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Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs
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17th December 2025
MAKING LIFE SAFER, FOR EVERYONE
9th December 2025
Why We Need Data, Courage, and Community
13th February 2015 Brasilia, Brazil
Celebrating diversity
Confetti, serpentine, dance, costumes, parades, floats, giant puppets and joy… in a simple approach, perhaps this can sum up the Brazilian Carnival. The festival that aimed to thank the gods for soil fertility and production in ancient Greece came to the Brazilian lands under European influence around 1723, being welcomed with open arms by the […]
13th February 2015 London, UK
Guest Blog from Baroness Anelay: "Freedom to Believe"
This week, we’ve hosted two events at Wilton Park, and in Geneva, on freedom of religion or belief. To mark them, I’m inviting you to join me in our social media campaign #freedomtobelieve. Here’s why: Last month I visited a training centre for Imams and Mourchidats (female spiritual guides) in Morocco. What I witnessed there […]
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13th February 2015
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
World Radio Day
Today is World Radio Day! We mark World Radio Day to raise awareness about the importance of radio in shaping the lives of millions throughout the world, from providing people with everyday news to being a way of spreading information quickly to save lives during natural (or human-induced) disasters. Radio still remains the most dominant […]
12th February 2015
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
STRIKING A “FINE BALANCE” BETWEEN DEVELOPMENT AND THE ENVIRONMENT
As well as a magnet for North American tourists seeking warmth from the winter, Turks and Caicos was an attraction for experts from all the other Caribbean Overseas Territories last week, together with representatives from as far away as Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands. The occasion was a meeting of environment specialists to consider how […]
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12th February 2015 Skopje, North Macedonia
‘We are all equal’ – learn and play around the country
There are some conceptions for educating children that when they are born, they are ‘tabula rasa’. According to this, children are like sponges, they import whatever we teach them as they grow up. Thereto, if children are tabula rasa, our mission is to teach them of everything that is good. To teach them to care […]
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11th February 2015 Havana, Cuba
Saying what you think where you like
I was surprised to read recently that some Cuban academics are under the impression that British people can’t protest in front of No 10 Downing Street where the British Prime Minister lives. They can and they do. Almost every day people gather opposite Downing Street to air their opinions about one issue or another. They […]
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11th February 2015
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Clerical child sex abuse: making progress but not there yet
The issue of sex abuse of children by priests has accompanied me throughout my mission here since I arrived in Rome in August 2011. As I was preparing to take up the role, it was clear to me that nothing had done more in recent years to damage the credibility of the Holy See, and […]
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10th February 2015
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Golden Opportunities or Last Chance Saloon? The OECD & Development in 2015
This week a colleague said something that really resonated with me: “We are the first generation in history that could end extreme poverty, and the last generation that still has time to avert extreme climate change”. No pressure then. It’s certainly both an exciting and sobering prospect. We live in an era of such great […]
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10th February 2015 Toronto, Canada
Canadian science news: 2-8 February 2015
Trouble reading this story or moving through pages? Check it out on Storify here: https://storify.com/SINCanada/canadian-science-news-2-8-february-2015 [View the story “Canadian science news: 2-8 February 2015” on Storify]
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10th February 2015
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
The possibilities from books
(on occasion of UK participation in the 2015 Minsk international book fair) I was attracted to my job by Russian culture, which I first came across in my late adolescent and early adult years. It started with music and literature – mostly 19th century. But then I read a lot about 20th century Russian and […]