Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs

A unique insight into UK foreign and development policy

1st March 2015

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by Greg Dorey

Diplomat

Dragons and daffodils…..

Today is 1 March and the Welsh flag, Y Ddraig Goch, was flying outside the British Embassy as we mark St David’s Day. And several of us are wearing dragon or daffodil badges in our lapels or as cufflinks to recognise the patron saint of Wales. The date marks the anniversary of the death of […]

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28th February 2015 Islamabad, Pakistan

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by Philip Barton

Permanent Under-Secretary of the FCDO. Philip was the British High Commissioner to Pakistan from 2014 to 2016

St David’s Day

Fans of J.K. Rowling in Pakistan will remember that a Common Welsh Dragon featured in ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’, the fourth book of her immensely popular series.  That dragon was green in colour, but the dragon on the flag flying at the British High Commission in Islamabad today is a vibrant red. […]

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27th February 2015

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by Sarah Dickson

Ambassador to Guatemala (June 2012 - June 2015)

Get on the bus for British Week Guatemala 2015

The British Week that we hold in Guatemala has always been our way of showing the best of our nation. The hardest part is narrowing down the possibilities of what we could do to just a week’s worth of activity. That means that we hold a real variety of events crossing cultural, political and economic […]

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27th February 2015 Beirut, Lebanon

Tom Fletcher

by Tom Fletcher

Former British Ambassador to Lebanon

What Lebanese Students Tell Me About Us

I spend a lot of time in universities, talking with students about their hopes for the region and their perceptions of the UK. Lebanon has always been a good place to listen to the currents surging through the Middle East. These sessions are always lively, surprising, challenging. It is foolish to try to generalise about […]

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26th February 2015

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by Nigel Baker

Ambassador to the Holy See (2011-2016)

Spiritual retreats and daily business

This week, the Pope and the senior members of the Roman Curia are away on spiritual retreat. There are not many governments that take all their senior members away from the fray of the day-to-day for a whole week of reflection, and even here the Blackberries and smart-phones may not be entirely switched off. But […]

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26th February 2015

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by Bruce Bucknell

Former British Deputy High Commissioner Kolkata

Service with a smile

Belarus is a net exporter of services just like Britain, so I discovered recently.  I was surprised, and have been wondering which services Belarus is exporting.  After my blog about tourism to Belarus, I wanted to write about a key element of tourism:  service culture. Services and service culture aren’t the same, but understanding one […]

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26th February 2015 Bangalore, India

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by Sunil Kumar

Senior Science & Innovation Adviser

Bright idea to transform web access

I had assumed that a simple tiny light emitting diode (LED) can be used only for illumination. But I was zapped when I visited Prof Harald Haas’s lab at the University of Edinburgh last month. I got a glimpse of tomorrow’s future – LEDs transmitting data! A LED equipped with signal processing technology was streaming […]

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26th February 2015

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by Greg Dorey

Diplomat

Young at heart diplomats

The British Embassy in Addis Ababa and the United States Mission to the African Union (AU) will host a “young diplomats’” evening tonight. We held a similar event last year and many thought it an effective way to bring together stakeholders on issues which are important to the AU. The event will be attended by […]

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25th February 2015

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by Carolyn Browne

Former ambassador to Kazakhstan

Видео-блог Посла Великобритании в Казахстане, Др. Кэролин Браун.

Уважаемые друзья, с этой недели мы запускаем серию еженедельных видео-блогов с Послом Великобритании в Казахстане, Др. Кэролин Браун. Мы рады представить Вашему вниманию первый видео-блог, посвященный Уэльсу, в преддверии Дня Святого Дэвида (1 марта). Русский транскрипт ниже: «Уэльс является одной из четырёх частей Соединённого Королевства Великобритании и Северной Ирландии, в которую входят Англия, Шотландия, Северная Ирландия […]

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