Download or read book HC 516 Support for British Nationals Abroad The Consular Service written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Foreign Affairs Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Consular Service of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office provides vital support to British nationals overseas. It offers a wide range of services, handling anything from lost passports to kidnap, a major crisis evacuation or verification of a document. It is the FCO's public face, and it is central to its reputation at home. Britons undertaking more adventurous travel, large expatriate populations and a series of major overseas crises have tested the Consular Service in recent years. In 2013, the FCO dealt with over 450,000 consular customers, over 17,000 of whom received personal assistance. The Consular Service has responded with a "strategic shift" to provide a more standardised and professional service. However, the strategic shift to a "smaller and better" consular service has also meant that some services have been limited or withdrawn, and standardisation has meant the end of so-called "over-service" as well as under-service. The FCO has consequently put great emphasis on encouraging self-help, managing expectations and explaining the limits of its assistance to British nationals. Despite these efforts to explain to the public what the FCO can and cannot do, there was still a significant gap between the high expectations of the public and the reality of what the FCO could provide.
Download or read book Consular Services to British Nationals written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2005-11-24 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) provides a range of consular services to British nationals overseas, and when necessary, their families in the UK, including giving travel advice, issuing passports, assisting travellers in difficulty or distress, and dealing with major emergencies such as terrorist attacks or natural disasters. The total cost of consular services during 2004-05 was almost £80 million. Services are provided through over 200 diplomatic posts worldwide including embassies, high commissions and consulates. This NAO report examines the challenges involved in delivering effective consulate services, including providing high quality information to travellers and influencing the behaviour of travellers; providing a consistent frontline service with cost-effective use of resources; response to major emergencies overseas and preparedness response measures.
Download or read book HC 564 UK Government Policy on the Kurdistan Region of Iraq written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Foreign Affairs Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Kurdistan Region of Iraq is a genuine, if developing, democracy. It is also a haven of tolerance and stability in a critically unstable region where those values are needed more than ever. It has huge strategic value to the UK as a bridge to other regional powers, is a key bulwark against ISIL, and has significant oil and gas potential. But it is also vulnerable and needs the support of its friends. It should respond positively to the invitation from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to be its "partner of choice" on trade, education and cultural exchange as well as on defence and intelligence matters. The Kurdistan Region has work to do on developing its democratic culture and its respect for human rights, and UK support should go hand in hand with proof of progress in these areas. The Committee commends the Region's defence force, the Peshmerga, for its defence of Kurdish territory against ISIL and its protection of vulnerable minorities. It supports the UK Government's decision to offer the Peshmerga equipment and training. Advice is also needed from the Kurdistan Region's experts on issues like counter-terrorism and on the situation on the ground in Iraq and Syria. More diplomats need to be working out of a proper office in Erbil instead of hotel rooms. And this is not easily achieved as the FCO has suffered from cuts to its meagre budget at a time when more expertise and high-level co-operation is desperately needed.
Download or read book HC 842 Hong Kong China s Ban On The Committee s Visit written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Foreign Affairs Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In July 2014, the Committee launched an inquiry into the UK's relations with Hong Kong, 30 years after the signing of the Joint Declaration. As part of this inquiry, they planned to visit Hong Kong to speak to a wide range of interlocutors about the UK-Hong Kong relationship. The Chinese and Hong Kong authorities informed the Committee that they considered this to be interference in China's internal affairs and they urged a halt to the inquiry. On 28 November, the Chinese Deputy Ambassador informed the Committee that the Chinese government would take any necessary measures to prevent the Committee from visiting Hong Kong, forcing the postponement of the visit. It was made clear that the Committee would be prevented from entering Hong Kong, despite the fact that, as UK nationals, no visa for entry was required. The Committee considers the ban by China to be unprecedented, and sees it as an obstruction to the conduct of the Committee's parliamentary duties.
Download or read book HC 551 The FCO s Human Rights Work in 2013 written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Foreign Affairs Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The FCO designated 28 countries of concern in its 2013 report, where it judged the gravity of the human rights abuses to be so severe that a particular focus should be applied. The Committee concentrated attention on three of these countries: Sri Lanka, Burma, and Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Favourable trade concessions to the EU market should be removed from Sri Lanka if the Government of Sri Lanka continues to deny the OHCHR investigation team access into the country. The Government should advocate re-imposition of sanctions by the EU if there is no improvement in the human rights situation in Burma. The human rights of Israeli, Palestinian and Bedouin citizens living in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories continue to be of serious concern to the UK.
