An Apology 2256

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I am so committed to getting my book finished I really don’t have time or energy to blog at the moment, and realise it has been very desultory the last few weeks. I am well and happy, it is just that writing a properly researched history is incredibly intensive. I realise there is much of great interest happening in the world, but I must sometimes cut myself off from it.

This is why I don’t ask for donations for the blog…

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2,256 thoughts on “An Apology”

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  • Ba'al Zevul

    ‘Blair Inc; The Man Behind the Mask’ picked up on something I noticed some time ago (probably coincidentally): the existence of a pair of companies, formed on the same date in September 2010, in Gibraltar – Windrush Ltd and Firerush Ltd. The matched pair of Windrush Ventures Ltd and Firerush Ventures Ltd (note: Ventures)feature in Tony Blair’s UK complexes. It is unknown whether the coincidentally named Gibraltar companies are a part of the same operation, but Firerush – unlike Windrush – is not a common corporate name, and the pairing is strongly suggestive.

    Formed in July 2010, in Cyprus, was Firerush Capital Ltd, #C270138. There doesn’t seem to be a Windrush Capital Ltd to match it – the name has already been taken by companies in London and Ohio – but is this another outpost of the Blair empire? Very handy if it is. The Firerush assemblage handles Tony’s merchant banking/hedge fund connections.

    For what it’s worth:

    https://www.infocreditworld.com/company/23243052_firerush-capital-limited/

    (Cyprus Companies House is not responding right now, but it is listed there.)

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Useful reference – not the complete cast list, but some leading roles:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/11671235/Meet-Tony-Blairs-entourage.html

    Eisenpresser* job title is ‘Director of principle and advisory strategies’

    I don’t think ‘principle’ really comes into it. Principle: noun. Principal: adjective.

    I’d thought Lyon was a Bircham Dyson Bell** stooge, but he isn’t. He ‘He joined TBA in 2012 after spending 15 years at Barclays, where he was managing director in the debt capital markets financial institutions group.’

    No doubt he works pro bono.

    Andreas Baumgartner’s valuable work in the UAE is hinted at here (page 5):

    http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/multimedia/archive/01134/TBA_1134329a.pdf

    * http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/11233514/Tony-Blair-hires-investment-banker-with-Middle-East-expertise.html

    **Advantageously structured corporate money sink specialists – formed the Blair labyrinth, staff the companies Blair doesn’t actually have to worry about.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Here’s Tony waving his arms in Bethlehem yesterday:

    http://www.demotix.com/photo/7871774/world-tourism-organization-host-conference-bethlehem

    It’s a UN-sponsored conference on religious tourism.

    In other news, yesterday:

    http://rt.com/news/267271-israel-gaza-un-envoy/

    UN official envoy not allowed into Gaza last week. So no tourism there, then.

    Today or tomorrow the Global Dear Leader will be jetting to Krakow to wave his arms at some businessmen. Knows all about tourism, does Tony. And religion.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Further to Lebedev’s depiction of Blair as a colossus bestriding Sierra Leone as the population weeps with gratitude for his bounty….from the memory hole:

    http://news.sl/drwebsite/exec/view.cgi?archive=6&num=15236

    So that’s where the ~$2.5M of Gates money went. I wondered. And so, it seems did the Sierra Leonians…

    According to many surprised citizens who contacted this newspaper when the news first broke, they wonder how Mr. Blair could claim to be promoting good governance with its essential ingredients of transparency and accountability; only for him to hide away the fact that his office had pocketed such a large sum of money into the accounts of his entity known as Windrush No. 3 Ltd., supposedly for the benefit of Sierra Leoneans.

    Grant OPP50878 refers.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Meanwhile…

    Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair advises the Romanian government on the basis of a contract concluded with the World Bank, hotnews reports, quoting guardian.co.uk. “Mr Blair is currently advising Romania on setting up a No. 10 style “delivery unit” thanks to a £1.1million contract secured via the World Bank and due to expire December this year.

    The Bank said Mr Blair’s firm showed “a clear understanding of the implementation challenges of the project” and offered “the most competitive price” of five competing bids.

    Mr Blair secured a £1m private contract with the World Bank, while simultaneously working with the bank in his role at Middle East envoy.

    He also struck lucrative commercial deals with Abu Dhabi while he was also in negotiations with the emirate as Middle East envoy over $45 million (£29m) funding for the Palestinian Authority.

