DIPLO Blog

Skip to content Rachel Galloway British Ambassador Guest blogger for UK in North Macedonia Part of UK in North Macedonia 15th October 2019 Skopje, North Macedonia Bitola Babam Bitola In pursuing my goal of visiting local cities and exploring local communities, last week my destination was Bitola city. While on the road, I was excited to learn a few words and expressions in the local dialect as I had heard so much about its uniqueness. Fortunately, my first attempts were mostly well received by the local people and the twitter community. My first visit was at “Todor Angelevski” primary school. I was privileged tobe warmly welcomed by the pupils at the school’s entrance and witness their dancing skills. The class work was extremely interesting particularly seeing the youngest children expressing emotions using their coding skills developed as part of our 21st Century Schools project. The main reasons why this month we choose to visit Bitola, was the official opening of the small group ..

Skip to content Stephen Brennan Consul, Science and Innovation, Shanghai Part of Global Science and Innovation Network 14th October 2019 Shanghai, China The Bear and The Catapult OK, now I’ve got your attention I should point out that the headline refers to Sir Michael Bear, former Lord Mayor of London and senior advisor to the Connected Places Catapult. Sir Michael was joined by Connected Places Catapult chief executive Nicola Yates OBE, and 5 UK SMEs on a recent mission to China, which was supported by the Science and Innovation Network (SIN). The theme of the mission was “Connected Places”, which covers “connected” technologies in areas such as transport, infrastructure and sensing. The five companies that took part in the mission all provide innovative products aligned to this theme.” So what types of technology and companies are involved with Connected Places? Below is a brief synopsis of each company and what they do. ELAD Network – ELAD Network is a Blockchain based estate agen..

Skip to content Paul Brummell Head of Soft Power and External Affairs Department, Communication Directorate 13th October 2019 London,UK What is Chevening? It was great to have the opportunity to speak to our 1,750 new Chevening Scholars yesterday at the exuberant event that is Chevening Orientation. This is what I said. What is Chevening? Chevening is a place. It is a large rural mansion house in the English county of Kent, to the south-east of London, built in the early 17th century. The story of how this country house gave its name to the Chevening scholarships programme is closely linked to the history of an English aristocratic family named Stanhope. The title of Earl Stanhope was created in 1718 for James Stanhope, a prominent military commander who then pursued a career as a politician, supporting the Hanoverian Succession and thus the reign of King George I. He became Prime Minister in all but name, and indeed he is sometimes described as Britain’s first Prime Minister, a title..

Skip to content Simon Cleobury UK Deputy Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament 11th October 2019 Geneva, Switzerland UK funded project on integrating conventional arms control with conflict prevention gets started I am delighted to announce that the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) project that I mentioned in my previous blog on integrating conventional arms control into the UN’s conflict prevention and management activities got underway this month. The United Kingdom has provided seed funding to UNIDIR to get the project started. The project will address the continued underuse of conventional arms control treaties and frameworks in preventing, managing and resolving modern conflicts. It will look at ways of better integrating understanding of conventional arms control into United Nations peace making and peacebuilding processes. This will include: Furthering understanding on the connections between conventional arms control and conflict p..

Skip to content Nicholas Hopton Head of UK Embassy to Libya 9th October 2019 Tripoli, Libya A letter to all Libyans By way of introduction, I am Nicholas Hopton the new Chargé d’Affairs at the British Embassy Tripoli. I am delighted to take up this job at such a crucial time. There is a lot of important work to do to improve the situation in your country. The top three things I’m focussing on are: Ending violence. The war in North West Libya is having a devastating impact on ordinary Libyans. It is achieving nothing, just causing death and destruction. Violence elsewhere in the country – in the south and east – is also unacceptable. My team and I will continue to work closely with UNSMIL, supporting their important work. You have gone through a lot and I hope that we can move towards peace.Charting a path to greater stability. People must feel they can trust each other and their state institutions. Stable politics should give people faith that they are getting a say in (but not a veto..

