Theresa May tells Vladmir Putin there can be no repeat of Salisbury attack in face-to-face meeting June 28, 2019 Theresa May has told Russian President Vladmir Putin that there can be no repeat of the “truly despicable act that led to the death of British citizen, Dawn Sturgess”. During a meeting that lasted one hour and 20 minutes, May condemned the Salisbury attack, which she said the UK had “irrefutable evidence that Russia was [...]
Theresa May demands Salisbury poisoning suspects face justice ahead of Vladmir Putin talks June 28, 2019 Theresa May has called for the suspects in the Salisbury Novichok attack to be “brought to justice” ahead of a meeting with Vladmir Putin at the G20 summit today. UK authorities suspect two people from Russia’s intelligence service, GRU, were responsible for the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia last year. Read [...]
Britain and India are moving towards a bright new future January 28, 2019 The UK’s position on the world stage is about to change forever, but it’s not because of Brexit. In fact, it’s due to a bigger macroeconomic and geopolitical shift: the march of a country that is likely to become one of the world’s future superpowers. A nation with a huge population, an outstanding growth rate, [...]
Stop being defeatist, Britain is still a geopolitical powerhouse January 10, 2019 Over the past few years, the drumbeat of British declinism has grown steadily louder. Last year, former Prime Minister Sir John Major claimed that the UK was going to become a “middle-sized, middle-ranking nation”, while Sir Simon McDonald, the head of the diplomatic service, described the country as “medium-sized”. True, the declinist rumble has haunted the [...]
Trump strikes upbeat tone on talks with China ahead of crucial trade summit January 6, 2019 President Donald Trump reiterated his confidence in striking a trade deal with China this evening after insisting that weaknesses in Beijing’s economy gave the country incentives to work with the US. Ahead of crunch talks between US and Chinese trade representatives in Beijing later this week, Trump said: “I think China wants to get it resolved. [...]
Japan confirms it will quit international agreement to resume commercial whaling December 26, 2018 Japan has sparked international criticism by announcing it will resume commercial whaling in July, after decades of trying to persuade governing body the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to allow it to do so. The government – which usually stresses multilateralism in diplomacy – said on Tuesday it would pull out of the commission so it could restart [...]
Want to master the art of negotiation? You need emotional intelligence December 13, 2018 With so much focus on the detail – or lack thereof – in the UK’s proposed agreement for leaving the EU, you could be forgiven for thinking that deal-making is a technocrat’s art. For the negotiation teams here in the UK and Europe, technical expertise and competences about the issues at stake are, of course, [...]
Bank of England slammed over secret Venezuelan gold summit December 6, 2018 The Bank of England (BoE) has come under fire following reports of a clandestine meeting with senior representatives of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro. The BoE is due to meet high-ranking Venezuelan officials in London tomorrow to discuss the return of gold worth $550m stored in the bank’s vaults, according to sources. Today it emerged MP [...]
Rigged and ready: After recent gains, are oil prices set to recover? December 4, 2018 The oil market has had a tough time this year, with prices sliding since October. And yet, there’s been a radical turn of events over recent days, with the picture looking drastically different as the markets opened for trading this week. In fact, one of yesterday’s biggest market movements was oil, with brent crude surging [...]
The G20 was a temporary truce, not the end of Trump’s trade war December 4, 2018 It would be easy to see last weekend’s G20 meeting as heralding a thaw in the US-China trade war. But sadly, it hasn’t. There are some positives. It looks increasingly likely that the US will not put in place a fresh 10-25 per cent tariff hike in January on $250bn of Chinese exports, as most had [...]