Download or read book HC 605 The FCO s Performance and Finances in 2013 14 written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Foreign Affairs Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The cuts imposed on the FCO since 2010 have been severe and have gone beyond just trimming fat: capacity now appears to be being damaged. If further cuts are imposed, the UK's diplomatic imprint and influence would probably reduce, and the Government would need to roll back some of its foreign policy objectives. The FCO's budget is a tiny element of Government expenditure, but the FCO makes disproportionate contribution to policy making at the highest level, including decisions on whether to commit to military action. The next Government needs to protect future FCO budgets under the next Spending Review.
Download or read book Citizenship Law in Africa written by Bronwen Manby and published by African Minds. This book was released on 2012-07-27 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few African countries provide for an explicit right to a nationality. Laws and practices governing citizenship leave hundreds of thousands of people in Africa without a country to which they belong. Statelessness and discriminatory citizenship practices underlie and exacerbate tensions in many regions of the continent, according to this report by the Open Society Institute. Citizenship Law in Africa is a comparative study by the Open Society Justice Initiative and Africa Governance Monitoring and Advocacy Project. It describes the often arbitrary, discriminatory, and contradictory citizenship laws that exist from state to state, and recommends ways that African countries can bring their citizenship laws in line with international legal norms. The report covers topics such as citizenship by descent, citizenship by naturalization, gender discrimination in citizenship law, dual citizenship, and the right to identity documents and passports. It describes how stateless Africans are systematically exposed to human rights abuses: they can neither vote nor stand for public office; they cannot enroll their children in school, travel freely, or own property; they cannot work for the government.--Publisher description.
Download or read book The High Commissioners written by Carl Bridge and published by . This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marks the centenary of the posting of the first Australian High Commissioner in London, so beginning what is today Australia's oldest diplomatic mission. In 1910, when Sir George Reid was appointed its first High Commissioner in London, Australia was a self-governing but not yet sovereign state and the Australian Governor-General remained the most important channel of communication between the Australian and United Kingdom governments until the late 1920s. The book traces the history of the office and in doing so illuminates the larger story of Australian-United Kingdom relations in the twentieth century, the evolution of Australia from British colony to sovereign state and the gradual transition of the United Kingdom from head of an empire to member of the European Union.
Download or read book The Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture Academic Edition written by Senate Select Committee On Intelligence and published by Melville House. This book was released on 2020-02-18 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study edition of book the Los Angeles Times called, "The most extensive review of U.S. intelligence-gathering tactics in generations." This is the complete Executive Summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation into the CIA's interrogation and detention programs -- a.k.a., The Torture Report. Based on over six million pages of secret CIA documents, the report details a covert program of secret prisons, prisoner deaths, interrogation practices, and cooperation with other foreign and domestic agencies, as well as the CIA's efforts to hide the details of the program from the White House, the Department of Justice, the Congress, and the American people. Over five years in the making, it is presented here exactly as redacted and released by the United States government on December 9, 2014, with an introduction by Daniel J. Jones, who led the Senate investigation. This special edition includes: • Large, easy-to-read format. • Almost 3,000 notes formatted as footnotes, exactly as they appeared in the original report. This allows readers to see obscured or clarifying details as they read the main text. • An introduction by Senate staffer Daniel J. Jones who led the investigation and wrote the report for the Senate Intelligence Committee, and a forward by the head of that committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein.
Download or read book The Role of Domestic Courts in Treaty Enforcement written by David Sloss and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-10-12 with total page 657 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title examines whether domestic courts in 12 countries actually provide remedies to private parties who are harmed by a violation of their treaty-based rights.
Download or read book Fourth Arm of Defense written by Salvatore R. Mercogliano and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 2017 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This publication is the eighth in the series The U.S. Navy and the Vietnam War. The publication focuses on the sealift and logistic operations during the war and includes a number of photographs as well as sidebars detailing specific people and ships involved in the logistic operations. This historical pictorial reference would be of interest to students, historians, members of the military, specifically the Navy, and military leaders, veterans, Vietnam War veterans, and the U.S. merchant marines.
