17th May 2024
Reflections on IDAHOBIT: International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia
Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs
A unique insight into UK foreign and development policy
13th May 2024
Value with Values: UK Commitment to Climate Partnership
25th April 2024
Reflect & Remember: Anzac Day 2024
27th June 2012
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Rediscovering Jordan
This week the British airline easyJet named one of their aircraft “Petra 200” commemorating the time 200 years ago when the first Western tourist, Burckhart visited Petra. easyJet have given very few of their 204 planes names, so this was a rare event. It was also an event of great significance. easyJet is the biggest airline […]
27th June 2012
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Australia looks forward to a great Olympics in one month’s time
Over the last few weeks I’ve attended Olympic send-off ceremonies in all the major states, culminating with the national event – the Prime Minister’s Olympic Dinner– in Melbourne on 23 June. They have been a fantastic showcase for the UK, as well as a demonstration of the Olympic enthusiasm in this sports mad country. The […]
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27th June 2012 New Delhi, India
Wonders of crop sciences – a whirlwind tour of the UK with some icing in Kew
In the company of some of the India’s top crop scientists, I got an opportunity to interact with their counterparts as well as visit the UK’s best agricultural/plant research institutes last month.
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26th June 2012 Athens, Greece
British presence at Posidonia 2012 – Reaffirming close links in shipping
First week of June 2012 and the international shipping community turned its attention to Greece for Posidonia, the largest international gathering in the shipping calendar. It is a high profile bi-annual shipping exhibition/conference with exhibitors from over 85 countries and about 18,000 visitors. This can be easily understood, as Posidonia is a reflection of the […]
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25th June 2012 Lima, Peru
Going Green is GREAT
By Ben Rawlings, Head of Economic Development and Climate Change 20 years after the Earth Summit brought the world together to rethink economic growth and strengthen environmental protection, the world returned to Rio de Janeiro last week to see how far we have come. In some ways, the answer is ‘not far enough’: climate change […]
25th June 2012 Washington DC, USA
An Enigma, an apology, and a hardcore commuter
In my last job, colleagues – even my lovely former boss, the now famous Lord Justice Leveson would occasionally raise an eyebrow as I arrived with hair askew and rosy cheeks from cycling between meetings. Alas in DC, working at the top of a really fairly significant hill, I’ve reluctantly relinquished my addiction to the […]
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25th June 2012
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
World Refugee Day
20 June was World Refugee Day. I spent it with fellow Ambassadors, government officials, colleagues from international organisations, NGOs and religious leaders at Maiaini Refugee Camp in Tigray Region – a trip organised by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Ethiopian Government’s refugee agency ARRA. The camp is home to about 15,000 […]
25th June 2012
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
An honour for a Good Guy
There was at least one Ethiopian-related award in the recent Queen’s Birthday Honours list this year. Lieutenant Colonel Guy Levene received an OBE (in other words he was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire) for his work here in Addis Ababa over the past two years. Guy was the first international […]
25th June 2012
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Blood and opium in Tasmania
Nestling amidst the verdant farmlands of northern Tasmania, I saw British companies engaged in fascinating high tech businesses linked to agriculture. Around half the world’s legitimate opiates are produced in Tasmania, half of them by UK pharma giant GSK. They process poppies grown by some 400 farms around the island, which go on to become […]
25th June 2012
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Ecumenism in action: Westminster Abbey in Rome
I was discussing ecumenism recently with a senior official of the Holy See. We agreed that while there is ongoing much useful discussion between representatives of different denominations – inter-Christian ecumenical dialogue has been one of the great fruits of the Second Vatican Council – there needed to be more “doing together” as well as […]
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