3rd December 2024
RENEWING OLD TIES: THE NEW BISHOP OF LONDON
Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs
A unique insight into UK foreign and development policy
25th November 2024
The climate crisis and gender-based violence
8th November 2024
Ecolabels: A Catalyst for Sustainable Food Choices?
3rd May 2018
South African wildlife photographer on saving Africa’s rhinos
Remember that heart-wrenching picture that flashed round the world last year of the poached rhino with its horn roughly sawn off by the waterhole against South Africa’s grey skies?
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3rd May 2018 London, UK
You’re not entitled to your own facts
Pat Moynihan famously said, ‘everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.’ Those words have never been more poignant. We’re living through an era where disinformation increasingly cascades through our newsfeeds and across our airwaves. The concept of truth, a fundamental building block for developing consensus and shared understanding is under […]
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3rd May 2018 Vienna, Austria
#ViennaMemories #7: the “Robox” blotter
If you watch period dramas such as “The Crown”, where characters write letters with fountain pens, you may see on desks a lozenge-shaped or a semi-circular blotter. Their purpose was to absorb excess ink, particularly from signatures, so that it would not smudge if the paper came into contact with something else. I like fountain […]
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2nd May 2018 Morocco, Rabat
A Moroccan Road-Trip
Behind us the mayhem of bucking and rearing horses and their falling riders continued unabated – the wind kicking up their tempers as easily as it picked up the fine dust of the Sahara. In front of us, Leah and her team slowly rode into the swirl of the sand-storm. Until, like half-imagined phantoms, they […]
30th April 2018 Science and Innovation Network
The Lancaster China Catalyst Programme – Fuelling innovation and learning in China
Over the last four years, the Lancaster China Catalyst Programme (LCCP) has been working with SMEs from the UK to establish collaborative research and innovation partnerships with Chinese companies in the Guangzhou area on projects related to the Environment, IT and Engineering. The Programme was established by Lancaster University in response to national interests […]
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20th April 2018 Gaborone, Botswana
Ending wildlife crime across the Commonwealth
In this part of the world, elephants can wander through three different Commonwealth countries before lunch. Their routes are ancient, learned from generations of ancestors, and even a physical border like a river is no challenge to them.
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19th April 2018 London, UK
British Ambassador’s speech at the Queen’s Birthday Party in Abu Dhabi
Your Highnesses, Your Excellencies, Ladies & Gentlemen Welcome! And thank you for joining this celebration. Your Highness, Sheikh Nahayan Mubarak Al Nahayan, Minister for Tolerance, it is a great honour that you are here with us again this year. And the honour is all the greater because this is your fourth visit to this garden […]
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18th April 2018 Shanghai
Launch of UK-China Antimicrobial resistance competition
I heard some worrying news about gonorrhoea recently. Thankfully this wasn’t a personal diagnosis, but I read in the press that a British man has been the first to be diagnosed with a new strain of ‘super-gonorrhoea’. This strain is so far resistant to all antibiotics usually used to treat the disease. This case illustrates […]
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17th April 2018
Does Russia support the rules based international system at all?
Modern chemical weapons were first deployed in the First World War. It took the international community 80 years to agree international rules for restraining their use. Within 21 years, 95% of chemical weapons stockpiles had been destroyed. This was an astonishing, global achievement and the OPCW was rightly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013. […]
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17th April 2018 Canberra, Australia
The Commonwealth: Passing the baton
This month is all about the Commonwealth. We are on the cusp between the end of the (fantastic) Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, and the start of the Commonwealth Summit (also known as CHOGM – Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting) on 16-20 April, when the baton will be handed, metaphorically, to the UK as […]