Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs

A unique insight into UK foreign and development policy

23rd June 2014 Athens, Greece

Sotiris Leontaris

by Sotiris Leontaris

Head of DIT, British Embassy Athens, focusing on the Embassy's commercial work

Business opportunities as a way of putting Greece back on the exporting map

Guest blogger: Klio Panourgia, Assistant Trade Advisor, UKTI, British Embassy Athens One of the tasks undertaken almost on a daily basis by UKTI teams at posts is the identification and publication of Business Opportunities; these are opportunities that can lead directly to export business for UK companies and can range from general procurement notices to tenders […]

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20th June 2014 Sana’a, Yemen

Jane Marriott, British Ambassador to Yemen

by Jane Marriott

British Ambassador to Yemen

WORLD REFUGEE DAY: A CHALLENGE FOR OUR TIME

June 20th is World Refugee Day. It’s a day when the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and others around the world seek to draw the public’s attention to the millions of refugees and internally displaced persons worldwide. Many have been forced to flee their homes due to war, conflict and persecution. Yemen is the only […]

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20th June 2014 Mumbai, India

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by Vijay Iyer

Senior Science & Innovation Adviser

UK-India civil nuclear collaboration – phase III

Last week, I spent two days (11-12 June) with nuclear scientists from the UK and India at Oxford. The meeting, facilitated by RCUK India and co-organised by the EPSRC and Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), was held to outline proposals for joint research projects under the Phase III programme of UK-India collaboration in civil nuclear […]

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20th June 2014 Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei

A Summit like no other

Last week saw an extraordinary international conference in London. British Foreign Secretary William Hague and UN Special Envoy Angelina Jolie co-hosted the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict. This brought together 128 country delegations and over 80 ministers. Minister of Foreign Affairs II Pehin Lim led the Brunei delegation. There were around 1,700 […]

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19th June 2014

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by Nigel Baker

Ambassador to the Holy See (2011-2016)

Reflections of a Catholic participant on the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in conflict

I have commented in recent weeks on the 10-13 June London Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict. This week, I give the floor to Pádraic MacOireachtaigh, Jesuit Refugee Service Regional Advocacy and Communications Officer in the Great Lakes based in Burundi, who participated in the Summit, and who contributes his own supportive but critical […]

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19th June 2014 Washington DC, USA

The next step forward

When Google unveiled its latest prototype of a self-driving car in May, it marked a new stage in the relationship between humans and autonomous vehicles in a very public way. But it is just one visible piece of the technical progress in areas such as autonomous systems, advanced manufacturing, and in the thinking on how […]

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19th June 2014 Sofia, Bulgaria

Two Days Before Sofia Pride

by British Embassy Sofia A couple of days before Sofia Pride 2014, we share a couple of photos of the first UK civil partnership ceremony that was conducted at the British Ambassador’s Residence in Sofia in 2007. The special permission for the ceremony was given from the UK under the strict understanding that the partnership would […]

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18th June 2014 Jerusalem, Israel

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by Alastair McPhail

British Consul General to Jerusalem

A life free from fear

Visiting Hebron for the first time reminded me of my childhood in the Scottish city of Glasgow.  The narrow alleyways hung with washing; kids in the street playing football; conversations across garden walls.  A city in which family is everything and privacy is a rare commodity. But the similarities end when you enter ‘H1’.  This […]

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18th June 2014

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by Paul Madden

British Ambassador to Japan

GOV.UK more than OK

Britain is one of the most advanced digital economies in the world. The British Government’s Chief Technology Officer, Liam Maxwell, was in Canberra this week to brief Australian ministers and officials on some of the latest developments in the UK. He described how all of the many different departmental websites had moved successfully onto a […]

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