17th July 2025
Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow
Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs
A unique insight into UK foreign and development policy
15th July 2025
International Day of Women in Diplomacy: UK Special Envoy for Women and Girls visit to Geneva
1st May 2025
The UN Commission on the Status of Women: My first visit as UK Special Envoy for Women and Girls
3rd September 2014 Skopje, North Macedonia
Croeso i Gymru! Croesawu i’r DU!
There’s a moment of truth coming for the team organising the NATO summit in Wales. They will discover in the next couple of days whether the plans they have worked on for months now will fall into place. This is a complex dance. Delegations from over 60 countries and organisations, plus about 1500 media representatives, […]
3rd September 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Responding to ISIL
There has, rightly, been enormous concern expressed across the world about the recent turn of events in Northern Iraq. The expulsion of the Christian communities from Mosul and the 13 villages of the Plain of Nineveh – an historic heartland inhabited by Christians from the earliest days, well known from, amongst other sources, the story […]
3rd September 2014 Toronto, Canada
Canadian science news: 25-31 August 2014
Trouble reading this story or moving through pages? Check it out on Storify here: https://storify.com/SINCanada/canadian-science-news-25-31-august-2014 [View the story ” Canadian science news: 25-31 August 2014″ on Storify]
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3rd September 2014 Beirut, Lebanon
Wisdom Amid Adversity?: NATO Comes to Wales
With a formidable to-do list for the world’s leaders, the 2014 NATO Summit takes place in Wales on 4/5 September. This will be the largest ever gathering of international leaders in Britain. In preparation, some diplomats have even been learning Welsh (Matthew Barzun clip). Having been to a few, I’ve sometimes been sceptical about the […]
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3rd September 2014 London, UK
Nato summit comes at a pivotal moment
This month marks the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War. That appalling conflict – often still known as the Great War – devastated a generation. My mother’s father, born in 1899, was one of nine grandsons of his mother’s father. Of those nine, six fell in that war. My grandfather himself, aged […]
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3rd September 2014 Sofia, Bulgaria
How We Brought a Subject Into the Open
by Richard Thomas Richard Thomas was British Ambassador to Bulgaria from 1989 to 1994. “We were not sanctimonious, and we did our best to build on the goodwill and good practices that already existed. I have the happiest memories of days out at Vidrare […] seeing the children’s faces light up and sharing in the staffs’ […]
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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 […]