    There are strict procedures in place to avoid such conflicts of interest, Mr Blair’s office said, according to guardian.co.uk, quoted by hotnews.ro.

    http://www.romaniajournal.ro/former-british-pm-tony-blair-advises-romanian-govt-thanks-to-a-contract-with-the-world-bank/

    (Only the last section appears to be from the Guardian)

    Cue statement from the Mouthpiece of Tony Blair: Mr. Blair is receiving no payment from Romania for his advisory work, but just read that again…

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Sun, sand, a luxury hotel suite, and a lucrative contract for the Cayman Islands account. Advising the Maldives on how to look like a democracy, and er, strengthening the legislative framework. Just the job for Cherie.

    http://www.aa.com.tr/en/news/539609–maldives-turns-to-tony-blairs-wife-to-improve-global-image

    The Maldives government has announced on Wednesday the appointment of a firm headed by the wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to advise on “democracy consolidation” in the Indian Ocean archipelago.

    The Maldives foreign ministry said that Omnia Strategies LLP, founded by Cherie Blair, had been hired to advise on “strengthening the legislative framework of the Government as part of the government’s broader strategy for democracy consolidation in the country.”

    The appointment comes at a time when the administration of President Abdulla Yameen faces intense criticism both at home and abroad after a number of prominent opposition leaders were jailed.

    The trial of former President Mohamed Nasheed in particular has prompted universal criticism, with both the U.N. and the EU noting serious flaws in due process as the opposition leader was imprisoned for 13 years after a three-week trial over the 2012 detention of a judge.

    Amnesty International has repeatedly expressed concern over the deteriorating human rights situation in the county, while senior U.S. senators last week called for a reassessment of bilateral relations.

    That’ll be the clincher. Blairs love dodgy regimes. And they stay dodgy, so the affection is mutual. What’s the legal equivalent of ‘greenwash’?

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Yesterday, Kiev, where his taxpayer-funded bodyguard might well have been relevant:

    http://rt.com/news/267967-blair-poroshenko-ukraine-advisor/

    “Blah, blair, blah, freedom, democracy and a desire to serve the people.”

    “Thank you, Mister Blair. Would you like discreetly rewarded position on thinktank? Meet oligarchs?”

    Only a matter of time before Cherie and her offshore get their claws on a legal advisory contrct, then.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    After criticising Lebedev’s closeness to Tony Blair, I’m delighted and astonished, nay gobsmacked to see the Indie picking up on the implications of Cherie’s latest earner in the Maldives.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/cherie-blairs-firm-accused-of-unethical-profiteering-over-deal-with-maldives-10330023.html

    “This dictatorship has locked up the Maldives’ first democratically elected President Mohamed Nasheed and the entire Maldives opposition, while human rights are in free-fall. It is hard to believe that Cherie Blair would want to keep company with such thugs of ill repute.

    Many in the UK find no obstacles to that belief….

    It is unethical for Blair to work for this regime. No doubt she is being paid a small fortune, to help wash the blood off Yameen’s reputation.

    Ba’al points are awarded to Paul Gallagher, the reporter responsible for noticing this one and reporting it in some depth.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    It is hard to believe that Cherie Blair would want to keep company with such thugs of ill repute. (Part 2)-

    Memories…

    http://www.arabianbusiness.com/qatar-s-ooredoo-partners-with-cherie-blair-in-myanmar-520554.html

    Aung San Suu Kyi, notably self-empowered, with no input from the CBF, says about Myanmar –

    What we had hoped for is that the government would enter into genuine negotiations to make sure that the democratization process is a real one. But it has become increasingly obvious that the government is not really very interested in negotiation. . . . (WaPo, Tuesday)

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/aung-san-suu-kyi-on-the-state-of-democracy-in-burma/2015/06/16/b3bfa124-141c-11e5-89f3-61410da94eb1_story.html

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Fresh from his triumph in Ukraine, tne Global Dear Leader hurries to, WTF??? St. Petersburg. to broker peace, no doubt, with Putin. And wave his arms. Blah, blair, blah, deliverology, governance…fortunately Putin, like Netantahu, has a monumental edge on Tony, intellectually. Tone won’t even realise he’s being used – and please God, thrown away.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/11684447/Tony-Blair-speaks-at-Putins-vanity-forum…-and-considers-a-job-with-Ukraine.html

    On Ukraine, the spokesman added: “The President asked him to join his reform council yesterday on a voluntary basis, but no decisions have been made at this stage.”

