Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs

A unique insight into UK foreign and development policy

28th October 2011 New York, USA

Patch Politics and Policy

The last blog I wrote was about the tenth anniversary of 9/11. That seems quite a long time ago. Danny Lopez has written about UN General Assembly week and our many other activities in September. So I wanted to pick up a few themes that don’t get quite as much play in our blogs. Politics.  Under the skin […]

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28th October 2011 New York, USA

The View from Cyberspace

Guest blog by Ben Brierley, Vice Consul – Homeland Security and UN Trade, UK Trade & Investment.Have you ever stopped to think about how much technology has evolved, changing us and the world, over just the past decade? The pace has become more rapid; the technology has become entwined with our lives in ways that […]

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28th October 2011 Nairobi, Kenya

by Matt Baugh

Ambassador to Somalia

Somali Week Festival

This week sees the fifth year of the Somali Week Festival in London, organised by the Kayd Somali Arts and Culture organisation.  The British Office for Somalia is a proud sponsor of this event, which brings together poets, writers and musicians from across Somalia to perform in the UK.  This year’s artists and performers include […]

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28th October 2011

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by Nigel Baker

Ambassador to the Holy See (2011-2016)

Pilgrims of Truth, Pilgrims of Peace

25 years to the day that Pope John Paul II hosted  an unprecedented gathering of world religious leaders in Assisi to pray for world peace, Pope Benedict XVI on 27 October hosted, in the same place, his own “Day of Reflection, Dialogue and Prayer for Peace and Justice in the World”. Again, leaders of the […]

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27th October 2011

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by Leigh Turner

Ambassador to Austria and UK Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other International Organisations in Vienna

Cyberpunks click here

No-one saw the Internet coming.  Now it’s changing the world; the language we speak; and how we live. I recently hosted a lunch for Ukrainian bloggers, who noted how cyberspace had created unprecedented opportunities for people to, amongst other things, share news and views and influence politics.  But the Internet has also brought big challenges, […]

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27th October 2011

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by Greg Dorey

Diplomat

Cyberspace Conference, follow it!

The last decade has seen cyberspace explode from 16 million internet users in 1995 to nearly 2 billion today, more than half in developing countries. This has revolutionised how we live and work. The Internet, with its incredible connective power, is creating vast economic and social opportunities that would have been unimaginable 20 years ago. […]

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26th October 2011 Toronto, Canada

SINfographic: A field guide to UK scientists and engineers

We have another another SIN infographic (SINfographic?) this week, this time about scientists and engineers in the UK. The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills and the Office for National Statistics prepare annual summaries of key science, engineering and technology (SET) indicators, such as R&D expenditure and international comparisons, which can be downloaded from the […]

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25th October 2011

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by Leigh Turner

Ambassador to Austria and UK Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other International Organisations in Vienna

Ukraine-UK Olympic Quiz

Do you know how many times London has hosted the Olympic Games? How many people around the world are going to watch the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Games? Or the name of the Ukrainian athlete who has won the largest number of Olympic medals? (Hint on last question: see my blog “London 2012… and […]

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24th October 2011

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by Leigh Turner

Ambassador to Austria and UK Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other International Organisations in Vienna

What next for Ukraine #2

I was in London last week meeting ministers; experts dealing with Ukraine in a number of government departments; and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Ukraine, made up of members of the House of Commons and House of Lords with a particular interest in this country.  People in the UK are keen to know what is […]

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