3rd December 2024
RENEWING OLD TIES: THE NEW BISHOP OF LONDON
Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs
A unique insight into UK foreign and development policy
25th November 2024
The climate crisis and gender-based violence
8th November 2024
Ecolabels: A Catalyst for Sustainable Food Choices?
14th June 2019 Brazil
A Venezuelan exodus
Recently, I visited refugee camps on the Brazil-Venezuela border, talking to those who have escaped Venezuela. The main crossing point is a small Brazilian town called Pacaraima, at the very northern-most tip of the country, in the smallest, poorest Brazilian state of Roraima. A city of 12,000 inhabitants receives between 500 to 1,000 migrants a […]
14th June 2019
Journalists now keen on nutrition reporting
In this guest blog for the Foreign Office, journalist Mwape Kumwenda from Zambia talks about nudging farmers towards more diverse crops and turning viewers off junk food. My work centres on community news reporting. I work on diverse issues to do with poverty, agriculture, health, corruption, human rights, press freedom, gender and education with healthy […]
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11th June 2019 Vienna, Austria
Turner comes to Gmünd
Are there 2,550 reasons to visit Gmünd, in Carinthia? No. There are 2551. When I first started work at the Department of the Environment in 1979, I used to go once a week with a friend at lunchtime to visit the Tate Gallery (now Tate Britain) on Bankside. I was fascinated to discover the works […]
8th June 2019 Science Innovation USA
Building the Blue Economy and solving global challenges in San Diego, California
As global population grows, so does our impact on the world’s oceans. Even today, on this World Ocean Day, we continue to hear about scary things such as ocean acidification, the proliferation of plastic in the ocean, and ecosystem destabilization. Every day brings a new report of man-made environmental disasters. But all is not lost. […]
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7th June 2019 Vatican, Holy See
The Vatican Cricket Team: Sport and faith in action
A guest blog written by Fr. Eamonn O’Higgins, L.C., manager of The Vatican (St. Peter’s) Cricket Team, and Fr. Sameer Advani, L.C., co-manager. Cricket is perhaps not what immediately springs to mind when you think of the Vatican, but the Vatican (St Peter’s) Cricket Team has an important role in building bridges between faiths and […]
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7th June 2019
Reporting from the frontline
Long-time Southern African regional correspondent Susan Njanji from Zimbabwe was one of very few black African female journalists to cover the genocide in Rwanda. Here she reflects on the challenges that she’s faced when reporting from the frontline as a woman – and why gender should never be a factor in deciding who gets the […]
6th June 2019 Geneva, Switzerland
Disarmament blog: space – the final frontier for arms control?
I spent part of last week at the Space Security Conference run by the UN Institute for Disarmament Research, which has become something of an annual fixture. It was excellent – the organisers brought together an amazing group of speakers from governments, academia, the media and industry, and I came away with a far better […]
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4th June 2019 Vienna, Austria
No such thing as a fish
At the beginning of April, I was delighted to find out that a British podcast at the intersection of comedy and science had been chosen for the City of Vienna’s annual science communication award. To me this is both a testament to the strong bilateral relationship the UK has with Austria on science and education […]
31st May 2019 Skopje, North Macedonia
Ramadan in our Skopje Neighbourhood
What is Ramadan? Of all the months, Muslims love Ramadan the most mainly because of the greater rewards found in this month. Ramadan is also significantly known as the month where the Quran was sent down to the Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) as a guidance to mankind. But apart from this, there are also several […]
29th May 2019 Vienna, Austria
Drugs in Vienna: making a difference internationally
One of Vienna’s key international organisations is the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the UNODC. But how exactly do countries work with UNODC to combat the illegal use of drugs? Every March, the UK and other countries send experts to the UNODC in Vienna for the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, known as the […]
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