    I bet that one’s just been reconsidered.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Also attending St Petersburg to lower his proboscis into the business opportunities there (though US bankers seem to have given it a miss), is Peter Mandelson. He was there last year and in 2013, too. The Deripaska connection is still live.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3127350/SEBASTIAN-SHAKESPEARE-former-Labour-spin-doctor-Lord-Mandelson-helps-pariah-Putin-polish-image.html

    The latest release from the Labyrinth of Tony Blair indicates that, naturally, the Dear Laeder himself has no interest in supporting Putin’s alternative Davos, but is only there because global consultancy firm McKinsey is. The Jesuits of capitalism, indeed, have attracted its Pope. Blair and McKinsey have a long and interesting history together, although I am not privy to the amounts involved. This includes the privatisation of the UK government when Tony ran it:

    http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/jun/14/Whitehall.politics

    And there is a revolving door between McKinsey and the Orifice of Tony Blair, through which suits regularly pass in both directions. For instance, Blair’s Head of Delivery, Michael Barber, migrated to McKinsey to expound his jargon-ridden bollocks as head of its Global Education Practice. (Moving further into education, he later joined Pearson, purveyors of private education, education, education and sometime donors to Blair’s election campaign)

  • Ba'al Zevul

    After refusing to talk to Hamas for his entire premiership and to date, Blair is bending the ear of its leader. Engaging with the terrorists was a key part of the Blair government’s ending of the NI Troubles, I remember, and no doubt the expertise gained by Mowlem and Mandelson in this respect featured in many a well-rewarded Blair address afterwards. Strange he never thought of it while he had some official status as a mediator on Palestine. Now he’s chair of the self-styled and strongly Zionist ‘European’ Council for Tolerance and Reconciliation, he’s talking to the ‘terorists’ again. Here’s why:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-hearst/why-tony-blair-is-talking_b_7634070.htm

  • Ba'al Zevul

    What We Missed At the Time dept:

    One of the very few positive results claimed for Blair as Quartet rep. in Palestine, even by his apologists, was the establishment of a Qatari-backed mobile phone network, Wataniya. This, we are led to believe by the Orifice, was the result of tireless negotiation between our hero and the Israelis, who own the rights to the electromagnetic spectrum and everything else . Simultaneously, the UN-sponsored Goldstone Report, which detailed probable Israeli war crimes during the 2009 ‘war’ with Gaza – 1400 Palestinians, mainly civilians, dead, phosphorus, DIME and all the usual viciousness – the Goldstone Report was never followed up. And here’s why.

    https://electronicintifada.net/content/how-israel-bought-uns-war-crimes-probe/8477

    Blair’s role in the coverup can easily be inferred.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Anthony Charles Linton Blair alias Tony Blair is expected to visit Sri Lanka….in August. Accompanied by his wife who was an infamous barrister Cherrie Blair. (sic)

    http://lankanewsweb.net/news/11095-tony-blair-visits-sri-lanka

    In need of a refresher EFL course? Or spot-on? Loving the ‘alias’, too. Global conman ‘Bland Tony’ Blair’s arrest warrant has yet to be issued, though.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Confirming the deal with Kenya earlier this year –

    We work with countries – currently Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Guinea and Kenya

    https://www.charityjob.co.uk/jobs/agi-grants-manager/399989?tsId=1

    Someone’s paying (charity rates, not business)for a suit on the Blair Africa desk. PR and upmarket chugging. Ability to thrive in an entrepreneurial, team-oriented, and mission driven environment required. Entrepreneurial? A rare moment of clarity as to the aims of AGI is vouchsafed to us. But the nature of the charitable work is not. Advising President Kenyatta is very far from being a charitable activity.

    According to a Telegraph report in February,

    Mr Kenyatta was put on the trial by The Hague-based ICC for allegedly funding and directing aspects of the violence that killed 1,300 people in the weeks following Kenya’s disputed 2007 elections.

    In a report released by the ICC last month, he was alleged to have not only organised and funded a paramilitary force to intimidate and attack voters suspected of supporting the opposition but later had members of the force itself eliminated “in order to suppress the evidence”.

    The charges against Mr Kenyatta were however shelved after ICC prosecutors said witnesses had been bribed and intimidated, and the Kenyan government had refused to hand over documents vital to the case.

    So that fits the pattern too.

    In other news, Tullow Oil (lobbyist William Hague, PR Tim Allan) is disappointed in irs Kenyan fields, which it may sell. In yet other news, Mubadala has an interest in the region too.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Cherie’s unrelated to Tony for tax purposes, we imagine. Not even the smallest point of affinity. Cherie Booth, that is, which is her stage-name when doing legal work. Yesterday, her warm heart swelled with sympathy for a pathetic Rwandan ex-warlord, who had visited this country to confer with SIS, and as he departed, had been grabbed at the airport by the goons of the ICC, on some trumped up and undoubtedly baseless allegation of serial warcrimes, tendered by Spain. Dear, charitable Cherie, ignoring our foul allegations of complicity with her husband’s utterly pro-bono business relationship with the warlord’s boss, Paul Kagame, leapt to the rescue, and obtained bail of £1M for the multiple murderer . Probably paid it as well….good luck with that, Cherie.

