The firing-squad execution of two Australian citizens (and others) by the Indonesian authorities following their conviction on drags smuggling charges has caused official dismay and anger in Australia. And Australia has responded by recalling (withdrawing?) its Ambassador. Here is an account of some differing views on how far this makes […]
This one is interesting. Just when we thought that nothing else in the wider Balkan region could astonish us, up pops a brand new country. No, not Kosovo. Not Vojvodina. Not even Eastern Republika Srpska. Liberland! The basic ingenious idea is that, as luck has it, there is a tiny patch […]
So, in the past two weeks I have spent a week in chilly Kazakhstan (Astana) where the road-signs are rather difficult to fathom. Does this mean that public drinking while ten-pin bowling and carrying a primitive smartphone is banned? If it isn’t, it should be. In Astana I gave two […]
Back from watching the world from the fascinating vantage-point of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that one of our Negotiation Skills specialist imaginary roleplays had been almost exactly what happened to OPCW inspectors at a tense suspected CW site in […]
BBC integrity? How about this: my latest piece for DIPLOMAT on my encounters with the media down the ages: In Moscow in late 1993 I was in the Embassy watching the live BBC TV coverage of the attempted Red/Brown coup against President Yeltsin. We could hear sporadic gunfire. At the […]
A question about top-end public speaking technique. Say you’re President of France. You are visiting Bosnia a few months after the US President was there. He made a winning, moving keynote speech. You want to do the same. Or, ideally, do much better. How to set about this task? You […]
At last. My new ebook Speechwriting for Leaders is out. Hurrah. General blurb and a link for international readers here. UK folk can (and must) buy it through Amazon here. Meanwhile over in Poland – as if by magic – a vivid row has erupted over the fact that I […]
My latest piece for Commentator, co-authored with Pratik Chougule, describes in broad terms how we might do some good solid work to build on the Obama Administration move to start normalising US relations with Cuba, by actively but sensibly doing the spadework needed to help Cuba get ready for the day a […]
Here’s a question. If country X grows its economy 1% faster than country Y over ten years, what’s the difference in outcomes? I previously looked at Serbia and Zimbabwe in this sense, trying to calculate the True Costs of Stupidity: Thus the Cost of Milosevic(ism) can be accurately measured. It is […]
Back from a lively session of specialist media training, featuring a no-holds-barred account of my own encounters with the media down the decades. Highlights included: my disastrous exchange with Peter Fabricius in South Africa on the day Mrs Thatcher resigned my first live broadcast on a global news network – […]
