10th October 2013 Brasilia, Brazil
One of the first slang expressions I learnt in Portuguese was abacaxi (pineapple in English) used to describe a difficult issue. Iran’s relations with the international community could be described as an abacaxi. But are we at a moment of change in those relations with the arrival of President Rouhani? Since 2005, I have been […]
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23rd May 2013 Paris, France
We’ve just had David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, in Paris for his first visit here to President Hollande since his election. They travelled down together from the European Council in the same train, and they were able to have a bilateral meeting as they were travelling.
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15th May 2013
What is it that leading British Sikhs, Jews, Hindus, Roman Catholics, Copts, Buddhists, Presbyterians and Muslims have in common? Too often, we hear about the differences between faiths. But this week we saw an extraordinary coming together for a great cause. On 14 May, Foreign Office Minister Alastair Burt received in person an open letter […]
28th December 2012 London, UK
For anyone who enjoys sitting down over the holidays and reading the newspapers, Christmas and New Year are open season for lists. And in 2012, there’s been a lot to talk about. We’ve seen colleagues from across Government emerging bleary-eyed from late-night negotiations in Brussels having won around new allies to our point of view, […]
10th October 2012 Beirut, Lebanon
Eisenhower said that if you can’t fix a problem, you should make it bigger. Lebanon is trying to fix a big problem – preventing the violence from Syria tipping it into instability. So far, it is doing well, and as I’ve argued, should not be fatalist about external factors (mindsoupblog). But for a country that […]
19th March 2012 Geneva, Switzerland
It’s been a strange week. Even during the frenzied latter stages of a Human Rights Council session you expect the UN to be a courteous place. Anything less than model behaviour would feel out of place in an organisation devoted to peace and harmony and based in a country whose last outbreak of anything resembling […]
30th September 2010
No, Bolivian readers, I am not commenting on the new Law against Racism. The debate around that law does indeed show just how sensitive is the issue of freedom of expression, and how careful legislators must be when drafting laws that might impact upon what is a critical tenet of democracy. Instead, I want to […]
30th September 2010 London, UK
Hossein Derakhshan, an Iranian blogger, has been sentenced to 19 and a half years in prison, banned from political and journalistic activities for a further 5 years, and fined €30,000 for exercising his right to express his opinions. The image of Hossein used in the video was sourced from Wikipedia and is being reproduced here […]
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