Ambassador of Pakistan to France Moin ul Haque talking to Mayor of Paris 8, Jeanne d' Hauteserre on Tuesday said that people to people contacts will improve as Pakistan and France work for strengthening their cooperation in the area of culture, sports and education.

When the Islamic State was about to be driven out of the ancient city of Palmyra in March [...] An architect by training, Ubelmann, 36, had worked in Syria before the country was engulfed by war. But now there was special urgency for the kind of work his youthful team of architects, mathematicians and designers did from their cramped offices in Paris: producing digital copies of threatened historical sites.

South Korea's cultural ministry held a ceremony on Monday to officially bring down the curtain on the cultural exchange programs with France that started last year. In September last year, the two countries started various events to celebrate the 130th anniversary of establishing diplomatic ties. The extensive programs cover the two nation's culture, politics, education and technology.

The skyline of Paris has just acquired yet another arresting feature. Only a stone’s throw from the Eiffel Tower, a spanking new Russian Orthodox cathedral, complete with five onion domes and a cultural centre, was inaugurated on December 4th by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, amid sonorous rhetoric about the long and chequered history of the Russian diaspora in France.

The new sanctions target North Korea's hard currency revenues by placing a "hard, binding cap" on coal exports, cutting them by at least 62 percent, capping them at around $400 million or 7.5 million tons, diplomats said. According to the Global Trade Atlas, China is on track to import nearly $1 billion worth of coal from North Korea in 2016 despite a previous sanctions regime.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed often says that cities are where the global economy is most readily influenced and where its impacts are most easily felt. The mayor, who visited the Paris climate talks last year for a city leaders forum, has an ideological ally in the newly arrived French consul general in Atlanta, Louis de Corail.

France and Pakistan have inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU), offering 200 needs-based scholarships to the unprivileged Pakistani students in various subjects for further promoting bilateral educational cooperation. The scholarships would be available from next year. The MOU was signed by French Ambassador to Pakistan Martine Dorance and Higher Educational Commission (HEC) Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed in a simple ceremony here at the residence of French envoy.