8th November 2024
Ecolabels: A Catalyst for Sustainable Food Choices?
Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs
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17th October 2024
OSLOBOĐENJE BEOGRADA
11th October 2024
Busting the gender myths – women and organised crime
4th December 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Britain and the Holy See stand together in defence of justice
In his homily at our celebration at St Paul’s outside the Walls of the centenary of the restoration of official UK-Holy See diplomatic relations in 1914, The Cardinal Secretary of State, Cardinal Parolin, praised how the United Kingdom and the Holy See “have worked together for justice and peace” over many years. He also set […]
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4th December 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Romanian Revolution through British Eyes/Dennis Deletant: ‘Revisiting the 1989 Romanian Revolution: Some Personal Reflections’ (chapter I)
‘The Romanian revolution was for me, my own personal revolution. It brought me – to use Andy Warhol’s expression – my ‘fifteen minutes of fame’ for it catapulted me and Romanian studies at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies of the University of London, into the public eye. On 16 December 1989, I […]
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4th December 2014 Madrid, Spain
Talking about foreign policy with Master´s students
It was a real pleasure to welcome a group of Masters students from the Universidad Europea Madrid to the Embassy last week. With a number of my colleagues I was able to explain the work of the Embassy and Consulates across Spain. We discussed a range of foreign policy and global issues, before concluding with […]
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3rd December 2014 Singapore
6 Tips for Preparing Your Bid
A new member of staff recently asked me how the annual bidding round works and more importantly what makes a strong bid stand out. As I was talking through it I realised this was a blog post in the making. So I thought I would share with you six tips to increase the chances of […]
3rd December 2014 London, UK
What is civil society?
Last Friday I met members of the FCO’s “Youth Inspiration Group” – nine young people, between 18 and 25, from diverse backgrounds. With a combined network of over 3,000 (via the youth organisations and individual contacts they have) this group lends their time to the FCO, as a sounding board for our ideas. To help […]
3rd December 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Romanian Revolution through British Eyes/Nigel Townson: ‘Remember, remember, that distant December’
‘I had already made the flight from Cluj to Bucharest on a number of occasions and it was rarely, if ever, a joyful occasion. The trip on 21st December 1989 was no exception as there was tension amongst the passengers, the airport staff and the flight crew. Even my Securitate-sponsored minder, technically a colleague in […]
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3rd December 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Successful Australian UNSC Presidency in November
Australia has just completed its second period as UN Security Council Presidency, in November. It’s up to each member how much they want to make of their month of rotating Presidency. So it was good to see Australia being both ambitious and effective. It enabled strategic consideration of some important thematic issues, alongside dealing with […]
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2nd December 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Turkey, the EU and NATO
I wrote a blog last year called “Why Turkey can be confident”. The point of that blog was to say that, given that Turkey was a large country with a trillion-dollar economy playing an influential role in world affairs, I couldn’t understand why some people argued that events inside Turkey were determined to a large […]
2nd December 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
6 Months to Elections (Here and There…)
Recently we learnt the date of next year’s election in #Ethiopia – 24 May 2015. So last Monday marked the 6 month countdown. I know that the National Election Board, #NEBE, are already very busy making preparations. This will be only the fifth opportunity Ethiopians have had to chose their government through the ballot box: […]
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2nd December 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
World Dementia Envoy visits Australia
330,000 Australians, 900,000 Britons and 44 million people around the world are living with dementia. These numbers are set to at least double over the next 30 years. It’s not only a human tragedy for those who suffer, but there are big economic and social costs for society. For 70% of Australians in their fifties, it […]