As the world watches the Middle East emerge piecemeal and slowly from controlled media to one of free information, due in large part to Al-Jazeera and the Internet, Africa visibly lacks any continental equivalent.

In An African Al-Jazeera? Mass media and the African Renaissance, the FPC's Public Diplomacy Director, Philip Fiske de Gouveia, argues that, just as Al-Jazeera has raised the bar for reporting in the Middle East, so an indigenous Africa-wide broadcaster, although very different in form, could contribute much to good governance and development across the continent.

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26 April 2005

European leaders must mount a forceful public diplomacy campaign to convince the US Congress that they will continue to restrict the export of arms to China effectively after lifting the 1989 embargo, according to a new Foreign Policy Centre report.

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By Richard Gowan. Source: The Globalist

As the United Nations prepares to replace its leader of the past ten years, Ghana's Kofi Annan, with Ban Ki Moon of South Korea, the organisation may be experiencing an eastward shift in more than just the Secretary General's office. As Richard Gowan notes, the UN's peacekeeping focus is already shifting from Africa to the Middle East.

Full text 

By Richard Gowan. Source: E-Sharp September-October 2006

Links between the EU and the UN have flourished under Kofi Annan. With his tenure about to expire, Richard Gowan looks at the implications for Europe of the search for his successor

Download A Special Relationship? (90 kilobyte PDF; need help viewing PDFs?)

By Philip Fiske de Gouveia. Source: The Guardian

Washington's plan to expand Farsi-language TV and radio broadcasts may fuel the media equivalent of an arms race

Full text 

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Alan Johnson

Order Today

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Price: £9.95 + £2 p&p (UK orders) / US$45 (overseas orders)

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New Review of Global Politics After 9/11

"provocative and engaging … its focus on the moral and ethical dimensions of foreign affairs makes it accessible and eminently readable … Readers looking for a good ideological dust-up, one sorely missing from the current domestic political debate, will find plenty to invigorate and infuriate in Democratiya's excellent collection." Farook Faizal, Renewal, March 2009

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This book brings together a series of conversations about the dilemmas of progressive foreign policy after 9/11. Democratiya editor Alan Johnson talks to Jean Bethke Elshtain, Martin Shaw, Kanan Makiya, Paul Berman, David Held, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Ladan Boroumand, Anne-Marie Slaughter (now Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department), Joshua Muravchik and Mary Kaldor.

Alan Johnson is founder and editor of Democratiya, and Professor of Democratic Theory and Practice at Edge Hill University. He is the co-author of the Euston Manifesto, a founder member of Labour Friends of Iraq, and an advisory editor of Engage Journal. He is the co-editor of Leadership and Social Movements and the co-author (with Abdullah Muhsin) of Hadi Never Died: Hadi Saleh and the Iraqi Trade Unions.

To order:

Send a cheque for £11.95 (for UK orders) made payable to The Foreign Policy Centre or an international money order for US$45 (for overseas orders) to: The Foreign Policy Centre (Book Orders), Suite 14, 2nd Floor, 23-28 Penn Street, London N1 5DL, UK. Make clear you are ordering 'Global Politics After 9/11' and include your full postal address.

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Alex Bigham (Ed.)

14 July 2007

Download the report (440 kilobyte PDF; need help viewing PDFs?)

The final report of the Iraq Commission Report is available to download here.

The Foreign Policy Centre, in conjunction with Channel 4, set up an independent, cross-party Commission tasked with producing a blueprint for Britain's future involvement in Iraq.

The Commission Report was launched in a special programme on Saturday 14 July at 7.30pm, televised on Channel 4. The report will be delivered to the incoming Prime Minister and the leaders of the main political parties.

FUTURE OF IRAQ EVENT: Debate the findings and response to The Iraq Commission Report on 24 July at LSE. More details: http://fpc.org.uk/events/131

For more details about The Iraq Commission, please email Alex Bigham at alex.bigham[at]fpc.org.uk, or visit The Commission website at: www.channel4.com/iraqcommission

Alex Bigham (Ed.)

£9.95, plus £1 p+p.

