DIPLO Blog

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 31st October 2019 Vienna, Austria The Government Art Collection in Vienna The Duke of Wellington stares across the room towards a distant Queen Victoria, while Emperor Franz Josef – sash, ‘tache and all – observes impassively. Not the plot of a historical novel, but the paintings in the dining room at the ambassador’s residence in Vienna. Works from the Government Art Collection (GAC) are displayed in UK Government buildings in nearly every capital city, making it the most dispersed collection of British art in the world. The Collection promotes British art and plays a key role in British cultural diplomacy, delivering an expression of Britain’s culture and its values. Nowhere is this more relevant than in Vienna, a city where appreciation of art and culture flows through everyday life; and where our continuing ..

Skip to content Matt Field British Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina 31st October 2019 Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina Mostar deserves better The British Embassy recently moved its whole operation down to Mostar for a day. In addition to many other activities across the city, we set up a ‘pop-up’ reception in front of the Mepas Mall. This gave the chance for different teams to explain our work – defence cooperation, education, projects, scholarships, consular support, political work, and commercial – to people as they stopped by. Just as importantly, it gave us the chance to ask the citizens of Mostar about their priorities for themselves and the city, the kinds of things that they would like to see change. This is a question we as an Embassy have been asking ourselves and others since I arrived, to try to make sure that our priorities and assistance programmes properly match with the change people in this country want to see. The citizens of BiH are the best judges of how to imp..

Skip to content Paul Brummell Head of Soft Power and External Affairs Department, Communication Directorate 30th October 2019 London,UK MIND YOUR LANGUAGE The Indigenous Peoples’ Memorial is one of the many striking buildings in the Brazilian capital designed by the prolific modernist architect Oscar Niemeyer. Built in a spiral-shaped design around a central courtyard it was apparently inspired by a Yanomami house. In truth, the building is looking a little the worse for wear. The permanent collection was closed when I visited while on holiday in August, but it was still a worthwhile visit, thanks to a display in that central courtyard, installed to commemorate the UN designation of 2019 as the International Year of Indigenous Languages. Entitled “the Forest of Indigenous Languages”, from the sand-covered courtyard sprouted many wooden poles, each representing a different indigenous language. The poles were of varying heights, since to a standard-height base had been added an addition..

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 25th October 2019 Vienna, Austria White trees, blue skies and a green plan Have you ever wondered why the trees are painted white in Vienna? To stop cars running into them, protect them from dogs? The special paint protects new bark from the summer sun! Woodland trees don’t require sun cream but the intense environments of our cities means it’s not only humans who need protection from harmful rays. I recently had a wonderful opportunity to meet Austria-based British Tree Surgeon Martin Speariett, whilst he was dangling precariously from a Robinia tree he had been pruning in the Embassy’s garden. He said that increasing the amount of ‘green coverage’ in cities helped regulate temperature and reduce air pollution. More trees meant cleaner air but, in man-made environments, we were responsible for keeping the trees ..

The Oxford Food Symposium has not always held an obvious link to foreign policy, but diplomacy was there at its conception. It was co-founded by a diplomat named Alan Davidson, whose Foreign Office career ended as Ambassador to Laos in the early 1970s. It was while on a posting to Tunisia that Davidson, frustrated at the lack of a decent book on the local seafood, embarked on a parallel career as a food writer, with Seafish of Tunisia and the Central Mediterranean. Food guru Elizabeth David took the book under her wing, or perhaps fin, and it reappeared in expanded form as a Penguin publication with the snappier title Mediterranean Seafood. Following his retirement from the Foreign Office, Davidson spent an academic year at St Anthony’s Oxford in the late 1970s, conducting research on science in the kitchen from an historical perspective..

This is the first chance that I have had to sit and reflect upon my first month in a new home, a new city, and a new role as UK Ambassador to Serbia.

Skip to content Sian MacLeod UK Ambassador to Serbia Part of UK in Serbia 18th October 2019 Belgrade, Serbia First Impressions It’s a beautiful October day as I write. As I sit in my Belgrade garden I see clouds of newly hatched late ladybirds, the first yellow leaves shaken by a mild breeze, warm weak sunshine and distant haze. Around me the hum of urban life is punctuated by hammering and bursts of drilling from nearby building sites. This is the first chance that I have had to sit and reflect upon my first month in a new home, a new city, and a new role as UK Ambassador to Serbia. I have travelled widely as a diplomat for over thirty years, but my first visit to Belgrade was as a music student crossing Europe by train sleeping in stations, on beaches, with an old rucksack and a very small tent on my back. I remember the fields of sunflowers, the buses and the cobble stones of Skadarlija. This summer I set out again by train from my home corner of rural England, heading for a region..

18 Oct 2019 — DFAT Working together is key to strengthening resilience across the Asia-Pacific This year’s International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, or “DRR Day”, is a time to reflect on how risk-informed development can minimise the impacts of natural hazards on our communities. Urbanisation and climate change mean that disaster risk reduction is more important than ever. To solve these complex problems we need coordinated and clever solutions. It’s a challenge most Australians are all too familiar with. It’s also something our neighbours across the region are grappling with. Australia sits in the centre of the Asia-Pacific, the world’s most disaster-exposed region. A person living in the Asia-Pacific is almost twice as likely to be affected by a disaster as a person living in Africa. We share common issues and challenges with our Asia-Pacific partners, especially our range of rural, remote, urban and coastal communities and our increasing exposure to highly vola..

Skip to content Nick Hooper Part of Global Science and Innovation Network UK in USA 18th October 2019 Los Angeles, USA Better than Hal: UK companies applying AI to the space industryIn March, the Science and Innovation Network, DIT, and Innovate UK led a Global Expert Mission to US robotics centers of excellence. The UK-USA Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (RAI) in Extreme Environments delegation spent a week in Los Angeles, San Diego and Houston, meeting with a variety of potential partners in space, oceans and nuclear robotics. Since then, Ahmed Hadid from Hybird Tech has spent the summer in Los Angeles. Find out why…

Skip to content Nerys Jones Deputy Head of Mission, British Embassy Vienna Guest blogger for Leigh Turner Part of UK in Austria 17th October 2019 Vienna, Austria Discovering Austria through Hiking in the Fog “Are you getting out?” “Yes”, I replied. “I’m getting out of the cable car. And the Prime Minister has made clear we will leave the EU on 31 October.“ I never thought I would have to explain British Government policy whilst trying to jump out of a moving cable car. But perhaps it helps. Part of our job as diplomats is to understand, and influence, Austria. That means meeting, and understanding, Austrians. That is why I recently accepted an invitation to join a group of diplomats, politicians and business leaders at the 10th Wirtschaftswanderung (business hike) in Kitzbühel. In its first ten years, the hike has also raised over Euro 200,000 for the ‘Netzwerk Tirol hilft’, a regional charitable organisation that provides immediate emergency support to those in need in Tyrol. Diploma..