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…
Blair’s done Rwanda and Mozambique since his schmooze with the big miners in Cape Town this week. Today he’s making friends with Kenya’s Kenyatta. Another champion of human rights…
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/05/crimes-humanity-charges-kenya-president-dropped-uhuru-kenyatta
http://allafrica.com/stories/201502131039.html
Coming soon, an AGI office in Nairobi facilitating investment opportunities based on trashing the environment, Cheap Labour* and a rakeoff for Tony.
* It’s the new New Labour…
Lolcats:
Blair has just toured the Kenyan government’s Delivery unit (read loadsa managers onside with Kenyatta)
The unit has identified key projects for monitoring: Konza Techno-city, Lamu Port South Sudan and Ethiopia Transport corridor, (the pipeline component), road accidents and media monitoring, especially the coverage of Cabinet Secretaries.
Loving the media monitoring. But who could possibly help them with that? Not Alastair Campbell, obviously.
And, guess what? It’s ‘ working with the Tony Blair Foundation. When Blair was Prime Minister, he used the concept to mobilise government department and agencies effectively.’
…by privatising them.
Not sure if that’s the Tony Blair Faith Foundation or the Tony Blair Sports Foundation, btw. The Tony Blair (unspecific) Foundation is new to me. Unless it’s to do with one of his many properties.
Topic: An Apology
Sorry…
Blair is currently touring East Africa. It seems Ethiopia (although Tony gave it a mention as a good place for hedge funds to accumulate, at the Investing In Mining Indaba this week) isn’t on his current itinerary. Although it ought to be.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/11262947/Questions-over-Tony-Blairs-opaque-deals-in-Africa.html
Perhaps it’s because a Dassault Falcon 7 costs a bit more to hire than a Global Express?
And….mission accomplished! Another dodgy dictator to advise on governance:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/kenya/11412459/Tony-Blair-to-advise-Kenyas-controversial-president-Uhuru-Kenyatta.html
Blair’s on record this week as thinking Rwanda’s well governed….
Some Kenyans have got the picture already –
https://www.kenya-today.com/news/president-uhuru-hires-ex-british-pm-tony-blair-advisor
Blair, viewed by many in the Muslim world as a fugitive alongside former US President George Bush for invading Iraq a decade ago with false claims of nuclear bombs, and who, like Uhuru, remains a potential ICC indictee, is the new acquisition of Uhuru regime increasingly pushing through an economic model pegged on western aid and borrowing to fund Chinese projects littering the country, each laced with multi-million shilling corruption and tender wars, all covered up in sold out Kenyan local press.
Once more, with feeling.
Rounding off what must have been a very rewarding trip, the Quartet Representative, Mr. Tony Blair, dropped in to Gaza en route to somewhere else. (Egypt yesterday, Israel today). Briefly. He’s been to Gaza twice before since being appointed QR, both times in 2009. Self-serving platitudes have already appeared on his promotional website, anent the need for a new approach to peace negotiations. How about the Israelis don’t invent a pretext and walk out, for a start, Tony?
http://www.dailysabah.com/mideast/2015/02/15/quartets-blair-in-gaza-strip-for-a-brief-visit
Netanyahu bang to rights:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.589366
Reaction to Blair’s visit to Rwanda to see his mate Kagame (12th Feb):
http://www.inyenyerinews.org/justice-and-reconciliation/the-untold-stories-tony-blairs-remarks-on-rwanda-deceptive-and-elusive/
“…sometimes it’s better for advisors to abstain from giving advice to their Bosses….”
(TB on saying nuffin to Kagame’s plan to change the constitution and award himself a third term in office)
Especially highly paid advisors.
PS, while it was announced that Blair’s intention was to visit Mozambique on this tour, I can find no evidence of his having done so. Still, it probably has enough problems –
http://www.umc.org/news-and-media/church-responds-to-devastating-mozambique-floods
1.The Quartet envoy called on Israel to open its crossings into the territory…
http://news.yahoo.com/blair-warns-further-catastrophe-gaza-191402139.html
AS IF!.
2.
General Yoav Galant, number two on the list of Moshe Kahlon’s Kulanu, said that should he serve as the Minister of Defense in the coming government, the next campaign in Gaza will be much shorter with “quality results”, as he put it. The comments were made at the “Shabatarbut” event in Rishon Letziyon.
Galant said that he thought there was a distinct possibility that there would be another Gaza campaign during the tenure of the next government, and that it would be unacceptable to him to have it end in a draw between the two sides. He also addressed Avigdor Liberman’s request to become the defense minister in the next government saying, “In a sensitive area, such as Defense, it is appropriate that the person filling the post be knowledgable in the matter.”
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/317801
A fourth operation in the Gaza Strip is inevitable, just as a third Lebanon war is inevitable (Avigdor Liebermann)
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4621448,00.html
And what of the Israeli Left? Oh, yes…
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-Elections/Herzog-attacks-Netanyahu-from-the-Right-says-he-strengthened-Hamas-390412
Just falling over themselves to open the borders and allow JP Morgan’s clients a clear run at those construction contracts, aren’t they?
It’s Monday. This must be Jordan –
http://www.petra.gov.jo/Public_News/Nws_NewsDetails.aspx?Site_Id=1&lang=2&NewsID=183304&CatID=13&Type=Home>ype=1
… finding a just and comprehensive solution to the Palestinian issue, which constitutes the core of the conflict in the Middle East, based on the two-state solution….
(Wonder what happened to Breaking the Impasse?
http://mondoweiss.net/2013/05/billion-palestine-capitalism )
Excellent point….
https://twitter.com/Belalmd12/status/566948532658003968
Then it was back to the safe side of the blockade to diss Hamas to his friends.
A solid proposal from Ireland’s Charles Flanagan, who visited Gaza yesterday, the day after Blair.
https://www.dfa.ie/news-and-media/press-releases/press-release-archive/2015/february/funding-for-the-palestinians-announced/
E500K to UNRWA in Gaza….if Mr Tony cared to, he could match that from AGI’s petty cash and do some real good. Pmsl.
Blair, in Gaza, says better Palestinian living standards vital for peace
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.642671
Quite so.
http://gulfnews.com/news/region/palestine/israel-plan-turns-palestinian-land-into-landfill-1.1458498
http://gulfnews.com/news/region/palestine/israel-uses-water-to-blackmail-palestinians-1.1458492
New report out on
Fish In A Barrel IVProtective Edge. Completely and carefully independent. Think it’ll attract investors, Tone?http://www.newsfixboard.com/t7870-independent-investigation-details-israels-deliberate-targeting-of-civilians-in-gaza
PHR-Israel reported Israel did the following in its Operation Protective Edge:
used civilians as human shields;
shot civilians dead at close range;
left mortally wounded children on the ground to die, even after soldiers made eye contact with them;
conducted multiple consecutive strikes on a single location (“double taps”), killing injured survivors and those attempting to rescue them;
bombed medical clinics that were acting as shelters for civilians and the wounded;
“deliberately” attacked hospitals;
prevented emergency medical evacuation, even by international organizations such as Red Cross;
killed and injured “many” medical teams that were evacuating the injured;
refused to allow civilians to exit areas being attacked;
targeted civilian escape routes;
shelled ambulances;
attacked civilians attempting to flee areas under fire;
physically beat civilians;
denied civilians food and water;
and more.
The report additionally documented Israel’s use of unconventional and experimental weapons, resulting in injuries local doctors characterized as “strange or inexplicable.” Among those used were
flechette munitions (which doctors reported surgically removing from the faces of children);
“explosive barrel” bombs, referred to as “Tzefa Shirion” weapons, that were made to be used to clear mines, but were dropped on civilians;
what are suspected to be DIME weapons, leading to “unusual burns” and “unusual amputations,” with “charred” black skin that did not smell like burning flesh and black “tattooing” around cauterization-like stumps of amputees;
weapons that left “‘computer chips’ with Sony markings embedded as shrapnel in people’s bodies”;
and “a gas of unknown type,” a white-colored substance with a “sewage-like smell” that burned skin and caused respiratory problems and could be seen and smelled from 500 meters away.
The medical fact-finding mission notes that the “overwhelming majority of injuries causing death or requiring hospitalisation … were the result of explosion or crush injuries, often multiple complex injuries.” Roughly half of interviewed Gazans were attacked in their homes. Entire families were killed in the attack.
