2011 December
Rio hosting the Olympics
On 2 October 2009, Rio de Janeiro was announced as the host city for the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The Games had arrived, at last, in ...
International Inspiration
From training boxers in Rio’s favelas to rugby programmes in Palestine, Chair of IDS, Lord Richard Newby, outlines the mission to provide an ...
Feathers at Woodstock Review
Having for so many years heard about The Feathers, found in the historic Cotswolds market town of Woodstock, I was intrigued to go and stay. ...
Bridge Over the River Amur
Anne-Marie Leahy talks to Jay Hambro, Executive Chairman of IRC Ltd., about bridging frontiers and the economic benefits of Sino-Russian ...
Government Policy on Tar Sands
Tar sands, or oil sands, or, to give them their correct name, bituminous sands, are sands which contain naturally occurring mixtures of sand, clay, ...
Eurasias Vital Nerve Centre
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 opened the world order to the newly independent countries of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, ...
Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester
Often feted as the greatest chef alive, Alain Ducasse is synonymous with gastronomic excellence and so being housed at The Dorchester seems a ...
End of the Great Dictator
UPGRADE As the world’s old-fashioned tyrants have been toppled by revolutions, assassinated, killed in coups or packed off into exile, Michael ...
Kazakhstan at Twenty
16 December will mark 20 years of Kazakhstan’s independence. Two decades ago, 15 new sovereign states emerged from the collapse of the Soviet ...
BT River of Music
‘If we manage to get the Olympics, let’s make sure we do this again.’ That was the BBC’s response the night after Serious programmed a ...
Review of The Ritz London
Few institutions are as synonymous with London as The Ritz. Conceived by renowned hotelier César Ritz, this iconic hotel was the first steel ...
Diplomacy and New Media
Once upon a time diplomats were rarely seen or heard in public. To do their vital work of privately communicating messages between national leaders ...
A Better Basra
Perhaps the most difficult aspect of my work was my task to produce a ‘communications strategy’ for Her Majesty’s Government’s (HMG) ...
