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AFP / Niklas Halle'n

A Brexit homecoming

Tuesday 21 June 2016

"Homecomings are always hard," writes AFP's bureau chief in The Hague, Jo Biddle. "And returning back to the fold after years abroad as an expat can be unexpectedly brutal. Times have changed. You’ve lost touch with the country you left behind."

"And so it has been for me, a Brit landing back in Europe just as the Brexit row is reaching its climax, and in time to watch my country painfully grappling with its biggest political crisis in years."

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AFP Photo / Joe Klamar

Patience an acquired virtue at Iran talks

Wednesday 8 July 2015

"In the frenetic, 24-hour news cycle world of instant messaging, Tweets, Snapchats and texts, patience has almost become an outmoded, lost virtue," writes AFP's Jo Biddle. "But for 12 days now, more than 500 accredited journalists gathered in Vienna for the last stages of the talks to curb Iran's nuclear programme have become experts in killing time."

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AFP / Jo Biddle

Tea in the desert with the Saudi king

Wednesday 11 March 2015

"Despite the glamorous sounding nature of flying around the world with top US diplomat John Kerry, life on the road often consists of hanging around anonymous hotel rooms or conference centres hoping for a snippet of information about closed-door negotiations," writes AFP State Department correspondent Jo Biddle. "So when the Saudis gave only limited access for the media travelling with Kerry to visit new King Salman in the ancient city of Diriyah, I jumped at the chance."

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AFP Photo / POOL / Brendan Smialowski

Secret diplomacy in the Twitter age

Wednesday 25 June 2014

"So," my neighbor asked casually on as we chatted on her lawn, "are you going with Kerry to Iraq?" My jaw dropped. This was after all three days before we were due to arrive and the visit was supposedly hush-hush. The bosses, and my husband, were the only people in my circle I'd told.

But in the days of Twitter, 24-hour news and social networking, Secretary of State John Kerry's trip to Baghdad on Monday was possibly one of the worst kept secrets in diplomatic history, writes AFP's State Department correspondent, Jo Biddle.

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