    Kagame is reportedly a little critical: ‘that’s how the West treats Africans’, was the gist of it. Also reportedly, in hostile Rwandan media, Kagame knew fine Karake was going to get picked up before he went. There are other versions of the story. There may be more on this in due course.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    So, where, after all his hard work on behalf of everyone, will Tony be spending his hols this year? It seems that Sri Lanka is the favoured destination, and that he will be reposing in the southern part of the island. Not too near the Tamils, we trust.

    The Sri Lanka Sunday times reports:

    Britain’s former prime minister Tony Blair is due on a two-week visit to Colombo. The Sri Lanka Foreign Ministry has dubbed it “a private holiday.” Mr. Blair and his family including wife Cherie Booth QC are expected to arrive in August but the precise date is yet to be confirmed. On June 17, I inquired from the Sri Lanka Foreign Ministry whether it was correct that Tony Blair was due to visit Colombo, the purpose of the visit, whether he had been invited by Sri Lanka and if so by whom, and when and for what purpose.

    Confirming the visit, the Foreign Ministry said it was a private visit for a holiday in the south of the island and no one in authority had invited him to Colombo.

    Just an endless succession of cocktails in the most conspicuously expensive hotel in the area, with his loyal helpmeet Cherie and an undisclosed number of affectionate, if dependently wealthy, sprogs, then. But what’s this? The piece continues:

    Meetings with President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe have been requested while he is expected to be hosted to lunch by Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera.

    Ms. Blair earlier met then High Commissioner to London, Dr Chris Nonis, to explore any possible avenues for her consultancy Omnia Strategy LLP established in 2011, to be involved in Sri Lanka. This was the time when several western nations including Britain were carrying out a sustained diplomatic onslaught against Sri Lanka on human rights abuses.

    Meanwhile, Ms. Blair’s legal consultancy earlier this month signed a deal with the Maldivian Government which is facing international condemnation for human rights abuses.

    Raise a glass to Mr. Blair’s constant efforts to improve his and his wife’s bank balances then. He never rests.

    http://www.sundaytimes.lk/150628/news/tony-blair-family-due-in-sri-lanka-154945.html

    (It’s not yet known whether this visit will be on the September date forshadowed above.)

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Continuation of the foregoing (Ms. Blair’s legal consultancy (Omnia Strategies – BZ) earlier this month signed a deal with the Maldivian Government ):

    http://cnm.mv/english/f/?id=9844

    The Maldivian Opposition suggests:

    “Omnia Strategies is the very worst kind of mercenary outfit. They are taking possibly millions of dollars in exchange for helping a dictatorship keep a democracy hero in jail.

    Fits.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Unprecedented silence on Blair himself currently. However, this just in from Nigeria:

    http://www.nairaland.com/2415275/apc-report-card-buhari-first

    Buhari is by way of being Blair’s protege, and just before winning the election, visited Tony at the official residence of the Dear Global Leader to ensure that Jonathan got comprehensively shat on in the interests of corporate development money. Buhari has form as a violent warlord, and the words war crimes have been suggested in that respect. Natural allies, then.

    In his first 30 days in power, it seems, Buhari:

    1.Dissolved NNPC Board (As told to do by Tony Blair his Slave Master)
    2.Moved Military Headquarters to Borno (Now we are seeing daily casualties)
    3.Built a Helipad in Daura to visit his cows (Still 150)
    4.Appointed two media aides( Seems they smoke the same stuff as the boss)
    5.Met with Nigeria’s 36 state governors at the presidential villa, Abuja for a bail out. (Creating more debt from irresponsible leaders)

    MEANWHILE…..
    Ministers won’t be appointed until September (Free for all corruption in revenue generating ministries)
    Insecurity has increased ( But he gave hundreds of millions to Chad government)
    Price of foodstuff has increased. (The price of garri and rice is creating hunger)
    Cost of dollar has skyrocketed (From 198 to 250)
    Workers are still being owed. (Even after meeting with Governors)

    AGI’s Transformation Plan (under the equally indolent Jonathan) didn’t work, then. But jolly good wheezes continue to be invented by the well-fed white suits:

    http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/africa-in-focus/posts/2015/06/04-nigerian-president-buhari-westbury

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