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Start the Week

Image for The Commonwealth - Don McKinnon and Kwasi Kwarteng

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The Commonwealth - Don McKinnon and Kwasi Kwarteng

Duration:
43 minutes
First broadcast:
Monday 25 February 2013

On Start the Week Bridget Kendall discusses the role and future of the Commonwealth. As its Secretary-General at the turn of the century, Sir Don McKinnon reveals its inner workings. But the journalist Frances Harrison is critical of the organisation for failing to challenge human rights abuses. The MP Kwasi Kwarteng questions whether the Commonwealth can ever shed the baggage of Empire, and Sir Ronald Sanders asks if it can survive the rise of China.
Producer: Katy Hickman.

  • Sir Don McKinnon

    Sir Don McKinnon is a former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of New Zealand.  He was the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth of Nations from 2000 until 2008.

     

    In the Ring: A Commonwealth Memoir is published by Elliott & Thompson.

     

    Sir Don McKinnon

  • Frances Harrison

    Frances Harrison is a journalist.

     

    Still Counting the Dead: Survivors of Sri Lanka’s Hidden War is published by Portobello Books.

     

    Frances Harrison

  • Kwasi Kwarteng

    Kwasi Kwarteng is the Conservative MP for Spelthorne.

     

    Kwasi Kwarteng

  • Sir Ronald Sanders

    Sir Ronald Sanders is a diplomat, businessman and scholar.  He is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies.

     

    Sir Ronald Sanders

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