5th April 2023 Geneva, Switzerland
I think it’s over. But I’m not entirely sure. Each morning for the last six weeks I’ve been waking up to the grim realisation that the Human Rights Council session was still going and going and going. It went on for so long that I’ve lost track of everything. What day it is, my name, […]
12th October 2022 Geneva, Switzerland
I’ve always had a fond attachment to the number 51. It was my house number growing up in Manchester, as little Robert. My first memory there was my parents bringing my newly-born baby sister home from the hospital. And my mum was born in the year ’51 (as well as some more famous but less […]
30th July 2020 Geneva, Switzerland
These are such strange days. We still don’t know if this will prove to be a painful but relatively short-lived episode of global distress or if we’re in this for the much longer haul. Will we look back on this as a defining moment of international cooperation to overcome one of the greatest health challenges […]
19th March 2020 Geneva, Switzerland
I’ve long had a sense of foredboding about the 43rd session of the Human Rights Council. Those of us who’ve been around these parts longer than most tend to measure our life-spans in the number of Council sessions we’ve racked up, as well as years. I worked out some time ago that session 43 would […]
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16th July 2019 Beijing
I remember learning in history classes how the invention of the steam engine brought the world to the industrialisation of modern civilisation. But to think that I am witnessing another historic age where technologies drive the fourth Industrial Revolution. The fourth IR so far has been about how technologies are changing our lives. If you […]
18th June 2019 Beijing, China
Spring is an important season for farmers as it is a season that they start to sow and hope for a bumper harvest in autumn; it is also the season for agricultural production which helps to maintain the stability of economic development. This spring saw the kick-off of our Newton Fund UK-China Agri-tech Challenges projects. […]
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25th March 2019 Geneva, Switzerland
Last autumn, Pixie – our much loved cat (and subject of a 2015 blog trilogy) – fell seriously ill. After a week in pet hospital, the vets advised that she needed an urgent blood transfusion to survive. Except they didn’t have any cat blood in stock, so they asked if I could round up some […]
17th September 2018 Geneva, Switzerland
Over the summer, I have grown a little bit more intolerant. Not to family holidays, heatwaves or even World Cup exits, but to all things dairy. In many countries, this wouldn’t be especially problematic, but in Switzerland, I am having to rethink my breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as my usual Council mood-enhancer – […]
31st July 2018 Shanghai
The film “Dying to Survive” is now very popular in China. It is based on the true story of a Chinese leukaemia patient who smuggled cheap cancer drugs between India and China for himself, and 1,000 other cancer sufferers. He was arrested in 2015 and surprisingly was released after thousands of Chinese leukaemia sufferers signed […]
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4th June 2018 Shanghai
The Cell and Gene Therapy (CGT) Catapult is a unique centre of excellence in innovation aiming to anchor cell and gene therapy manufacturing in the UK, by enabling companies to develop from small-scale to commercial scale CGT manufacturing systems and supply chain. The CGT Catapult’s vision is for the UK to be a global leader […]
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