Download or read book UK Aid written by Great Britain: H.M. Treasury and published by . This book was released on 2015-11-24 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Government recognises that aid spending has sometimes been controversial at home because people want to know that it is squarely in the UK's national interest. Recent crises have proved, though, why aid is so important for us as well as for the countries we assist. The 2015 Spending Review is therefore being used to fundamentally review how this budget is spent. Spending will be shaped according to four strategic objectives. The strategy sets out how, as a result of the new approach, we will: allocate 50% of all DFID's spending to fragile states and regions; increase aid spending for the Syrian crisis and the related region; end all traditional general budget support - so we can better target spending; use an expanded cross-government Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF) to underpin our security objectives by supporting the international work of the National Security Council (NSC); create a £500 million ODA crisis reserve to allow still greater flexibility to respond to emerging crises such as the displacement of Syrian refugees; fund a new £1 billion commitment to global public health (the "Ross Fund") which will fund work to tackle the most dangerous infectious diseases, including malaria. The fund will also support work to fight diseases of epidemic potential, such as Ebola, neglected tropical diseases, and drug resistant infections; and use a new cross-government Prosperity Fund, led by the NSC, to drive forward our aim of promoting global prosperity.
Download or read book Parliamentary Debates Hansard written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 740 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains the 4th session of the 28th Parliament through the session of the Parliament.
Download or read book The Voynich Manuscript written by M. E. D'Imperio and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In spite of all the papers that others have written about the manuscript, there is no complete survey of all the approaches, ideas, background information and analytic studies that have accumulated over the nearly fifty-five years since the manuscript was discovered by Wilfrid M. Voynich in 1912. This report pulls together all the information the author could obtain from all the sources she has examined, and to present it in an orderly fashion. The resulting survey will provide a firm basis upon which other students may build their work, whether they seek to decipher the text or simply to learn more about the problem.
Download or read book The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance written by Gregory Pedlow and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-03-15 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The CIA’s 2013 release of its book The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance 1954–1974 is a fascinating and important historical document. It contains a significant amount of newly declassified material with respect to the U-2 and Oxcart programs, including names of pilots; codenames and cryptonyms; locations, funding, and cover arrangements; electronic countermeasures equipment; cooperation with foreign governments; and overflights of the Soviet Union, Cuba, China, and other countries. Originally published with a Secret/No Foreign Dissemination classification, this detailed study describes not only the program’s technological and bureaucratic aspects, but also its political and international context, including the difficult choices faced by President Eisenhower in authorizing overflights of the Soviet Union and the controversy surrounding the shoot down there of U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers in 1960. The authors discuss the origins of the U-2, its top-secret testing, its specially designed high-altitude cameras and complex life-support systems, and even the possible use of poison capsules by its pilots, if captured. They call attention to the crucial importance of the U-2 in the gathering of strategic and tactical intelligence, as well as the controversies that the program unleashed. Finally, they discuss the CIA’s development of a successor to the U-2, the Oxcart, which became the world’s most technologically advanced aircraft. For the first time, the more complete 2013 release of this historical text is available in a professionally typeset format, supplemented with higher quality photographs that will bring alive these incredible aircraft and the story of their development and use by the CIA. This edition also includes a new preface by author Gregory W. Pedlow and a foreword by Chris Pocock. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
Download or read book UNESCO science report written by UNESCO and published by UNESCO Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-09 with total page 818 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are fewer grounds today than in the past to deplore a North‑South divide in research and innovation. This is one of the key findings of the UNESCO Science Report: towards 2030. A large number of countries are now incorporating science, technology and innovation in their national development agenda, in order to make their economies less reliant on raw materials and more rooted in knowledge. Most research and development (R&D) is taking place in high-income countries, but innovation of some kind is now occurring across the full spectrum of income levels according to the first survey of manufacturing companies in 65 countries conducted by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics and summarized in this report. For many lower-income countries, sustainable development has become an integral part of their national development plans for the next 10–20 years. Among higher-income countries, a firm commitment to sustainable development is often coupled with the desire to maintain competitiveness in global markets that are increasingly leaning towards ‘green’ technologies. The quest for clean energy and greater energy efficiency now figures among the research priorities of numerous countries. Written by more than 50 experts who are each covering the country or region from which they hail, the UNESCO Science Report: towards 2030 provides more country-level information than ever before. The trends and developments in science, technology and innovation policy and governance between 2009 and mid-2015 described here provide essential baseline information on the concerns and priorities of countries that could orient the implementation and drive the assessment of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in the years to come.
Download or read book World Report on Violence and Health written by World Health Organization and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report is part of WHO's response to the 49th World Health Assembly held in 1996 which adopted a resolution declaring violence a major and growing public health problem across the world. It is aimed largely at researchers and practitioners including health care workers, social workers, educators and law enforcement officials.