Skip to content Bob Last Deputy Head, UK Mission Political Team 7th October 2019 Geneva, Switzerland Zombie Wonderland Council sessions often drive a temporary wedge between delegates and their families. The heavy hours estrange us from our partners and children and conversations tend to become rushed and reduced to topics of basic functional necessity. So I was slightly thrown when my son wouldn’t let me get out of the door early one morning until I’d given him an answer to a question of pressing urgency: would I rather fight a chicken-sized zombie or a zombie-sized chicken? It was a question that kept coming back to me as we slogged our way through the voting on the final days of the session. By the time we’d hit the third of three heavily sleep-deprived weeks, I felt much more zombie-like than human and, judging by the wild-eyed stares and sallow complexion of most of my colleagues in the Council chamber, I wasn’t alone. Slowly reducing people to an undead resemblance of their form..

Skip to content Leigh Turner Ambassador to Austria and UK Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other International Organisations in Vienna Part of UK in Austria 7th October 2019 Vienna, Austria “Our Planet: Our Business” – what you can do What climate-induced catastrophes might a child born today experience? Such a child might see the disappearance of insects and pollinators. During the child’s lifetime, plant and animal species will be wiped out and crops could fail. This child may watch the coral reefs bleach and die. She or he will wonder why the adults of today could not have done more. What can, and should, businesses be doing right now? The UK was the first G7 country to adopt a legally binding Net Zero emissions target. In 2020 the UK has been nominated to host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference, “COP 26”, which will take an ‘all of society’ approach to action. The UK has doubled its commitment to the Green Climate Fund, pledging £1.44bn for the next period. La..

Skip to content William Janowski SIN Officer, Houston Guest blogger for Rosie Duthie Part of Global Science and Innovation Network UK in USA 7th October 2019 USA World cancer Research Day 2019: UK Encouraging Relationships with US Cancer Research Hotspots Cancer is an international problem, requires international solutions! Glad to hear Houston’s Richard Hyde & CPRIT’s CEO Wayne Roberts talk about the value of UK & TX collaboration on the challenge!World Cancer Research Day 2019: UK Encouraging Relationships with US Cancer Research Hotspots No matter your background, the social and economic impacts of cancer are far-reaching. The chances are that cancer impacts somebody you know or love. In the fight against cancer, cutting-edge research takes place both here in the UK and internationally in the US. Such scientific research promises long-term solutions to global challenges. Revealing how this devastating disease will continue to increase globally over the next 20 years, we will take a..

Skip to content Aidan Liddle UK Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament Part of Conference on Disarmament 4th October 2019 Geneva, Switzerland Disarmament blog: nuclear transparency in action The three principles of disarmament are usually held to be verifiability, irreversibility and transparency. Transparency underpins the other two principles. You can’t tell whether what’s been done is irreversible unless you can verify it; you can’t verify it unless it’s transparent. As such, transparency, often in the shape of reporting by States Parties, is a key obligation of many disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation treaties. Submitting national reports to NPT RevCons is a fairly recent innovation, designed to help States Parties to review how commitments undertaken under the NPT are being implemented. There’s particular interest of course in the reports of the five Nuclear Weapon States, who in 2013 adopted a common framework for their reports to ma..

Skip to content Paul Madden British Ambassador to Japan 4th October 2019 Tokyo, Japan Japan welcomes the Rugby World Cup Well, the Rugby World Cup is underway at last. With four teams to support: England, Scotland, Wales and – together with the Irish Embassy – the all of Ireland team; and 50,000 British fans here, it’s a really busy time for the whole embassy. And following Japan’s historic victory over Ireland, the whole country is going rugby crazy. We put out a lot of useful travel advice for visiting fans on our digital media, as part of the Foreign Office’s Travel Aware guidance. We keep this regularly updated, for example when there were warnings of a typhoon potentially hitting Sapporo, which would have significantly disrupted fans’ travel plans. Fortunately the typhoon veered off. And we’ve used the brilliant London-based Japanese stand-up comedian Yuriko Kotani, to make a series of funny videos about aspects of Japanese culture that visitors should be aware of. For example, J..