3rd February 2011
Where is the world’s leading centre in dispute settlement? In other words, where do you go if you want to resolve a commercial dispute and need top-quality advice from the world’s leading experts? The answer, of course, is London. So I’m delighted to attend a seminar at the Big Conference Hall of the Academy of […]
2nd February 2011
Kyiv is no stranger to celebrities. But in the course of my posting in Kyiv, two of those I have most enjoyed meeting have been the lead actors in the most recent James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, Daniel Craig from the UK and Olga Kyrilenko, from Ukraine. So I am delighted to attend the […]
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26th January 2011
252 years after the birth of Robert Burns – voted in a 2009 poll the greatest Scot of all time – I attend two very different events on a snowy Kyiv evening to mark Burns night. At the Gergel School in Pechersk, dozens of children of all ages in tartan-themed best clothes are celebrating in […]
24th January 2011
Which is the country which is most free in the CIS? Can we say confidently that it is Ukraine? Or how about a new pretender to that crown – Moldova? There are many ways to measure freedom, some more objective than others. As I noted in a recent blog on human rights, one can often […]
21st January 2011
In a recent blog on human rights in Ukraine I noted that the British embassy in Kyiv had supported projects to help a number of different constituent elements of the Ukrainian legal system including the Constitutional Court. So I was delighted to have a chance recently to visit the Constitutional Court, and to meet the […]
20th January 2011
A guest blog from John Foreman, Defence Attache, British Embassy 19 January is Epiphany, an ancient Christian feast day which, in the Orthodox tradition, celebrates the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist in the River Jordan. The people of Ukraine, as elsewhere in the region, celebrate this event by jumping into the cold waters […]
19th January 2011
Promoting British business in Ukraine is one of the top priorities of our embassy in Kyiv. We are regularly in contact with companies and government on every aspect of business activity, from advising companies who are considering starting up in Ukraine, through engaging with the government on specific issues, to lobbying on how to improve […]
17th January 2011
In a week where The Social Network, the film about the creation of the Facebook website, has been dominating the Golden Globe awards in the US, it’s great to see politicians uniting to reinforce the freedom of information in Ukraine. On 13 January the Rada adopted two important laws on access to public information. The […]
12th January 2011
In what world ranking of democracy does Ukraine score three of the top eight places? As part of its end-year summary of the events of 2010, the respected British newspaper The Guardian recently published a picture gallery entitled “The Year in Parliamentary Punch-Ups“. The piece features pictures from Italy, Turkey, Nigeria, Taiwan, Argentina and Ukraine. […]
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17th December 2010
When the Lord Mayor of London visited Kyiv in September 2009 he drew attention to the immense expertise of British financial institutions in developing Public Private Partnership or PPP. This is an arrangement where a private organisation assumes the risk of financing and building anything from a bridge to a hospital on the basis of […]