Global conversations
Earlier this month the Foreign and Commonwealth Office published its annual Human Rights and Democracy report, which details the UK’s efforts to promote Human Rights during 2012. Necessarily it covers very broad territory: there is work in the UN, the forum in which the UK seeks to promote a coordinated response from the international community to human rights violations. There is a section on the UK’s Human Rights and Democracy Programme that … Read more »Human Rights: Believing in Progress
On the day of the funeral of Lady Thatcher, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, it seems that respectful calm was the prevailing emotion. The predicted mass demonstrations never materialised and a large and diverse crowd at some points broke into spontaneous applause on seeing the coffin pass. So, now that the issue of potential mass protests is out of the way, the far bigger question of her legacy … Read more »Margaret Thatcher, 1925 – 2013
With International Women’s Day coming up on 8 March I’m delighted to host a guest post on my blog about some of the women that work in the Foreign Office and about the globally recognised work of the Forced Marriage Unit. Sophie Wright is a case worker in the Forced Marriage Unit, she helps provide support for people at risk of forced marriage, many of whom are women and girls. … Read more »FCO Women’s stories – fighting forced marriage
On 23 January Prime Minister David Cameron gave a speech on the future of the European Union and the UK’s role within it. You can find the text of the speech on the Number10.gov.uk website, so I won’t repeat it here. But the main points are worth reiterating. The PM’s speech is a very clear commitment to keeping the UK in the EU, at the heart of the Single Market, … Read more »The Future of the EU and the UK’s role within it
Open the newspapers on any day in Trinidad and Tobago and you search in vain for reasons to be cheerful. Between the accounts of murder, politicians accusing others of murder, politicians accusing others of getting away with murder and politicians merely accusing one another of dishonesty, corruption and a lack of patriotism, the news can be a little tiring. So how about a good news story? Last week was Global … Read more »Reasons to be cheerful
Over the past two weeks I was asked a few times what I would write on this blog about Trinidad and Tobago’s achievement of fifty years of independence. The answer is: nothing at all. Of course, I joined in the celebrations (we even decorated our High Commission building) and during various events and ceremonies I took the opportunity to congratulate His Excellency President George Maxwell Richards as well as members … Read more »Not an Independence blog
Keshorn Walcott’s golden moment, that throw that secured him an Olympic gold medal for javelin, sticks in the mind of everyone who’s seen it (take a look on YouTube if you’ve somehow missed it). The lolloping run-up, a huge burst of strength as he throws the javelin and then the young man leans back on his heels, almost as if he can’t believe what he’s done. Some of the coverage of Keshorn’s javelin victory … Read more »The Toco Connection
In Bolivia last week President Evo Morales approved a Citizen Security Law which committed to a new sytem of community policing across the country. This new model, developed with assistance from the Police Service of Northern Ireland, brings civil society together with the police force so that problems of crime are addressed jointly. In many cases the solutions are simple: such as community groups working alongside police to identify scenarios … Read more »Policing – the global approach
The desecration of historic shrines in the fabled desert city of Timbuktu in Mali has caused outrage across the world, sparking memories of the Taliban’s vandalistic destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan in March 2001. In both cases, the destruction of precious cultural heritage has caused the world to sit up and take action. But should we care more about cultural heritage than human suffering? Mali, like Afghanistan, is one … Read more »From Turtles to Timbuktu
When is a “colonial enclave” in fact a free territory, able to decide its own future? When it can, entirely of its own initiative, hold a referendum with international observers as a way of showing the world that it knows its own mind. This is not a riddle, or an obscure lesson in International Relations theory, but the brave and principled action of a small, geographically isolated and determined community, … Read more »A colonial enclave or a free people?