3rd December 2024
RENEWING OLD TIES: THE NEW BISHOP OF LONDON
Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs
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25th November 2024
The climate crisis and gender-based violence
8th November 2024
Ecolabels: A Catalyst for Sustainable Food Choices?
14th December 2015
Soft Skills in Hard Times video blog series(IV): Madalina Vlangar
In this fourth episode of the Soft Skills in Hard Times, our guest blogger, Madalina Vlangar, explains how soft skills can make a difference when working in law enforcement and peace keeping operations. Madalina Vlangar is working as an Internal Affairs Attaché at the Romanian Embassy in Spain, and was one of our guest speakers […]
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14th December 2015 Athens, Greece
In Praise of the Benaki Museum
Queen Sophia Avenue leads from Constitution Square to Kostas Varotsos’ glass-sculpted “Runner” at the Hilton. It is a broad street, lined with trees (now being heavily pruned for the winter) and bearing, for much of the day, heavy traffic. The neighbourhood combines something of London’s North and South Kensington. Here are the neo-classical buildings of […]
14th December 2015 Bangalore, India
A whirlwind tour to UK’s manufacturing research centres
Unlike other visits to the UK, this one was different. I and my colleague Vijay Jasuja from UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) went on a tour to the UK with an interesting and vibrant mix of academics and R&D Heads of Indian manufacturing companies to visit the high value manufacturing catapults and universities from October […]
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14th December 2015
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
አመሰግናለሁ Farewell…
Time to move on and let someone else take a turn. This is my last day in extraordinary Ethiopia as the British Ambassador. Goodbyes are never easy, but I have had an amazing four years getting to know this place – full of hospitable people and outstanding experiences. But as is common for most diplomats, we […]
14th December 2015 Beijing, China
Robotics with Chinese characteristics
Science and Innovation should be fun. Too often in the Embassy my team becomes engulfed in all sorts of not-so-fun activities like policy briefings and project admin. So when an opportunity came along to accompany a delegation of British robotics experts to Beijing’s World Robot Conference, we jumped at the chance. In the interests of […]
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14th December 2015 Canberra, Australia
Why the Paris climate agreement matters, and what happens next
Emily Byrne has been working on climate policy for both the British and Australian governments for the last six years. We have a deal from the Paris talks! I’m stoked. Many people have worked for many years to make this agreement happen, and it’s at the most optimistic end of what I could have hoped for. Here’s my […]
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11th December 2015 Montreal, Canada
Climate Change Gets Personal
The climate change conference in Paris wrapped up today. Over the past two weeks there has been an array of commitments by governments around the World, including the UK’s, to tackle the climate change phenomenon and reduce the emissions that contribute to it. But what action are we all going to take as individuals?
11th December 2015 Paris, France
COP21: the best things come to those who wait
This time last week we were at the start of COP21. The conference centre was smelling of woodchip (you can really tell how hard France have worked at making COP21 sustainable), there were still freebies being handed out, delegates were relatively smiley and positive (directly proportional to the quality/quantity of freebies and coffee, I have […]
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11th December 2015 New Delhi, India
Post Harvest Technologies – New Ties – UK and India
The end of November saw the much anticipated launch of a joint funding call on Agri-Food. This call is funded by Newton-Bhabha – our five year £50 million joint programme with India. Under Newton-Bhabha, Innovate UK, the UK Research Councils and India’s Department of Biotechnology (DBT) plan to invest £10 million on developing joint industrial […]
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10th December 2015 Washington DC, USA
Human Rights Day 2015: Reflections from Week of Women
In October, London hosted the first-ever ‘Week of Women’. The Embassy invited two nominees to share perspectives from and about the US. Taiba Razwan who works for Eliminate Domestic Violence (EDV) & advocates for partnership between the US/UK in this field; JonRobert “Tat” Tartaglione, a Rhode Island native with diversity and inclusion expertise and currently […]
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