19th February 2014 Washington DC, USA
My children are the most delightful people I know. You probably feel the same about your children, your grandchildren, your nieces and nephews. My son is a mix of winning charm and 3 year old defiance. My daughter, who is 9 months, is smiley, chubby and cuddly. My children live in a protective environment: one […]
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, […]
13th January 2014 Paris, France
We’ve just had in Paris a meeting of a group of countries who are trying to help move forward the Syrian problem which William Hague, our Foreign Minister, was here to attend.
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23rd December 2013 Washington DC, USA
This is a joint post by Andrew Preston and Rosanna Kim who work on international development issues at the British Embassy in Washington. We are loving all the different reviews of the past year, with the best and worst from the world of films, books, and music. So we thought it would be fun to […]
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18th December 2013 Paris, France
This Christmas time I’ve been thinking about what was achieved in 2013 and what we have to look forward to in 2014. When I look back at 2013, it was a bumper year for UK-French relations.
21st November 2013 Beirut, Lebanon
Tomorrow I’ll hand a letter from Prime Minister Cameron to President Sleiman, with formal congratulations on Lebanon’s 70th anniversary. The wonderful people at Rag Mag also asked me to write an open letter to mark the day. This is a tough and precarious assignment, and it will annoy or anger some people. But I’ve had […]
8th November 2013
Diplomats represent their country’s interests. Traditionally, this leads to barely veiled competition between embassies accredited to third governments: for access, for influence, for commercial contracts. We will occasionally pull together for a common cause – EU embassies often do so as a matter of course – but generally as ‘coalitions of the willing’ rather than […]
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7th November 2013 Beirut, Lebanon
The UK is working hard on three priorities for Syria: ensure that the world does all it can to alleviate the humanitarian suffering; support efforts to find a political solution that brings the conflict to an end; and prevent Assad from using chemical weapons against his own people. The UK has committed £500 million to […]
24th October 2013 Washington DC, USA
As the deadliest war in history was coming to an end in 1945, the international community began to envision ways to maintain peace and prevent another global conflict. This led to the adoption of UN Charter, the founding document of the United Nations, and the creation of the United Nations 68 years ago today. After […]
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9th October 2013 Beirut, Lebanon
A former British Ambassador here was asked at the end of a radio interview what he would like for Christmas. Thinking it typical Lebanese generosity but not wanting to be too greedy, he gave a modest reply. Listening to the broadcast later, he was shocked to hear several envoys asked the same question. The US […]
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