Abu Dhabi – last year:
Blair is a paid employee of Abu Dhabi because of his Mubadala contract,” said Christopher Davidson, a Gulf expert at Durham University. “He should not be regarded as representing UK national interests.”
Chris Doyle of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, said: “Tony Blair has to decide between his Quartet role as envoy to one of the most dangerous conflicts on the planet, his burgeoning media role in pushing for intervention in Iraq and Syria and his business interests across the globe including in the Middle East. These roles are incompatible and create a huge conflict of interest.”
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/27/tony-blair-conflict-interests-middle-east
Later (Dec)
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-12-17/tony-blair-adviser-kevin-kokko-to-join-abu-dhabis-mubadala-unit
The Africa connection (last week)
http://pagesix.com/2014/02/03/tony-blair-now-a-power-broker-in-africa/
Blair has visited Guinea at least seven times in two years, according to Britain’s Telegraph, and has become close with Alpha Conde, who became president of Guinea in 2010 in what his opponents charged was a rigged election.
Mubadala signed a $5 billion deal with Conde’s government in December for bauxite, aluminum ore. Guinea also has huge iron deposits.
History –
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/9136126/Tony-Blair-expands-his-African-empire-into-mineral-rich-Guinea.html
Rwanda has significant deposits of coltan (columbite-tantalite; essential for little glowing boxes you talk into without looking where you’re going). Mubadala Petroleum has interets in offshore Easr African oil.
If Mr. Tony, who does all this wonderful work absolutely gratis and for no personal benefit whatever, should show up in Abu Dhabi tomorrow, I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Though the news may take a little longer to emerge.
The Guardian has just noticed that Tony hopped into bed with Serbia’s Vucic a couple of weeks ago – mentioned in these comments at the time. Still, there’s more enlightening stuff in the article:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/18/tony-blair-advising-serbian-government
More good reason for the devious shitweasel to resign as Quartet envoy.
Keywords: Blair, Quartet, envoy, devious shitweasel.
Next stop, Azerbaijan?
My bad. Wrong number. If it was he, he is now back with us in Blighty. Where the Daily Mail produced a surprisingly muted piece on his new partnership with Aleksandar_Vučić:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2959480/Now-Blair-paid-advise-Serbian-Prime-Minister-despite-outspoken-critic-backed-airstrikes-country-Kosovo-War.html
Normally the Mail goes for Blair’s balls, because the editor, Paul Dacre, loathes him. There was so much more that could be said, and was said, by most of the competition. It’s maybe permissible to wonder whether this is not connected with Blair’s appearance, with internet fanfare, at the recent Investment in Mining Indaba, which was sponsored by Euromoney. The Daily Mail owns 20% of Euromoney, and both Dacre and Rothermere are on its board. What a beautiful reconciliation.
Watch this space for Straw in Kazakhstan….or read Private Eye this week.
Good BLiar roll call Ba’al.
From the Register of MPs’ Interests, 09/02/2015, under STRAW, Rt Hon Jack (Blackburn):
From 12 November 2014, member of the Advisory Council of the Eurasian Council on Foreign Affairs Ltd, 20-22 Bedford Row, London WC1R 4JS, which is a forum for discussion of Central Asia’s relationship with the European Union. Remuneration: £12,500 plus VAT a year for an expected commitment of 40 hours. (£10,001-£15,000) (Registered 26 January 2015)
Who dey? The Independent has picked up on Private Eye’s off-internet piece:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/jack-straw-criticised-for-accepting-parttime-job-paid-for-by-kazakhstan-10057426.html
Additionally:
Two Conservative politicians have also agreed to serve on the advisory board alongside Mr Straw. They are Peter Lilley, the party’s former Deputy Leader, and former Chancellor Lord Lamont.
Lord (sic) Straw is not the first New Labour politician to court controversy by working with the Kazakh government. Mr Blair has been employed as an adviser to President Nazarbayev, while Lord Mandelson has spoken at events organised by the Kazakh investment company Samruk-Kazyna.
What with Blair’s and his former spindoctor Tim Allen’s (Portland) engagement with Nazarbayev, things are geting decidedly cosy in Astana. All snouts to the trough!
