David Ratford

	David Ratford Sir David John Edward Ratford is a retired British diplomat and translator. Early life David John Edward Ratford was born on 22 April 1934 to George Ratford and Lilian Ratford (). Ratford was educated at Whitgift Middle School. Ratford attended Selwyn College, Cambridge, graduating with a 1st class Honours degree in Medieval and Modern Languages. Diplomatic career Ratford completed his national service in the Intelligence Corps from 1953 to 1955. Ambassador to Norway Ratford was appointed the British Ambassador to Norway in 1990, succeeding Sir John Robson. Ratford left this appointment in 1994. Retirement In April 2004, Ratford signed an open letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair, expressing concern over Blair's policy on the Arab-Israel conflict and the Iraq war. In December 2004, Ratford signed a further open letter, urging Blair to commission an independent inquiry into the number of civilian casualties in Iraq since the invasion An invasion is a military ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu]
picture info	Selwyn College, Cambridge Selwyn College, Cambridge (formally Selwyn College in the University of Cambridge) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1882 by the Selwyn Memorial Committee in memory of George Augustus Selwyn (1809–1878), the first Bishop of New Zealand (1841–1868), and subsequently Bishop of Lichfield (1868–1878). Its main buildings consist of three courts built of stone and brick (Old Court, Ann's Court, and Cripps Court). There are several secondary buildings, including adjacent townhouses and lodges serving as student hostels on Grange Road, West Road and Sidgwick Avenue. The college has some 60 fellows and 110 non-academic staff. In 2019, Selwyn was ranked eighth on the Tompkins Table of Cambridge colleges in order of undergraduates' performances in examinations, having been first in 2008. The college was ranked 16th out of 30 in an assessment of college wealth conducted by the student newspaper '' Varsity'' in November 2006. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu]
picture info	2003 Invasion Of Iraq The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 days of major combat operations, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland invaded Iraq. Twenty-two days after the first day of the invasion, the capital city of Baghdad was captured by Coalition forces on 9 April 2003 after the six-day-long Battle of Baghdad. This early stage of the war formally ended on 1 May 2003 when U.S. President George W. Bush declared the "end of major combat operations" in his Mission Accomplished speech, after which the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) was established as the first of several successive transitional governments leading up to the first Iraqi parliamentary election in January 2005. U.S. military forces later remained in Iraq unt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu]