viewers and cultural omnipresence, it now offers campaigns a breadth no hometown TV network can match. Read More...
HURRIYET DAILY NEWS
Ulusoy said Turkey has been very proactive in promoting longstanding cultural ties with Ethiopia through the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA). Read More...
CBS NEWS
After more than five decades of touring, the Rolling Stones will finally bring their music to CubaFriday night for the first time. The performance is billed as the first open-air concert in Cuba by a British rock band. The concert marks a milestone as rock 'n' roll was considered subversive and decadent by the Castro regime no too long ago. Read More...
THE DALLAS WEEKLY
Baseball is obviously something that the United States and the Cuban people share a common love of and it's a part of both of our heritages, and frankly, also part of the type of exchanges that we are pursuing in business, in culture, in the arts, in sports that can bring the American and Cuban people closer together. Read More...
KOREATIMES
BigBang and CL turned out to be the only South Koreans in the pool of 127 candidates of the online poll, along with U.S. President Barack Obama, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Pope Francis, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Hollywood star actor Leonardo DiCaprio. Read More...
XINHUA NEWS
President Xi Jinping proposed the cultural exchange year in 2014 when he attended the China-Latin America and the Caribbean Summit in Brasilia. Read More...

Mar 24, 2016

THE GUARDIAN
Somali refugee Mariam Ibrahim Yusuf campaigns for greater awareness of asylum seekers, despite being homeless and destitute herself. [...] In addition to her public speaking, Mariam is a member of Women Asylum Seekers Together (Wast), a group of women across nationalities that bands together to raise awareness about immigration injustice and the underreported problems that force women to seek asylum. Read More...
GLOBES
As part of its marketing, Sodastream created a campaign to show the cooperation between Arabs and Jews in the factory. In its initial phase, the company posted several untranslated versions to Facebook. But after requests from the Swedish and Jordanian embassies – which wanted to use it for their public diplomacy efforts – Sodastream translated the clips to English and Arabic and paid for their promotion. Read More...
EURASIANET
Kyrgyzstan’s opposition has reportedly nixed plans to hold a large rally in the southern city of Osh amid stewing tensions on the border with Uzbekistan and an escalating public relations war with the government. [...] Prime Minister Temir Sariyev flew down to address the Kerben gathering, while nationalist opposition leader and all-round troublemaker Kamchibek Tashiyev, who donned military fatigues for the event, was warmly welcomed by the crowd after issuing calls to resolve the standoff with Tashkent through “people’s diplomacy.” Read More...
THE ARCTIC INSTITUTE
Building on the history of sports diplomacy, dog mushing has the opportunity to become the sport in the north that forms bonds and builds relationships. The changing role of dog mushing is due to the transforming landscape and the efficiency of snowmobiling. Thus, although the days of dogsledding as a key form of transportation may be fading, it is poised to become a form of cultural and sports diplomacy in the North. Read More...
GEO NEWS
For the first time Pakistan marked its National Day at the UN with a concert in the prestigious General Assembly hall on March 23. Organized by the Pakistan Mission to the UN in collaboration with Geo Television Network the even featured a concert by Ustad Rahat Fateh Ali Khan. The concert titled 'Sufi Night Music of Peace' aimed at spreading the message of international peace and harmony at the world stage. Read More...
NPR
President Obama danced the famous Argentine tango with a lithe dancer in a shimmery gold dress during the official state dinner at the Centro Cultural Kirchner in Buenos Aires, Argentina,on Wednesday night. Read More...

Mar 23, 2016

THE HUFFINGTON POST
What is public diplomacy, quite often mentioned in the news? And how has it — and its variants/related terms — changed the nature of traditional diplomacy, if at all? Dictionaries define traditional diplomacy as “ the profession, activity, or skill of managing international relations, typically by a country’s representatives abroad“ or “the art and practice of conducting negotiations between nations.” Read More...
QUARTZ
Mark Zuckerbeg’s charm offensive in China won’t let up. [...] Zuckerberg’s goal, of course, is to bring Facebook to China, which has been blocked by Beijing since 2009. Adding just half of China’s 668 million internet users to Facebook would increase the social network’s total by 20%—and create a lucrative new market for advertising and publishing. Read More...
NEWSWEEK
Paralympian Abdi Jama has two ambitions at the forefront of his mind. Firstly, the wheelchair basketball player wants to get selected for Team GB’s squad for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. [...] Jama hopes to inspire more disabled athletes to get active in his native Somalia.Read More...
THE KOREA HERALD
French culture will be celebrated in Korea throughout 2016, as the year marks the 130th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Korea and France. [...] The 2015-2016 Korea-France Year kicked off in Paris last year with more than 150 cultural programs featuring traditional and contemporary Korean music, visual arts, films and literature hosted in France. Read More...
ASIA SENTINEL
Taiwan is in the middle of an enormous national effort to promote its soft power, aiming both to improve and enrich society and at the same time stimulate growth in an era when it has lost many of the industries that drove the economy during the past 50 years as one of Asia’s original tigers.Read More...
NEW YORK TIMES
Jack Masey, a designer for the United States Information Agency whose model American kitchen, part of an exhibition in Moscow in 1959, provided the stage for an argument about communism and capitalism between Nikita S. Khrushchev and Vice President Richard M. Nixon, one of the Cold War’s most memorable confrontations, died on March 13 in Manhattan. He was 91. Read More...
MERITALK
Increasing Internet access will be a key component to boosting Cuban businesses, according to President Obama. In remarks made alongside Cuban President Raul Castro as well as a separate forum on Cuban entrepreneurship, the President emphasized the Internet’s role in improving and expanding the country’s ability to innovate. Read More...

Mar 22, 2016

THE MIAMI HERALD
Retired NBA great Shaquille O’Neal […] will go to Havana in June as part of a sports envoy program focused on Cuban youth [...] Ballerinas in Havana will also welcome a prestigious guest this year. Misty Copeland, the first African-American female principal dancer at American Ballet Theatre, will go to Cuba in November to lead dance clinics for minority youth and hold inclusion workshops for coaches. Read More...
WHITE HOUSE PRESS OFFICE
For the first time, Cuba will be included [...] in the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program, which brings 200 outstanding mid-career professionals [...] to the United States for non-degree study and related professional experiences, and the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program, which offers grants for U.S. undergraduates of limited financial means to pursue academic studies or internships abroad. Read More...
SHARE AMERICA
Every year, Americans with roots in Eurasian countries organize public festivals featuring music, dancing, and food to mark the Nowruz holidays. In cities from New York to Los Angeles, Chicago to Houston, Americans introduce and inspire others unfamiliar with Nowruz and its celebrations.Read More...
CNN
"Sport is the conquest of the revolution," reads the sign looming over the outfield of Havana's Estadio Latinoamericano, the island's main stadium and hallowed ground for Cuban baseball fans [...] The bare-bones stadium is the setting of one President Barack Obama's most anticipated events during his historic visit: taking in a baseball game between the Cuban National Team and the Tampa Bay Rays on TuesdayRead More...
MASHABLE
A famous Belgian statue has become a symbol of defiance in the wake of the attacks in Brussels that took place Tuesday morning. The Manneken Pis is a well-known bronze sculpture in Brussels of a small child urinating into a fountain. Read More...
AL-JAZEERA
With instruments made of bamboo, plant-based face paints, and skirts woven from local fauna, groups at Guinea Bissau's Carnival dance competition displayed the biodiversity of their country […]"I think when you protect your culture, you are protecting the environment [...] There's a strong connection between the environment and the culture of this country" [...] said Rita Le, a spokeswoman for the carnival committee Read More...

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