Further research indicates that it might have been that long-lost charmer, David Miliband, who paid a flying visit to Abu Dhabi on a charter jet two days ago. David has UAE connections which predate his current chairmanship at the International Rescue Committee, a large charitable organisation, half of whose income comes from various national aid budgets. And some of which goes to pay David’s salary, in the region of £300K as far as anyone knows.
His trajectory intersects Blair’s sometimes. On this occasion he used the same charter company as Blair has often used.
The IRC is certainly a haunt of the great and good, and boasts such luminaries as Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Henry Kissinger and Eli Wiesel* on its (allegedly unpaid) advisory board. Endorsed by Bill Clinton, obviously, its staff on the ground tend to be interns and/or very poorly paid. Some questions have been raised as to how much of its $200M budget actually reaches the desperate people it aspires to help, although it claims that 90% of this is spent on ‘projects’. Which could be interpreted as being middle-management and their premises.
The history of its foundation is not quite as its publicists would have us believe:
http://www.spinwatch.org/index.php/blog/item/5483-what-is-david-miliband-s-international-rescue-committee
*Proud to be associated with Paul Kagame. Ultra-neocon. Small world –
http://f8wee1vvia32pdxo527grujy61.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/1237377_10151688307131089_1275270413_o.jpg
Quicker, but probably more forgiving than Chilcot: Charities Commission report on allegations last year that the Tony Blair Faith Foundation’s activities were improperly controlled by its patron.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/405754/ocr_the_tony_blair_faith_foundation.pdf
Feel free to strap on a large vomit bag and see for yourselves how far the TBFF’s voluminous op-eds and meticulous reporting of its Patron’s various emissions diverge from what we may reasonably agree to be Tony Blair’s personal prejudices and policies.
Seems to me rather like Murdoch’s papers. The owner doesn’t actually tell the editor what he wants printed, but by a process of telepathy, the editor always knows…
That vile Jim Murphy wants me to have a choice about what I drink at the match. How fucking illiberal is that? Who does he think he is? If we want a free choice we’ll ask for it, OK?
Ooops –
http://order-order.com/2015/02/19/labour-transparency-king-takes-donation-from-private-equity-adviser/
From the memory hole:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2714316/Inside-Blair-s-lair-Five-spin-doctors-ministerial-red-box-town-hall-meetings-doughnuts-deals-dictators-After-THAT-party-Cherie-former-ex-PM-employee-reveals-really-happens.html
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/13/tony-blair-faith-foundation
Supported by the observation that on TBFF’s current main page, of the first four stories about the wonderful work the TBFF does (often written by the current Archbishop of Canterbury’s son, Peter Welby (24)), the titles of three contain the words ‘global’ or ‘globalisation’
Blair imposing an agenda? Nooooo, of course not.
http://www.nairaland.com/2159482/buhari-london-tony-blair-saraki
Interesting, because Blair is on record repeatedly as supporting Buhari’s opponent, currently in power, Goodluck Jonathan. Apparently –
Manji Cheto, West Africa analyst at political risk consultancy Teneo Intelligence, believes that Buhari’s flying visit to Britain is to show Western officials that he is someone who will “adhere to democratic principles” if he is elected next month.
“This is designed to position Buhari as pro-investment and pro-Western partners,” she says. “What [Western officials] have heard is mostly information that the PDP [the rival People’s Democratic Party] has said to the world through propaganda.”
“It’s him having private meetings as well to calm Western partners about any potential autocratic tendencies so to speak,” she adds.
A journalist with knowledge of the situation on the ground in Nigeria, who declined to be named on matters of Nigerian politics, added that the devout Muslim politician is on a “charm offensive” to reassure Western officials about not only his own credentials but also his ability to tackle the threat of the Boko Haram insurgency.
http://www.newsweek.com/nigerian-opposition-leader-buhari-arrives-london-charm-offensive-308235
Should a UK registered charity be actively engaged in the politics of another country, beyond flying four suits in to talk bollocks to the president?
