9th December 2025
Why We Need Data, Courage, and Community
Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs
A unique insight into UK foreign and development policy
2nd December 2025
In cybersecurity, there are no limits – only new voices ready to lead
14th October 2025
Lost and Found (but mostly lost)
19th June 2013 Beirut, Lebanon
G8 Summit: Lebanon does not face Syria refugee crisis alone
The windy resort of Lough Erne in Northern Ireland this week must have felt far from the millions of Syrians whose lives have been ripped apart by conflict. Yet many of the G8 leaders meeting there have seen the human impact for themselves. Prime Minister David Cameron’s focus on stopping the war in Syria is […]
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19th June 2013 Tashkent, Uzbekistan
The Aral Kum and the Kyzyl Kum
I visited Muynak recently with a senior representative of the British parliament. I’d read a lot about the Aral Sea, since the 1980s when I first worked on Soviet issues (as they were then). It’s one of those things – not by any means unique to the former Soviet Union – that illustrates humanity’s ability […]
18th June 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
G8 Summit
Today the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, is hosting the annual G8 Summit in Northern Ireland, with the Heads of State of Germany, Canada, USA, France, Italy, Japan, the UK and Russia. With these countries still comprising half of global GDP, the bold steps we take by working together through the G8 can make a […]
18th June 2013 San Francisco, USA
Ripple Effects: An App to Prevent Violence?
Sometimes, a seminar that you expected to be interesting turns out to be astonishing. This is what happened to me last week when the Science & Innovation team in San Francisco hosted a talk at the Consulate by Alice Ray, cofounder and CEO of Ripple Effects. Alice had been invited by one of the many […]
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18th June 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
EU – US TTIP – The Big Deal
At the G8 meeting in Northern Ireland yesterday, the EU and US embarked on the biggest trade deal ever negotiated. Despite the rise of the economies of Asia, the EU and the US remain the two giants of the world economy, accounting for half the world’s GDP between them. The US invests three times more […]
18th June 2013 Toronto, Canada
Transparency and open data at the G8
The Group of Eight (almost universally abbreviated to G8) is an unofficial forum for the leaders of the world’s eight wealthiest countries – at the time of writing, these were Canada, France, Germany Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. The Presidency of the G8 rotates every year, and 2013 […]
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18th June 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
What is civil society
I spend some of my time considering the state of civil society in Belarus, as a measure of the political and social health of the country. Is it flourishing? Does it have “space” to grow? Is the government responding to the concerns raised by civil society? I’m struck by how elusive it is to define […]
17th June 2013 Geneva, Switzerland
Going the distance
As the three-week session came to a close on Friday evening, delegates looked each other in the eye with weary emotion and asked how was it for you? The general mood seemed to be that it had been a good session but that the earth didn’t move. Getting through Council sessions is as much a […]
17th June 2013 San Francisco, USA
Genome Mapping: A Life-Saving Reality
In my mind, when the names Watson and Crick come up in casual conversation (as they do for so many of us), an image of a three-dimensional double helix rotating slowly in front of my eyes immediately comes to mind. Regardless of your own reaction to the mentioning of these famous Cambridge scientists, their discovery […]
17th June 2013 San Francisco, USA
Rain, Neuroscience, and Sustainability: Two Days in Portland
Arriving in Portland, Oregon recently on the 6am flight from San Francisco, I immediately felt at home – as much as I love the California sunshine, like many Brits I secretly miss the grey skies and drizzle of the UK, and I was delighted to see that the Oregonian weather was very similar. With the […]
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