On May 11, the Department of State’s Office of Art in Embassies (AIE) American Artist Lecture Series will feature noted artist Glenn Ligon in conversation with London-based designer and curator Duro Olowu at the Tate Modern in London. AIE’s lecture series, in collaboration with U.S. Embassy London and the Tate Modern, has featured artists Brice Marden, Maya Lin, Richard Tuttle, Spencer Finch, and Julie Mehretu.

The UK government’s humanitarian response package for the Nepal earthquake now stands at £22.8 million, following a contribution to the United Nations’ emergency appeal, International Development Secretary Justine Greening announced today. Britain has released a new £5.3 million support package to the UN following their ‘Flash Appeal’ to provide additional help to people affected by the devastating 7.8 magnitude Nepal earthquake. 

Britain is paying professional aid staff up to £1,000 a day to work in developing countries as part of a spending "frenzy" to meet a government target, a new report suggestst. Spending on consultants has doubled in the past four years to £1.4bn with the bill for outside help now eating up more than 10 per cent of the aid budget. The figures prompted anger among MPs, who described the practice as a "grotesque waste".

The people who took part in the Jubilee 2000 and Make Poverty History campaigns are still there. They haven’t gone away. The calculation, however, is that there are no votes in development - which is why, when the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank meet in Washington later this week, the talks will not impinge on the election campaign. George Osborne and Ed Balls will be looking to see how they can exploit what the IMF says about the health of the UK economy for domestic political reasons, but that’s about it.

The Chinese government provides hundreds of thousands of pounds and more than 90 teachers to schools across the UK as part of a Chinese-language teaching project. An investigation by campaign group Free Tibet found that British educational institutions are hosting so-called Confucius Classrooms without prior discussion of their content. Critics argue the language classes present students with a “whitewashed” view of China’s government and human rights record.

A report on EU-Russia relations by a UK House of Lords committee admits that the EU totally miscalculated Moscow’s reaction to the developments in Ukraine because of a lack of Russian experts, says Lord Peter Truscott. Britain's House of Lords has been debating a report suggesting relations between the EU and Russia have reached a critical level. 

It was a state visit that for many sparked memories of another nearly 30 years ago, when William’s parents Charles and Diana, then Prince and Princess of Wales, came to the country for five days of pomp and pressing the flesh in 1986.

The British Advertising Standards Authority has banned further publication of an Israeli tourist brochure because it portrays the Old City of Jerusalem as part of Israel.