blair.3cdn.net/2c600439f670ea7510_hfm6ibcvd.pdf
Curiouser and curiouser-
http://www.naij.com/389425-buhari-in-london-with-tony-blair-saraki-and-amosun-photo.html
That’ll be
Dunlyin South Pavilion, then. Well, he wasn’t here fpr his health. Ibikunle Amosun has a Masters in International Finance, and has a reputation for attracting investment to his state, and Bukola Saraki’s rise from being a medical officer at a London hospital to Director of Societe Generale Bank (Nigeria) Ltd. appears to have taken just a year; ten years later finds him advising the then president on the budget. Buhari and Amosun have form for fraud and embezzlement, allegedly, by some, but the cases were dropped.Nigerian politics, running up to an election, makes the American model look like a vicarage teaparty, and sorting out the facts from the hyperbole isn’t easy. But it’s probably safe to conclude that the trio is looking for money with which to bribe the volatile and partisan Nigerian electorate to voe for them. Tony’s your man, boys. Tony doesn’t mind getting his immaculately manicured hands dirty.
Ok, that was a multiple fail, But you get the drift…
Further to Mr. Tony’s pious words as he skipped happily round a not-too-distressingly-damaged school* in Gaza last week, the aid’s not getting through and WTF are you doing about it, you complacent POS?
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/02/message-donors-tony-blair-give-gaza-future-150222075024307.html
*Not this one…
http://cdn4.independent.ie/incoming/article30469050.ece/ea2e8/ALTERNATES/h342/gaza06.jpg
That’ll be Straw comprehensively damned, then:
http://www.itv.com/news/granada/update/2015-02-23/former-prime-minister-tony-blair-defends-jack-straw/
Meanwhile, Mr. Tony, having had a nice chat with the Nigerian opposition (dodgy autocrats in waiting), will be revisiting Nigeria shortly to talk to the other lot.
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/02/tony-blair-confirms-meeting-with-buhari/
Talking about AGI and lobbying, btw:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/10729538/Hillary-Clinton-agreed-to-help-Tony-Blairs-charity.html
In June 2012, when (David Miliband) had returned to the backbenches, he visited South Sudan at the request of Mr Blair ahead of AGI signing a deal to work in the country. His expenses were paid by the charity, which now has staff embedded in the leaders’ offices of seven states to help improve governance and attract foreign investment.
A cache of 600 pages of emails related to AGI’s dealings with USAID now show that he emailed Mrs Clinton about the charity in September 2012, months before stepping down as a Labour MP.
The note was sent ahead of the Democratic National Convention, which as secretary of state Mrs Clinton was not legally allowed to attend. “The Convention next week won’t be the same without you,” Mr Miliband wrote from his House of Commons email account.
“I just wanted to touch base about South Sudan,” he continued. “The US like AGI see high priority in getting the Office of the President to function better, set priorities, focus on delivery, etc.
“Now there is a chance of oil revenue flowing, we are keen to get the government focussing on its core tasks of development. It would be enormously helpful if your people in Juba could work closely with the AGI on this.”
In passing:
https://tiger21.com/presenter-bio/1725
Paolo Pellegrini is the President of PSQR Capital, a macro hedge fund manager pursuing global investment opportunities ranging from commodities and debt to equities and currencies.
Prior to founding PSQR, Mr. Pellegrini was a managing director at Paulson & Co, where he began researching what he perceived to be a major credit bubble in 2005, ultimately identifying the upcoming subprime collapse and helping to develop the Paulson Credit Opportunities funds (1). Mr. Pellegrini co-managed the funds until he left Paulson at the end of 2008. PSQR was formed in April 2008, originally as a vehicle to manage Mr. Pellegrini’s personal wealth (2).
Mr. Pellegrini’s earlier career includes work as a credit derivatives analyst at Mariner Investment Group and a decade as an investment banker with Lazard Freres & Co. where he focused on financial institutions. He holds a degree in electrical engineering from Milan’s Politecnico and an MBA from Harvard. He is also president and a trustee of the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative-US, supporting projects in Sierra Leone and Rwanda, and an international advisory board member of Friends of FAI, the Italian Environment Foundation.
(1) Bundling subprime mortgages and failing to tell the buyers they were tastily-packaged shite. His bonus from the operation was (one year) $117M. Everyone apart from Paulson and he lost heavily.
(2) $27.2 billion in 2009 – and that’s just the hedge fund.