Tag: london

12th July 2016 Bangalore, India

Corin Wilson

First Secretary Advanced Engineering, UKTI India

From lamb biryani to Land Rovers

The UK and Make in India – ‘a recipe for success?’ As a young boy in London I grew up watching my father spending almost every Saturday cooking curry in our kitchen. I eagerly watched the clock tick down until dinner-time when I could finally see what my father had made. Little did I know […]

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21st June 2016 Islamabad, Pakistan

M Asif Iqbal

Chevening Officer

How to survive Ramazan

If you are living in the Northern hemisphere, and observing traditional fasting, then this year’s Ramazan is particularly difficult. The difference between the Islamic calendar and the Gregorian calendar means that every year it shifts nine or ten days, and for those fasting, this year it falls slap bang in the middle of the longest […]

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11th May 2016 Vancouver, Canada

Rupert Potter

by Rupert Potter

British Consul General, Vancouver

New Planes and New Opportunities

British Airways A380 lands at Vancouver International Airport.

It defies logic. Every sensible instinct tells me it should be impossible. At almost 73 metres it’s longer than an ice hockey rink, it’s four times the height of my house (and I don’t live in a bungalow) and it carries over 500 passengers (plus luggage). Staring at it through the window of Vancouver International […]

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22nd April 2016

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by Nigel Baker

Ambassador to the Holy See (2011-2016)

Celebrating St George

©Martin Beek, all rights reserved

There are many oddities in English history. One is that our patron saint is St George. It is an ecumenical oddity. His feast day, 23 April, is both a Solemnity in the calendar of the Roman Catholic Church in England, and a ‘Feast’ in the Church of England calendar (and he is a major saint […]

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10th March 2016

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by Nigel Baker

Ambassador to the Holy See (2011-2016)

Archbishop Gallagher in the UK

Last week I accompanied the Holy See Secretary for Relations with States, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, on a visit to the United Kingdom. He came at the invitation of the British government, so inevitably much of his time was taken up in official meetings with a wide range of government ministers. He visited five different Departments […]

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10th February 2016

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by Nigel Baker

Ambassador to the Holy See (2011-2016)

Against Modern Slavery: working with the Holy See

Pope Francis is on record as calling modern slavery “a crime against humanity”. Over 200 years since the British Parliament abolished the transatlantic slave trade and began an international campaign, led by the Royal Navy, to eradicate it, the Home Office estimates that there are around 13,000 potential victims of modern slavery in the UK […]

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8th February 2016 Geneva, Switzerland

by Julian Braithwaite

Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN and other international organisations in Geneva

Solving the Syrian Refugee Crisis

Last week’s conference in London did not solve the Syrian refugee crisis. That requires an end to the conflict.  The suspension of the peace talks in Geneva last week shows we’re not even at the end of the beginning of that process, as Churchill might have said. But London did some important things.  It raised […]

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7th February 2016 London, UK

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by Philip Parham

UK Commonwealth Envoy, former British Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates

International community must act now on Syria

As we approach the fifth anniversary of the civil war in Syria, the most urgent humanitarian catastrophe of our time continues. A quarter of a million lives have been lost. The international community must significantly step up its efforts and act now to support the 18 million people in Syria and neighbouring countries who are […]

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28th January 2016

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by Nigel Baker

Ambassador to the Holy See (2011-2016)

Syria: rejecting indifference

There has been war in Syria throughout Pope Francis’s pontificate. It has been the principal foreign policy concern of the Holy See since his election, and continues to be so. His Holiness has spoken out many times about the need for action to stop the war in Syria, and it is reasonable to suppose that […]

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21st December 2015

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by Nigel Baker

Ambassador to the Holy See (2011-2016)

Remembering Middle-Eastern Christians

As we celebrate Christmas, it is right to think of those Christian families who will find it difficult to enjoy the good cheer that we take for granted at this time. They are those who are being persecuted or discriminated against for their faith, who are refugees because they were forced to flee for their […]

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