The Foreign Policy Centre is delighted to launch of the new report, 'Having Faith in Foreign Policy'. This collection of essays brings together faith leaders and intellectuals to discuss, debate and attempt to answer some of the most vexed questions of our age: what is the relationship between religion and the state in a post-modern society; what is the interaction between faith, conflict and development and how can governments and leaders reach out to citizens who may feel disengaged from foreign policy?

This report and event are supported by HE Anthony Bailey, KCSS, Eligo International (www.eligo.net) and the Grand Magistral Delegation for Inter-Religious Relations of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George (www.constantinian.com).

Date: Thursday, 28th February 2008

Speakers:

Gareth Thomas MP, DfID Parliamentary Under Secretary of State

Richard Black, BBC

Graham Wynne, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds

Chair: Stephen Twigg, FPC

About this event:

At the FPC's recent inaugural Annual Lecture, the Secretary of State for International Development, Rt Hon Douglas Alexander MP announced that the UK Government would increase its climate change research to £100 million over the next five years (a tenfold increase).

Continuing with the theme of exploring the centrality of environmental sustainability and global social justice, the FPC in partnership with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds held a seminar on "Sustaining our Environment: Is Climate Change the Only Ill?".

This event was kindly supported by the RSPB.

Download Gareth Thomas's Speech (40 kilobyte PDF; need help viewing PDFs?)

Richard Black's Presentation

Download Richard Black's presentation (660 kilobyte PDF; need help viewing PDFs?)

Climate Change and Global Social Justice

6 February 2008

The International Development Secretary, Rt Hon Douglas Alexander MP, in a major speech to the Foreign Policy Centre has argued that the world needs to shift its economic development to a low-carbon model. He also announced a tenfold increase in climate change research funding to £100 million over the next five years.

Giving the inaugural Foreign Policy Centre annual lecture at the LSE, the Development Secretary outlined his proposals for a new post-Kyoto global framework to tackle emissions. Mr Alexander argued that while developed countries must take a lead, developing countries must share the responsibility of change by 'leapfrogging' over polluting technologies toward a cleaner economy as their societies develop.

He said:

"Climate change is a defining global social justice issue for our generation. If we do not take the necessary action, we risk condemning the world's poorest people to generations of poverty."

Read more

Download the full speech (110 kilobyte PDF; need help viewing PDFs?)

The World Culture Forum, was held in Jordan from 4-7 December 2005, and this year focussed on the development of cultural enterprises and their contribution to socio-economic development and international relations. Taking place in the Middle East, the Forum's agenda was particularly concerned with the role of culture in counteracting negative images and stereotypes about the Arab and Muslim world. With this in mind, the Foreign Policy Centre (FPC), in association with the Middle East Centre for Culture and Development (MECCAD), organised a two-day programme of meetings and presentations (5-6 December) to explore 'nation-branding', and therefore the role that states, cities and regions can play in engaging culture in the task of international image building.

A seminar was held at the British Council on 10 March 2005 to discuss current prevalent issues in British Diplomacy

The speakers were:

Sir David Green

Director-General, British Council (chair)

Mark Leonard

Director of Foreign Policy, CER

Martin Rose

Director, Counterpoint

The event marked the launch of a major new Foreign Policy Centre publication, British Public Diplomacy in the 'Age of Schisms' by Mark Leonard and Andrew Small of the FPC with Martin Rose of Counterpoint, British Council. It argues that Britain needs a radical rethink of its public diplomacy strategy to bridge the deepening global divisions over the future of the political and economic order.

The pamphlet calls for an end to short-term image-centred campaigns like "Cool Britannia" in the 1990s and a new approach to how Britain communicates with publics abroad. The focus should be on building long-term trust and a closer integration of public diplomacy with actual policy.

To celebrate the Dutch presidency of the EU, the Foreign Policy Centre joined forces with AMO and the internationally renowned architect Rem Koolhaas to create an exhibition in Brussels entitled the Image of Europe.

Held under the joint sponsorship of the Dutch Presidency and the European Commission, the exhibition presented how the idea of Europe has evolved over the last 50 years and was displayed in one of the city's main squares for several months. The project was part of an initiative under the Dutch presidency better to communicate the idea of Europe to its citizens, exploring how Europe is perceived through words and symbols and encouraging debate about the future of Europe.

Read the Guardian article.