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Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs
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10th December 2018 Skopje, North Macedonia
Lighting the lights on International Human Rights Day
This year the 8th day of Chanuckah falls on 10 December, International Human Rights Day. Chanuckah is celebrated as a festival for children. This is the story we tell them. Long ago, the Jewish people in Israel lived under the rule of Antiochus Epiphanes. He did not want to rule over a place with many […]
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10th December 2018
The wounds of my generation and why we engage
Anes Osmic and Ivana Bilic, young activists from Bosnia and Herzegovina, use theatre as a means of dialogue and believe that only through working together and communicating openly can one solve issues at the local level and build a common future. They cooperated on a play “Yellow Boots” performed at Sarajevo SARTR on 8 December […]
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9th December 2018 Vienna, Austria
Why corruption matters – and what we are doing about it
A corrupt politician in a country far away wears an expensive watch and owns a car costing many times his annual salary. Why should we care? Corruption matters because it undermines the rules-based international system; slows economic growth; and generates instability. All this harms countries, and peoples, around the world. Every year, corruption costs a […]
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7th December 2018
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Corruption has a cost … and it is paid by citizens
9 December is International Day for the Fight Against Corruption. No one in Bosnia and Herzegovina needs to be told about the damage done by this poison. Since I took over as British Ambassador here three months ago, it is probably the single subject I have heard most about in my conversations with people. Corruption […]
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6th December 2018 Skopje, North Macedonia
Everyone can be an ally for equality
Last week I hosted a meeting with nearly twenty people who work in various organisations in Macedonia on human rights issues and the support they provide to the people who are on the margins of the society unable to fully exercise their rights. I was particularly pleased that we also had among the guests a […]
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5th December 2018 Stockholm, Sweden
The Path to 1.5 degrees: The Role of Climate Mitigation Technology and International Partnership
This year’s annual gathering of the global climate community in Katowice, Poland, the 24th “Conference of the Parties” (COP24), falls against the backdrop of October’s landmark report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the impacts of global warming beyond 1.5°C and actions required to curb average global temperature rise within […]
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5th December 2018 Vienna, Austria
Citizens’ Rights: my speech in Vienna
Update: for the UK Government’s guidance on Living in Austria as a UK national, see Living in Austria. Please sign up for email updates on that page to get the latest information as and when anything changes. As many of you know, The British Embassy in Vienna has been conducting a series of outreach events […]
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5th December 2018 beijing
When the World’s First Human Cyborg Came to Town!
Many of us have seen sci-fi films like Avatar and Pacific Rim where humans control robots by moving their own bodies. Well, this might not only live in fiction! The Science and Innovation Network (SIN) in the British Embassy Beijing had the honour of inviting Professor Kevin Warwick – also known as the World’s First […]
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4th December 2018 Skopje, North Macedonia
How much is enough – can we end violence against women in Macedonia?
Changing the statistics by raising awareness: as part of the global conversations in these #16DaysofActivism to raise awareness to end the gender based violence, we have asked Marija Bashevska, gender equality advocate to tell us what kind of effort is needed to end violence against women. Marija is currently president of the think-tank Reactor-Reasearh in Action in Macedonia. She is […]
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3rd December 2018
FLAGG at 20: reflections from the founders of the FCO’s LGBT+ staff association
Jonathan Drew: There are some things that need a very deep intake of breath before starting. Like writing to the PUS, six months into being a diplomat, to ask him to give his blessing to the formation of a staff LGBT+ group. On a cold November night twenty years ago, with some trepidation, I wrote that […]
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