23rd January 2014 Havana, Cuba
Next week the CELAC Summit will be held in Havana and the Cuban government will be in charge of finalising the language in the Summit declarations. Inevitably there will be one on the Falkland Islands and I suspect it will ignore the referendum held on the Islands last year when 99.8% voted in favour of […]
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16th January 2014 Washington DC, USA
Ever drive onto the Beltway outside Washington DC, or the equivalent in your home town, during rush-hour and wish there were a couple more lanes available? The residents of Nay Pyi Taw, Burma, probably don’t share your concerns. The tiny handful of in-bound motorists has TEN lanes to choose from – as do their out-bound […]
30th December 2013 Havana, Cuba
In July 2011 in a ‘Declaration on Bilateral Co-operation’ the British and Cuban governments agreed that human rights are a ‘priority for co-operation’. Both countries have recently been elected by the UN General Assembly to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) for a three year term beginning on 1 January 2014. The HRC is the […]
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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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16th December 2013 Washington DC, USA
Washington truly epitomises the holiday spirit. It’s my first holiday season here, and I’m seeing firsthand the spirit of giving across the city. Bell-ringers collecting for the homeless. Toy drives in offices all across town, including our own. Washingtonians’ generosity is making an impact from local neighbourhoods to the far side of the globe. This […]
10th December 2013
It is 63 years today since the UN General Assembly established 10 December as Human Rights Day, to draw attention to The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And 20 years since the United Nations Human Rights Office was established. This year Human Rights Day is marked by the theme of “20 YEARS: WORKING FOR YOUR […]
10th December 2013 Mogadishu, Somalia
Today marks International Human Rights Day. The UN General Assembly proclaimed 10 December as Human Rights Day in 1950, to bring attention to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations. This is something we continue to wholeheartedly endorse, and strive to achieve. Today is […]
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9th December 2013 Paris, France
France has taken the decision to increase its force levels in the Central African Republic to deal with the awful outbreak of killing between the communities there. Personally I have had a lot of experience over the years of dealing with this kind of chaos and violence, I think of the Balkans for example.
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29th November 2013 Ottawa, Canada
Last week we had the pleasure of welcoming Dr. Andrée Carter, Director of the UK Collaboration for Development Science (UKCDS) to Canada. She came at our invitation, to participate in a panel entitled: The world in 2020: Three questions for internationalised science, at the Canadian Science Policy Conference (CSPC), held in Toronto. She preceded her visit with a short […]
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25th November 2013 Chennai, India
It feels as if it’s been a month of anniversaries, some happy, some sad. On the positive side, we celebrated the Prince of Wales’ 65th birthday in Kerala – a date which, as he said, he proudly shares with Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru. On Friday, I was asked to open the 2013 Cultural Festival for the […]
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