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Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs
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The climate crisis and gender-based violence
8th November 2024
Ecolabels: A Catalyst for Sustainable Food Choices?
22nd July 2013 Vientiane, Laos
Laos through my eyes – Michael Shaw
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. I was the Second Secretary in the Embassy in Vientiane from early 1966 to late 1968. It was an interestng time as the extension of the Vietnam […]
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22nd July 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
G8: what does it mean for Africa?
My Embassy hosted a panel discussion under the theme ‘G8: Tax, Trade, Transparency – What does it mean for Africa?’ last week. The Department for International Development’s Chief Economist Stefan Dercon was among the panellists and shared his views on the so-called “3T’s”, which have proved relevant not only to G8 countries but worldwide. Prominent […]
22nd July 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Green school in Bali – the world’s greenest school
Imagine a school where all the classrooms are constructed of sustainable bamboo, the kids help to grow their own food and the whole curriculum has a sustainable theme. The toilets are biodegradable. That’s the Green School in Bali Indonesia, brainchild of celebrity jeweller and eco-pioneer John Hardy. Last week we took a brief holiday from […]
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19th July 2013 Tripoli, Libya
Kick Starting Yemen’s Future
The children wanted to play football. But there wasn’t one to hand. So an older boy was dispatched on a motorbike to find one. Then after a long wait a battered ball arrived and two hundred men and boys chased a ball around a dusty patch in the middle of the village. The game was […]
18th July 2013 USA
Video Games: From the Basement to the Boardroom
I can fondly remember my first interactions with video games – first the Commadore 64 and then on Nintendo and SEGA. We crowded round them at the house of the lucky kid in our neighbourhood and all dreamed that we might own one someday. Remarkably for my brother’s generation everyone did seem to own at […]
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18th July 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Farewell to Mumbai (Part 2): Doing better than we think
Some UK visitors to India, and British newspaper headlines, seem to consider that business here should be ours by “divine right”, as if it is Britain’s for the taking. We have, the argument goes, a special relationship with India – language, law, cricket, immigrants – which means that we must have an advantage on the commercial playing field. […]
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18th July 2013 Cape Town, South Africa
Celebrating Mandela Day
A blog by Nick Monkhouse, British High Commission Pretoria. Today, 18 July 2013, is Nelson Mandela’s 95th birthday. It is also Nelson Mandela Day, recognised by the UN and around the world as a day which seeks to inspire people to take action to help change the world for the better. As South Africa and […]
17th July 2013 Montreal, Canada
Life Cycle Assessment: from cold water washing to cotton bags (by guest blogger Roland Clift)
This post is written by Roland Clift , Emeritus Professor of Environmental Technology in the Centre for Environmental Strategy at the University of Surrey, who was keynote speaker at the Montreal conference on Social – Life Cycle Assessment held in Montreal last May . . .
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17th July 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Justice for all
Working at the UK mission to the UN in New York often meant late nights. But only once was I in the office until three in the morning. It was the morning after the night before, the night the Security Council had voted, around midnight, to refer the crisis in Darfur to the International Criminal […]
17th July 2013 Chevening, UK
My year as a Chevening scholar
I’m lucky enough to be studying at Imperial College London, reading a Masters in Petroleum Engineering, something the Chevening Scholarship has made possible.