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Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs
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3rd September 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
NATO’s Summit in Wales: ‘Building Stability in an Unpredictable World’
On Thursday 4 and Friday 5 September the UK will host the NATO Summit in Newport, Wales. It will be the largest gathering of international leaders ever to take place in Britain. It will also be the first UK-hosted NATO Summit since the London meeting in 1990, which marked the end of the Cold War. […]
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3rd September 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
What is the NATO Summit about?
His Majesty King Abdullah will be in Wales tomorrow for the NATO Summit. Why is this meeting important? The Summit will be the largest gathering of world leaders ever hosted in the UK. It brings Prime Minister Cameron, President Obama, Chancellor Merkel, President Hollande and many other world leaders together at a difficult and sensitive […]
3rd September 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Foreign Minister Bishop heads to UK for key NATO Summit
I called on Foreign Minister Julie Bishop this morning to touch base before she headed off to the NATO Summit in Newport, Wales, later this week. Australia has worked very closely with NATO and played an important role as the largest non-NATO contributor in the Afghanistan campaign. This relationship will not end with the campaign […]
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2nd September 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Teatime in Sudan
A few days ago I visited a Sudanese tea company. Not any Sudanese tea company, actually. But arguably THE Sudanese tea company: Cofftea. They produced most of the well known brands here (not least Algazaltain) and account for the Majority of the Market Like a number of other Sudanese companies I have visited they are […]
2nd September 2014 London, UK
Wartime in Paris: an Ambassador tweets
Dr Richard Smith reveals an exciting new Twitter project by the FCO Historians In 1914 Sir Francis Bertie held the plum posting in the British Diplomatic Service—the ambassadorship to Paris. Not only did it carry a yearly salary of £11,500 (the Foreign Secretary was paid just £5,000) but the Ambassador also got to live at […]
2nd September 2014 Tripoli, Libya
Croeso – مرحبا بكم في ويلز
Croeso I Gymru – مرحبا بكم في ويلز. في وقت لاحق من هذا الأسبوع، ستنعقد قمة حلف شمال الأطلسي (ناتو) في ويلز. ويعد ذلك أكبر تجمع على الإطلاق للقادة الدوليين في بريطانيا. سيكون موضوع القمة الرئيسي هو “بناء الاستقرار في عالم متغير”. ومن خلال عقد هذه القمة في ويلز، سنتمكن من تسليط الضوء على هذه […]
2nd September 2014 Tripoli, Libya
Croeso – Welcome to Wales
Croeso i Gymru – Welcome to Wales. Later this week, Wales will host the NATO Summit, the largest gathering of international leaders ever to take place in Britain. The theme of the Summit is ‘Building Stability in an Unpredictable World’. By bringing the Summit to Wales, we will be able to shine the global spotlight […]
1st September 2014 Paris, France
Guest blog: Sir Francis Bertie meets Sir John French and Lord Kitchener in Paris
Rummaging in my library, I found the following blog-post left by my predecessor, with remarkable prescience, to be posted exactly 100 years later! It recounts a dramatic meeting that really did take place in the Residence on 1 September 1914 directly related to the conduct of the War, and in which my predecessor took a […]
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1st September 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Keeping TCI as a desination of choice
Running along an almost deserted Grace Bay beach on an August morning, it is hard to believe that we have had a record start for tourism arrivals so far this year. Despite the wide open spaces free of people – which would be unimaginable on many of the Mediterranean’s crowded beaches – Turks and Caicos […]
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1st September 2014 London, UK
User research on the new Chevening application system
Hello there, I’m Phil Buckley, a Digital Transformation Manager at the Foreign Office, and I wanted to tell you about the unusual and fun challenges faced when testing the new application form for the Chevening Scholarship programme. How did we test? Before we started the design of the new system, we were lucky enough to […]
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