26th January 2016 Havana, Cuba
Health services everywhere are under pressure, so perhaps there are lessons to be learned from Cuba, where, to quote Cubans, “We are a poor people but we die of rich people’s diseases.” British medical students have an opportunity to see for themselves during their ‘elective period’ – a few weeks when they can study where […]
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4th June 2015 Havana, Cuba
This is the third in a series of blogs by Cubans who received Chevening scholarships and have studied or are studying in the UK. This week, Carlos Rangel Irola writes about his experiences, studying an MSc in Finance and Banking at the University of Essex in Colchester. Thanks to Carlos for this great blog! Don’t expect this story to […]
27th February 2015 Beirut, Lebanon
I spend a lot of time in universities, talking with students about their hopes for the region and their perceptions of the UK. Lebanon has always been a good place to listen to the currents surging through the Middle East. These sessions are always lively, surprising, challenging. It is foolish to try to generalise about […]
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11th March 2014 Havana, Cuba
I spent much of last week in Isla de la Juventud, one of the many hundreds of islands that make up Cuba. It’s called Juventud because thousands of youths – Cuban and foreign – studied there in boarding schools in the 1980s. Out of the 100 schools that were planned to be built sixty-two were […]
17th January 2014 Beirut, Lebanon
One of the great frustrations of diplomacy is that results are hard to quantify. If, for example, a new government is at last formed in Lebanon, we will be hard pressed to say to what extent our encouragement, the hours on the road, in planes and in meetings, contributed. So when a project with direct, […]
20th December 2013 Brasilia, Brazil
The British Diplomatic Mission has one of the highest number of interns among other missions in Brazil. The partnership with Brazilian higher education institutions started in 2006. Currently there are 36 interns working in our different posts across the country. This is one of the best internship programmes available in the field of International Relations, my area […]
16th December 2013 Havana, Cuba
I’m very grateful to Aimée Gonzalez for this excellent guest blog. Aimée is Cuban and currently studying at the London School of Economics (the LSE) in the UK under the Chevening scholarship scheme. Two months have already passed by… and I’m still dazzled and struggling to keep pace with the vigorous current of London’s life. Instead […]
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12th November 2013 Brasilia, Brazil
What makes a young person want to pursue International Relations(IR) studies? Enter factors such as personal preferences, labour market, interest in the subject, among others. In Brazil, whatever the main reason is one thing we know for sure, it is clearly working. In times of globalizations and complex interdependence, talking about international relations sounds very […]
13th August 2013 Havana, Cuba
I met the Ambassador of the Solomon Islands a few weeks ago. The Solomons (Honiara is the capital) are in the Pacific Ocean over 13,000 km from Cuba and they only have a few embassies around the world so you might wonder why they have recently opened one in Havana. The Ambassador, Simeon Bouro, explained to […]
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1st March 2013 Beirut, Lebanon
Yesterday was our ‘Education, Education, Education’ Day. I met the prizewinners of our competition for English teachers, including an inspirational administrator from Nahr el Bared Palestinian refugee camp, whose winning lesson plan was based on fish and chips. She is helping even those living in extreme desperation to enjoy and unlock English. But the day […]
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