14th June 2019 Brazil
Recently, I visited refugee camps on the Brazil-Venezuela border, talking to those who have escaped Venezuela. The main crossing point is a small Brazilian town called Pacaraima, at the very northern-most tip of the country, in the smallest, poorest Brazilian state of Roraima. A city of 12,000 inhabitants receives between 500 to 1,000 migrants a […]
10th July 2018 Geneva, Switzerland
There’s little point writing about anything not related to football at the moment and I wouldn’t expect anyone to give it much attention if I did. By a happy coincidence, plenty of the countries who qualified for the World Cup finals were busy at the Human Rights Council too. I’m happy to report that we […]
25th November 2016 London, UK
Oil & Gas has been one of the pillars for Brazilian economic growth over the last decade. The continued discovery and development of reservoirs has been providing opportunities for specialist suppliers around the world – including British companies. Petrobras, one of the world´s biggest energy companies, still plans to invest $98.4bn between and 2019 – […]
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17th August 2016 Skopje, North Macedonia
For me, most of August and September will be one massive nostalgia trip. Seven years ago I packed my bags and left the Foreign Office to join the team organising London 2012. I spent three years there on secondment as Head of International Relations. And then from July to September we put on the best […]
27th April 2016 London, UK
Today we mark 100 days to the start of the 2016 Olympics games in Rio. It’s also the first of a series of blogs which I and colleagues will write as we prepare for the Games. To celebrate the milestone, we have created a video with some Olympic and Paralympic stars, providing British nationals travelling […]
31st August 2015 Bangalore, India
Declining water quality is a global issue. At a time when the global population is growing and industrial and agricultural activities grow, plus the impact of climate change, clean water is become scarcer globally. While this is not new phenomena, I was amazed at the innovations that are being developed by researchers in UK, India, […]
30th March 2015 Geneva, Switzerland
Council sessions take a heavy toll on all things that are close to us. Our partners, our children and our pets all suffer from weeks of neglect. So do our bags. Any object unfortunate enough to go into my rucksack during Council time will undergo a period of inanimate purgatory as draft resolutions, cereal bars, […]
27th June 2014 Houston, USA
I will start off by saying that I am obsessed with the World Cup. OBSESSED. Every four years, nothing matters more than making sure I am able to watch important World Cup matches. I grew up watching the tournament back when most Americans had no clue that it existed. My family emigrated from Mexico to […]
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22nd July 2013
Denver, Manila, Paris, Buenos Aires, Madrid, Sydney, Czestochowa, Toronto, Cologne, Rome, Santiago de Compostela. What unites all these cities is the experience of hosting World Youth Day (WYD, GMG, JMJ), one of the most spectacular global events in the Christian calendar. Inaugurated by Pope John Paul II in 1985, this sometimes biennial, sometimes triennial festival […]
12th December 2012 Washington DC, USA
As the American daughter of a Northern Irishwoman working at the British Embassy, I didn’t find it easy to decide whom to cheer for during the London Olympics and Paralympics. But I had no difficulty in cheering on the Games themselves. I started working at the Embassy in July, weeks before the exciting London 2012 […]