25th September 2012 London, UK
Brand new bed linen from one of the department stores for which London’s Oxford Street is famous. Unwrapping the layers of packaging I noticed the label: made in Pakistan. I wondered if it had come from the factory whose owner I had met in Lahore, where we discussed everything from electricity shortages, to labour law […]
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13th October 2011
This week, for almost the first time since I arrived in Ukraine in June 2008, Ukraine has been the number one item on the BBC World News website and in other media around the world. Friends have been getting in touch to ask me what’s going on, and where Ukraine is going. It’s an important […]
14th August 2011
My day at the Sziget Festival started with participating in a press conference together with the Deputy Police Chief of Budapest. Our two British police officers, together with Netherlands, German and Polish counterparts, were present. I spoke about our long-standing bilateral police cooperation, going back to the early 1990’s. There was media interest in what […]
13th August 2011
The Sziget Festival crowd are starting to look tired after several days here, but by tonight the adrenalin rush will have them partying again. On the Main stage today are Hadouken!, Kate Nash and the Kaiser Chiefs (we won’t worry about the non-British bands). While tomorrow we look forward to white Lies and some traditional […]
21st March 2011
59 years in jail, reduced to 35 years, for satire? It sounds like a bad joke. But this is the sentence handed down by the regime in Burma in 2008 to popular comedian Maung Thura, better known as Zarganar. And his case is a good example of why the international community continues to call on […]
26th November 2010
Science fiction has a fine record of guessing the future; but no-one saw the Internet coming. Honourable mention should be made of the excellent works of William Gibson, credited with inventing the term cyberspace. Gibson’s 1984 novel Neuromancer, which includes references to something called the Matrix, made a big impression on me. So did the […]
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15th November 2010
I often host events in Kyiv highlighting and promoting the growing number of young Ukrainians who are obtaining top quality academic degrees through studying in UK universities or through distance programmes, including MBAs which are delivered through UK-Ukrainian partnerships. But we recently hosted a British Council event designed to promote the equally important area of […]
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