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 world's largest exhibition to be held outside the Vatican of liturgical artifacts used by popes was launched Feb. 4 at the National Palace Museum in Taipei City, Taiwan. [...] It underscores 73 years of diplomatic relations between Taiwan and the Vatican, and highlights the deepening of bilateral relations and exchanges between the two sides.

Besides exchange programs, the media is a vital element of soft power as it forms the perceptions that shape our worldview. [...] There could not be a more appropriate time for the US Pakistan Professional Partnership Program in Journalism to dispel grossly misrepresented images about the peoples of the two countries.

For the Chinese scholars at Eastern Mennonite University this semester, witnessing the difference between Chinese and American educational systems has been enlightening. [...] Eight are sponsored through Mennonite Partners in China (MPC), an exchange program that has been thriving in various formats since the early 1980s. The other two are on scholarship from the China Scholarship Council, a competitive, state-funded scholarship fund for research and study abroad.

The government of North Korea has rightfully gained a reputation in the West for isolation and obstinacy, but its diplomatic ventures in Africa have poised it to be significantly more influential on that continent than potentially anywhere else.