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RENEWING OLD TIES: THE NEW BISHOP OF LONDON
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The climate crisis and gender-based violence
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Ecolabels: A Catalyst for Sustainable Food Choices?
19th January 2015 New Delhi, India
Food systems – UK, India – from field to plate
The intricate world of supply chains of several foods from field to plate and the relationships between food, health and environment gets all the more fascinating if one does a comparative analysis of two countries’ food systems. This is what we attempted to do during the final quarter of the previous year with two scoping […]
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19th January 2015
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
The FCO’s Australia network: leaner and fitter
When I leave Australia in a few weeks time, I will be leaving a network of five posts (High Commission, two Consulates General and two Consulates) with nearly a third fewer staff than we had when I arrived four years ago. Almost all of the affected positions were “back office” rather than customer facing or […]
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16th January 2015 Montreal, Canada
Paddington warms Ste. Justine’s Children Hospital
Paddington, the film, opens in Canada today. Although Winnie the Pooh is a household name here, Paddington has a lower profile in Canada…
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16th January 2015 Beirut, Lebanon
Parting Shots – An Alternative View of the UK in the Middle East
All over the Foreign Office network, we draw on advice and analysis from our brilliant locally engaged staff. One of our colleagues here, Nadim Zaazaa, is leaving us to work on an exciting project – the UK-Lebanon Tech Hub. See here for more details. He shared with me some parting thoughts about the Middle East, […]
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15th January 2015
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Visit by the Foreign Secretary to Romania
A visit by the Foreign Secretary is an important moment for any Ambassador or High Commissioner, providing opportunities for working with the host government at the most senior level, and a spur to host authorities to think about the bilateral relationship with the United Kingdom and how to develop it. And so I was delighted to welcome Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond […]
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15th January 2015
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
MY TWO WISHES FOR THE NEW YEAR – PEACE AND PROSPERITY, FOR ALL
Predictions and resolutions for a new year can often prove wildly wrong or optimistic. Sadly, one possibility I mentioned to a meeting of Permanent Secretaries (PSs) just before Christmas – a terrorist outrage in Europe or the US – has already proved chillingly accurate, with the carnage on the streets of Paris in early January. […]
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15th January 2015 Tashkent, Uzbekistan
New Year
Last weekend I joined a group of Tashkent bird-watchers for the annual new-year count of water birds at the Tuyabuguz reservoir. It’s part of a world-wide effort co-ordinated by Wetlands International, in which Uzbekistan has participated for the last eight years. The weather was terrible – cold and rainy and misty – but we did […]
13th January 2015
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
My first play… on a Sydney stage
I was in Sydney this weekend to watch a short play I’d written being performed at the New Theatre in Newtown. It was my first play, so I was quite excited. It was part of the “Short and Sweet” festival, which originated in Sydney but now operates in other Australian cities, and a few other […]
13th January 2015 Toronto, Canada
Canadian science news: 29 December 2014-11 January 2015
Trouble reading this story or moving through pages? Check it out on Storify here: https://storify.com/SINCanada/canadian-science-news-29-december-2014-11-january [View the story “Canadian science news: 29 December 2014-11 January 2015” on Storify]
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13th January 2015
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
The Universal Papacy
The title may have startled you. It was Pope Innocent III, back in the 13th century, who declared that as ‘Vicar of Christ’ the Pope had received from God “not only the universal church but the whole world to govern”. Even at the time, secular rulers begged to differ, leading to centuries of competition for […]