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Ecolabels: A Catalyst for Sustainable Food Choices?
16th October 2012
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Happy Birthday Single Market!
Yesterday, a friend here in Sweden ordered a pram on-line. The best price was from a French company. The site (albeit in French only) helpfully gave a price for delivery to Sweden. But it proved impossible to register as a customer outside France. She put “Sweden” in the comment box and pressed send. And the […]
16th October 2012 Budapest, Hungary
Wedding planners
The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, visited us on 4 October. He was here for a short time – just 5 working hours. But he was able in that time to open the Budapest Cyber Conference, have meetings with PM Orban and Foreign Minister Martonyi, and do a TV interview and a press conference. An impressive […]
16th October 2012
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
48 hours in Istanbul
It’s after midnight on a Friday and I’m waiting at Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport to meet FCO Europe Minister David Lidington off a late flight from London. The airport is packed with people as passengers pour into a city which for over 2,000 years has been a crossroads between Europe and Asia. One of the first […]
16th October 2012 New Delhi, India
Inspiring women in science
Today is Ada Lovelace day. If you’re wondering who Ada Lovelace is, she was a pioneering computer programmer and contemporary of (the potentially better known) Charles Babbage. As Suw Charman-Anderson and Helen Arney write on the Guardian’s science blogs, today is a chance to celebrate the “unsung heroines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)” and so […]
16th October 2012
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Supporting business back home
SME exporters in Leeds, big corporates in Canary Wharf, Australian inward investors in Manchester. I’ve spent a busy few days supporting the UK economy, which is the top priority for our overseas network. At an export seminar in Leeds hosted by the big international law firm DLA Piper, I spoke about the many export opportunities […]
15th October 2012
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Arriving in the Falkland Islands
May I welcome our guest blogger for this week: Bruce Callow, Communications Officer at the British Embassy in Costa Rica, who along with Edward Smith, Political Officer at the British Embassy in Guatemala, are in the Falkland Islands with a group Central American journalists (including Luis Velasquez of Guatemala’s Prensa Libre) where they have traveled […]
15th October 2012 London, UK
20 years of the Single Market
This week, we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Single Market, and it is a good moment to look back at how our relationship with Europe has changed over that time. Since 1992, the UK’s trade with EU member states has more than trebled. Currently, 3.5 million jobs – 11% of the UK’s workforce – […]
15th October 2012 Windhoek, Namibia
British support to vulnerable children in Caprivi
I am up in Caprivi this week – the thin finger of land in Namibia’s extreme north east that points into the heart of southern Africa and marks the coming together of Namibia, Zambia, Botswana, Angola and Zimbabwe in a tight bunch of border posts. My visit has proven a fantastic learning experience and given […]
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15th October 2012
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
“The Power of We”
In the past few years, the social media have revolutionized communication. They have opened doors for many ordinary citizens, giving them an informal platform from which to voice their concerns, thoughts and views. They have transformed the public from being passive receivers of news to an audience that can determine what is important to them. […]
15th October 2012
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
The Power of We
One of the great opportunities for an Ambassador to the Holy See is the access the role gives to the wider Holy See and Catholic networks. Some of these are integral to the outreach of the Holy See (such as the network of Apostolic Nuncios – Papal Ambassadors – managing relationships with 179 countries around […]