21st May 2013 Washington DC, USA
What took place on Friday 17th May, had over 12,000 participants, seventy pit stops, offered free t-shirts and goody bags along the way as well as ‘commuter convoys”, yet was totally free? Answer: ‘Bike-to-Work Day’, Washington DC style. Embracing the life style on offer on the east coast of the USA, many staff from the […]
30th April 2013 Washington DC, USA
Welcome to Miami! There aren’t many other US cities I could see myself living in. I was fortunate to land my job here in DC, New York would have been great – in my twenties, Chicago and Boston are too cold for me and although I love the West Coast, it feels very far from […]
30th April 2013 Washington DC, USA
Last week I went to Columbus to talk to representatives of the 50,000 or so Somali diaspora community living in Ohio. It was hosted at a community learning centre set up to help Somali youths succeed in school. It seems to be working as I was told growing numbers are going to university. I set […]
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2nd April 2013 Washington DC, USA
On March 12, British living legend David Bowie released his first new album in almost ten years – “The Next Day”. The record has been met with a tremendous reception, both critically and commercially. Q Magazine crowned its release with a gold plated five star review. It entered the UK album chart at the number […]
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27th March 2013 Seattle, USA
When I was growing up in Canterbury, Kent, a house in our street had the name plate “Dunroamin” hung up on the outside wall. I was only about 8 years old, and hadn’t come across the term before. I thought it was a place in Ireland. But of course it means a state of mind […]
22nd March 2013 Washington DC, USA
In land far, far away, a community of people sent an emphatic message to the rest of the world, definitively declaring their political status for the first time in history. “YES!” screamed from social media feeds on Monday 11 March, where the Falkland Islands announced their wish to retain their status as a British Overseas […]
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19th March 2013 USA
On 6 March, the Washington DC weather forecasters were calling for a large snowstorm, duly named the “snowquester”, due to the unfortunate timing coming immediately after sequestration took hold on federal budgets. Unfortunately for my colleague from Atlanta and me, our long-awaited workshop on manufacturing innovation was set to take place the same day. As […]
13th March 2013 Washington DC, USA
My Ambassador had an op-ed in op-ed in USA Today last week on the case for the EU and the US striking a free trade deal. I thought I would develop some of the economic arguments underpinning the strong case he made. Economists often propound the benefits of free trade in terms of numbers, sometimes […]
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8th March 2013 Washington DC, USA
In the United States this weekend, the clocks will go forward one hour. At precisely 1.59:59 on Sunday, our clocks will wind forward a whole hour to 3am. We will have leapt forward into spring as the saying goes and observe Daylight Savings Time (DST). The mornings will become darker and the evenings lighter. In […]
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8th March 2013 Atlanta, USA
These are the words of a rape survivor from the Bosnian conflict, quoted by Haja Zainab Hawa Bangura, the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) on Sexual Violence in Conflict at a recent meeting in London Bangura spoke about the horrific reality of war for women and girls, where war has been waged not just […]
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