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Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs
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25th November 2024
The climate crisis and gender-based violence
8th November 2024
Ecolabels: A Catalyst for Sustainable Food Choices?
21st October 2013 Paris, France
EDF Agreement: A very important moment
This week is a very important moment for our two countries in terms of our commercial cooperation. We’re going to be making an agreement in principle between the government in London, EDF and Areva for the construction of a new nuclear power station site at Hinkley point in Somerset.
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21st October 2013 Tashkent, Uzbekistan
Protocol
Last week I spoke to members of the diplomatic course at the University of World Economy and Diplomacy about the British approach to protocol. I have twice worked in jobs directly responsible for protocol work – once when I revised the Foreign Office’s protocol guidance, to make it easier to read and to change things […]
21st October 2013 Brasilia, Brazil
Climate Change: no more room for scepticism
Part of my role is dedicated to international negotiations on climate change, and the science used to feed the policy discussions has equal importance. That said, I have spent quite a lot of time over the past fortnight going through the findings of the first volume of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, published on 27 […]
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21st October 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Climate Change: The Road to Paris 2015
In November the next UN Conference of Parties on climate change (COP19) will meet in Warsaw. There is an enormous amount of work to do in Poland and subsequently if we are going to get a global, legally binding agreement on carbon emissions that we committed to achieve at COP21 in Paris in 2015. In […]
21st October 2013 Vientiane, Laos
Laos through my eyes – Jo Smith
This article is part of a series of guest blogs contributed by Brits who have lived and worked in Laos, or who have other interesting links to Laos. Ock Pop Tok means ‘East meets West’ in Lao. I co-founded Ock Pop Tok 13 years ago together with Luang Prabang born Veomanee Douangdala. At the time I was […]
21st October 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Reserve Bank of Australia Governor praises UK contribution to Australian economy
The success of the modern Australian economy reflects in part the legal and governance structures flowing from its British heritage, RBA Governor Glenn Stevens told the Australian British Chamber of Commerce at a packed Sydney lunch last week. In a fascinating speech the Governor outlined the history of the economic relationship between the two countries. He noted […]
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18th October 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
The future of cyberspace
This week sees the 2013 Seoul Conference on Cyberspace, the third in a series of conferences following London 2011 and Budapest 2012. The Conference takes place in the context of a debate in Brazil and abroad about the future of the internet. Our Foreign Secretary has long been passionate about cyber (a broad term that […]
18th October 2013 Budapest, Hungary
Did you know…?
Guest blog by Levente Nyitrai, Senior Policy Officer Did you know that 18 October 2013 is the 7th EU Anti-trafficking Day? Did you know that the UK is a signatory to, and has adopted, the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the UN Convention against […]
18th October 2013 Washington DC, USA
Somali Piracy: Now you see it, now you don’t
Tom Hanks and I fell out back in the early 1990’s. I’m not sure if he noticed. The problem was, first, that he won the Oscar for Philadelphia when I wanted Daniel Day-Lewis to get it for In the Name of the Father. Then, to rub salt in my movie-nerd wounds, the awful Forrest Gump […]
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18th October 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Stress
They could have gone better. Despite taking exams for many years, I still managed to get irritated with myself. I forgot a word that I had learnt only a week or so before. I had let the stress of doing my Russian language exam get to me. I should have known better. Just before my […]