China’s tourism to Taiwan, once banned, is now growing fast as bilateral ties improve. But with the influx of visitors comes a culture clash.

Around 1987, I noticed a funny thing about aerial photos of African villages: they look a lot like fractals, the repetitive shapes from computer graphics. Rectangular architecture had nested rectangles within; circular houses were in circles of circles, sometimes down to very small scales. A Fulbright fellowship gave me a year of travel in west and central Africa...

They call her India’s Miss Manners, and she is at the heart of a multimillion-dollar industry to make Indian companies more competitive globally by improving their workers’ social skills. Pria Warrick has become the guru of graces for a new generation of call-center techies, chief executives, animation artists, MBAs and Bollywood film stars, all of whom are helping drive India’s rise as a world economic power but sometimes without a certain polish.

The Balkan Express departed from Ankara last week and will travel throughout the Balkans to improve relations between Turkey and Southeastern European countries during a 50-day trip.

In the post-Soviet period, the social networks within Russia’s Muslim community have become increasingly intense and diverse, reflecting both broader social and political changes and efforts by various groups within Islam to unite believers for one or another purpose, according to an analysis posted on the Islamnews.ru portal.

When China designed the 2010 Universal Expo in Shanghai as a showcase for its new public diplomacy, it probably did not envision the exhibition would play a much bigger role as a magnet for recession-hit European businesses.

Japanese diplomats say they are working hard to stop the decline in the number of British participants in the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme (JET). They recognize the concerns of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group which recently highlighted the drop in the number of British JET participants since 2001...

A 30-second TV commercial promoting the "Made-in-China" brand will be aired across most regions in Europe, Asia and Oceania via the BBC World News from Monday through to Aug.8, one of the ad campaign's designers told Xinhua Tuesday.