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
8th September 2014 Geneva, Switzerland
September Strawberries
This year has been the summer that never was. Usually by the time the September Council session comes around, colleagues look relaxed, healthy even, after enjoying the Geneva sunshine and seem genuinely happy to see each other after a decent break. But a combination of bad weather and incessant work has left many of us […]
7th September 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Foreign Office Minister Hugo Swire in Canberra and Melbourne
When I was a kid our local MP in the beautiful constituency of East Devon was a remote figure, very distant from our lives. Last week his successor stayed at my Residence in Canberra. Hugo Swire, the FCO Minister of State whose responsibilities include Asia, was here for a very busy couple of days. In […]
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5th September 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Education
Education is the basis of the progress of any society – economically, technologically, politically and culturally. Most governments recognise this and put it at the centre of their policies. But it is not an easy or quick solution. It can literally take a generation for education policies to bear fruit as young people pass through […]
5th September 2014 Havana, Cuba
Pétanque diplomacy
What does an Ambassador do during their holidays is probably not a question that keeps many of you awake at night. But, if asked to come up with an answer you might hazard a guess that they spend their time following closely the latest foreign crisis, calculating what it means for the relationship between the […]
5th September 2014 Mumbai, India
EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Additive Manufacturing
During my 4-day visit to the UK in July this year, I had the opportunity to get a tour of the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Additive Manufacturing at the University of Nottingham. Inaugurated in March 2013, the centre carries out both – fundamental and translational research in additive manufacturing. In March this year, […]
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5th September 2014 Vientiane, Laos
Blogging on….. overview of events from May to September
It’s been a busy few months and a while since my last blog posting. So I wanted to give an overview of the key recent events at the Embassy and a look ahead. In May, I travelled back to the UK to attend the Leadership Conference; an annual event hosted in London and attended by UK […]
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4th September 2014 Brasilia, Brazil
Building Stability in an Unpredictable World
This week Wales hosts the NATO Summit, the largest gathering of international leaders ever to take place in Britain. I grew up in the east of England under the deep shadow of the Cold War. Throughout my teenage years the risk of armed conflict between the Warsaw Pact and NATO seemed very close and very […]
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4th September 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
IT Startup communities in Stockholm and London: Never Mind the Gap
Last November I was in London with the Crown Princess and Prince Daniel. They visited Cambridge University, an inner-city London school, the Google Campus and Tech City in East London. It was the latter visits which inspired my Swedish counterpart in London and me to think about a follow-up event focusing on how the flourishing […]
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4th September 2014 Singapore
Introducing the SE Asia Prosperity Fund Programme
Welcome to a blog about the South East Asia Prosperity Fund Programme. Since joining the programme in 2012, I’ve quickly come to realise how tricky it is to explain what the Prosperity Fund does. Explaining it to a Singapore audience makes it doubly hard. Why? That’s because I’m up against this guy in terms of mind-share… God of […]
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4th September 2014 Yerevan, Armenia
Building Stability in an Unpredictable World – the NATO Summit in Wales 4-5 September
Following the terrible events of the last few months – in Ukraine, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Gaza, and ebola in West Africa – describing our world as ‘unpredictable’ no longer seems adequate. It feels like some of our most basic assumptions – about civilized nations’ best interests, a Europe finally at peace, and the nature of […]
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