Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs

A unique insight into UK foreign and development policy

31st December 2013

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by Martin Harris

British Ambassador to Ukraine

New Year Honour for Founder of Hospices of Hope, Romania

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This New Year, HM The Queen has recognised the achievements of one of the most remarkable Great Britons in Romania. Graham Perolls is made a Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in the New Year’s Honours List, an order of chivalry reserved for those who render extraordinary service in a foreign […]

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30th December 2013 Havana, Cuba

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by Tim Cole

Former British Ambassador to Cuba

Delivering on our commitments to human rights in 2014

In July 2011 in a ‘Declaration on Bilateral Co-operation’ the British and Cuban governments agreed that human rights are a ‘priority for co-operation’. Both countries have recently been elected by the UN General Assembly to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) for a three year term beginning on 1 January 2014. The HRC is the […]

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27th December 2013 Beirut, Lebanon

Tom Fletcher

by Tom Fletcher

Former British Ambassador to Lebanon

A Talisman for Tolerance – Lebanon loses Mohamad Chatah

Lebanon lost Mohamad Chatah and many others today. As at other such moments, the embassy went into a high gear – checking staff were safe, searching hospitals for Brits, updating travel advice, considering a public response, assessing the facts, analysing the implications. In between, like so many others here, we try to deal with the […]

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26th December 2013 Brasilia, Brazil

The word of mouse

Nowadays, communication includes the freedom to express opinions in the Internet information environment and the freedom to discover them. That is to say, the freedom to speak and to hear.  Moreover, this online environment gives a new perspective to what was once referred to as “word of mouth”. Now we might be tempted to call […]

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24th December 2013

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by Bruce Bucknell

Former British Deputy High Commissioner Kolkata

A British Christmas

Christmas is coming.  I’m looking forward to it as I’ve been busy recently, and need a break. What is so special about Christmas in Britain? As it is the time when many of us Christians remember the birth of Jesus, Christmas is above all for our children.  This is the time when we celebrate them, […]

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24th December 2013

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by Nigel Baker

Ambassador to the Holy See (2011-2016)

Communicating the Good News

Pope Francis places great emphasis in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Guadium on communication. In large part, he declares, communicating the Gospel is the Church’s principal mission statement. This is not, of course, a new message, although the emphasis may be. But it was perhaps no coincidence that the Holy See recently announced that the means of communication […]

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24th December 2013 London, UK

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by David Lidington

Minister for Europe, London

Making Progress

A little over a year ago, the Economist wrote a piece analysing Britain’s place in Europe. There wasn’t a lot of good news. Efforts to reform the way Brussels works were simply “making things worse” as “other countries are tiring of British demands”. The best we could hope for, it was argued, was to “rediscover […]

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23rd December 2013

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by Sarah Dickson

Ambassador to Guatemala (June 2012 - June 2015)

2013: How the first year of a new B’ak’tun worked out for us

I know I am mixing my Mayan and Gregorian calendars but, since we were waiting for the end of the last B’ak’tun on 21 December 2012, so much has happened that this year feels like it is has gone by in a flash. With all that activity to cover I am inevitably going to forget […]

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23rd December 2013 Washington DC, USA

by Andrew Preston

Development Counsellor

2013 in Review: Washington’s Development Highlights

This is a joint post by Andrew Preston and Rosanna Kim who work on international development issues at the British Embassy in Washington. We are loving all the different reviews of the past year, with the best and worst from the world of films, books, and music. So we thought it would be fun to […]

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