United Kingdom's Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond will open the Diplomatic Academy in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on Tuesday 10th February. The Academy, the first in the Foreign Office’s history, will be a centre of excellence and has been established to equip Foreign Office staff with the essential skills for diplomacy in the modern world.
Guyana's ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP) dismissed a warning from Britain that Guyana risks being referred to the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group after the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country suspended Parliament in November last year.
The annual Overseas Territories Joint Ministerial Council (JMC) which brings together political leaders from the Overseas Territories and UK ministers took off on Monday in London, hosted by FCO Minister for the Overseas Territories James Duddridge MP.
Two companies have been awarded contracts by the UK Foreign Office for the clearance of minefields in the Falkland Islands, dating back to the 1982 conflict when retreating Argentine forces laid antipersonnel and other explosives particularly in a ring surrounding the capital Stanley.
Spanish Foreign Ministry briefings to media designed to reinforce Spain’s assertion that the Tripartite Talks are dead were challenged this weekend by the UK Government. In an unusual move Simon Manley, the British Ambassador to Spain, wrote to El Pais to correct their report which suggested that the ad hoc talks were a new phase of dialogue replacing the tripartite talks and that UK had changed its position on talks.
Spanish fighter jets illegally entered UK airspace to fly “across the bows” of a British airliner in a “reckless and dangerous” stunt over Gibraltar, according to a report in the Sunday Express.
Gibraltar Governor Sir James Dutton has publicly voiced strong support for the deployment of a larger British naval vessel to patrol Gibraltar’s territorial waters.
Sir James, a retired Royal Marine with a distinguished military record, said such a move would send “a really valuable message” in the face of persistent incursions by Spanish state vessels.
A Falkland Islands resident is off to the University of Oxford later this year, after being announced as the Falkland Islands' newest Chevening Scholar. Clare Cockwell has been offered a full scholarship under the UK Government's Chevening programme to study towards an MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management at Hertford College.
The Falkland Islands will be seeing further de-mining over the next two summer seasons funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) that will also carry out a tender process for the works, according to a report from Penguin News.
Incoming Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond praised his predecessor and promised to lay the ground for “a new relationship between Britain and the EU; one that promotes our national interest and reflects the concerns of the British people”.