2nd December 2025
In cybersecurity, there are no limits – only new voices ready to lead
Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs
A unique insight into UK foreign and development policy
14th October 2025
Lost and Found (but mostly lost)
13th October 2025
UK Special Envoy for Women and Girls: September visits to Sarajevo and New York
13th January 2017 Beijing, China
Beijing baby blue
Checking the air quality index is pretty much the first thing I do every morning. It’s funny how life is governed by a (hopefully) double digit number; when it goes into triple digits you’re in trouble. Christmas and New Year were a blur of pollution in our latest ‘airpocalypse’, not helped by the recent arrival […]
11th January 2017 London, UK
Young Brits making a big difference in Tanzania
Rebecca Hastie and Cathryn Tomney volunteered with International Citizen Service in Tanzania. Here they share their experiences of working with communities in Tanzania on education and sanitation projects. 23-year-old Rebecca switched Newcastle for Lindi in south Tanzania, to become part of helping to raise education standards. As part of the Elimu Fursa project (Opportunities in […]
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10th January 2017 Vienna, Austria
Tackling Modern Slavery – in Vienna
A person is transported illegally away from their community to somewhere unfamiliar or foreign. Once there, they are forced to work without any form of contract or proper remuneration. This is modern slavery. It is happening throughout the world, including in Europe, on a large scale. According to the Vienna-based UN Office on Drugs and […]
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9th January 2017 Mumbai, India
Exploring precision medicine at the India-UK Tech Summit
Dr Michael Messenger (Mike), Head of the Leeds Centre for Personalised Medicine and Health, was in India in November 2016. Leeds is one of the leading centres of excellence designated by the UK Precision Medicine Catapult (PMC) and is taking a whole-system city wide approach to bring the benefits of precision medicine and health to its population, […]
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9th January 2017 Tokyo, Japan
Final preparations before heading to Tokyo
After spending much of this year re-learning Japanese, I have been in a whirl of final preparations before heading off Tokyo in January, as Ambassador to Japan. I have been all over the UK, including Scotland and Wales, meeting ministers, officials and Japanese investors. In Cardiff, Japanese Ambassador Tsuruoka and I met the First Minister, […]
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6th January 2017 London, UKIndia
Jamie’s story – Escaping the 9 to 5, to volunteer in India
22 year old Jamie from Merthyr Tydfil, Wales had never considered volunteering before. Then a stay in hospital gave him time to reflect on his life and what he wanted to do. Bored of his 9-5 job, an advert he saw online inspired him to make a change and volunteer overseas. Having worked full time […]
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5th January 2017
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
2016 at the British Embassy Bucharest
January is a time for looking both back and forward, rather like the Roman God Janus. Here’s a personal selection of a dozen of the highlights of a busy and productive 2016 at the British Embassy Bucharest. In January I was in London for the DIT Civil Nuclear Showcase, talking to UK companies in the […]
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5th January 2017 London, UK
Tania’s volunteering story: I thought I’d never be able to do this
22 year old Tania Tuzizila was the 20,000th ICS volunteer to go overseas. Here she talks about her experiences helping on women’s health and human rights in Cambodia. I always wanted to get into charity work, and when I saw the opportunity to do ICS I made sure I went for it. It appealed to me […]
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5th January 2017 Colombo, Sri Lanka
To our very good health
At the start of the new year, many of us make resolutions to live more healthily. So this blog looks at one aspect of the ever expanding relationship between the UK and Sri Lankan medical establishments. This relationship has always been close. The convention that Sri Lankan doctors can only progress to Consultant on completion […]
2nd January 2017 Delhi, India
How do you put a monetary value on a brand?
UK IPO is partnering with leading Indian intellectual property (IP) law firm Anand and Anand to study brand valuation and IP commercialisation in India. The methodology behind putting a value to a brand – in monetary terms – is still in the stages of being studied and understood not just in India, but around the […]
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