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 in his own write, proposal for getting into bed with UAE:
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/multimedia/archive/01134/TBA_1134329a.pdf
Looks like that’s going well, then.
And/or Mubadala’s AUX. Mining gold in a conservation zone.
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/mining_showdown_in_andes_over_unique_paramo_lands/2759/
http://www.wsj.com/articles/abu-dhabis-mubadala-takes-ownership-in-gold-firm-aux-1423756551
When Blair Inc denies any involvement in a Colombian mining deal – and it does – it’s rather hard to know which one it definitely isn’t involved in in any way at all oh our goodness no.
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/politics/2015/04/22/tony-blair-join-mccain-sedona-forum/26153945/
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair will join Sen. John McCain this weekend at the McCain Institute for International Leadership’s third annual Sedona Forum.
McCain, R-Ariz., will host a closed-to-the-media conversation with Blair on Friday evening.
Warning to rightwing chickenhawk neocon Republicans – you really, really need a long spoon to sup with this one.
Wolf Street illuminates that Colombia deal, expands on Blair’s Mexico visit and generally summarises what a shit the man is:
http://wolfstreet.com/2015/04/22/don-quijones-tony-blair-ambassador-of-rotten-national-global-governance/
But this is far from all that can be said.
Sooo… Tony’s safely in the US today. What’s his charming wife up to? Last heard of promoting global lady entrepreneurs anywhere that would pay for it, appointed to the Renault board, and…what’s this? Advising brewers Anheuser- Busch on global issues? I didn’t make it up:
http://www.ab-inbev.com/social-responsibility/global-advisory-council.html
Basically, PR, greenwashing and pretending that ridiculously cheap high OG beer doesn’t make people drunk, then.
You’ll be fine with some tea with milk that you really like…maybe you need to relax in a small place far away from the busy’est town’s , with clever and refreshing…friends. You’re a clever guy..friends can help you in so many ways and I bet they will make you forget any problems and make you more excited of live. Spenks with Ann Summers:)
.
As foreshadowed here, Tony Blair uttered words at Georgetown University yesterday. Two of the words were ‘Africa’ and ‘Governance’, and these appear to have been in the context of ‘Y’know, guys, you’ve really gotta have good governance before you can get anything done in Africa’, or something equally specifically addressed to an identifiable soluble problem.
Meanwhile, Uhuru Kenyatta, to whom Tony contracted earlier this year to give advice on governance, has removed the chairman and deputy chairwoman of Kenya’s Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC)
There is obviously no connection with the news that The EACC’s latest report, which was released last month, described the Ministry of Lands as “bedevilled with rampant corruption” and run by a “cartel” linked to minister Charity Ngilu. Her predecessor, James Orengo, is also under investigation for involvement in irregular land deals.
Transport and infrastructure minister Michael Kamau is accused of irregularly awarding contracts and inflating the cost of Kenya’s flagship infrastructure project — a new standard gauge railway from Mombasa to Nairobi at the centre of a major deal with China.
Other ministers who have stepped aside pending investigation are agriculture minister Felix Koskei, labour minister Samuel Kazungu Kambi and energy minister Davis Chirchir.
The governors of Kenya’s main cities Nairobi and Mombasa, Evans Kidero and Hassan Joho, are accused of procurement irregularities and land grabbing respectively, while a former auditor-general, Patrick Omutia, is accused of defrauding the World Bank.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-3051947/Kenya-kicks-anti-corruption-officials.html
“Uhuru Kenyatta is the most promising leader in Africa” (Tony Blair)
http://www.kenyan-post.com/2015/02/tony-blair-says-uhuru-kenyatta-is-most.html
And there’s a UAE connection here as well:
http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Kenya-to-export-100-000-workers-to-the-Emirates/-/539546/2596746/-/f79e4b/-/index.html
There’s money in migration, as “visionary*” Paul Kagame is discovering.
http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/Rwanda-confirms-Israel-talks-on-hosting-African-immigrants/-/2558/2674228/-/item/1/-/1ppafwz/-/index.html
According to Ha’aretz, an Israel publication, the first batch of the refugees arrived in Rwanda last year only to find out they had no legal status there except for 10-day tourist visas and a three-day hotel stay paid for by Israel.
“They are not granted their basic rights and, for the most part, they are not given any official status documents or permits, meaning they cannot legally work in Rwanda and face possible arrest,” the online publication reported.
These asylum seekers were paid $3,500 by Israel to “voluntarily” leave Israel – the alternative was prison – and were led to believe they would be granted refugee status or legal work permits in Rwanda, Ha’aretz reported.
*According to Tony Blair. Blair and Kagame go WAY back:
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/africa/article4339091.ece
Blair managed to fit this into a breeze through Washington (advance notice of his intention having passed me by):
http://philanthropyforum.org/
However, there he was, and the saviour of the suffering masses on pontificatory form. Happily, some of his audience seemed to realise that the main cause being promoted was that of Windrush Ventures No. 3 LP:
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/philanthropy/26021-from-the-global-philanthropy-forum-tony-blair-urges-global-funders-to-make-nice-with-government.html
Blair’s presentation, scratching his chin throughout, complementing Wales and the audience for their good questions, was generally platitudinous and not very revealing about what he knows about—and not only concerning the situation in Iraq, whose continued deterioration can be traced back to the invasion. Moreover, when addressing topics of development like those addressed by the GPF, speakers probably ought to identify their interests and conflicts, just so the audience can accurately gauge their content, and in this case, Blair wasn’t quite so clear about his multiple identities.
Philanthropy as practiced by politicians or former politicians is rarely pristine, as multiple news reports about the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation have recently revealed. The same goes for Blair (and his two foundations) and his wife Cherie (and her one foundation focused on women’s empowerment). Like multiple other sources, the Center for Global Research, based in Canada, has published an article about the linkages of a Qatari mobile telephone company with Blair and his philanthropic and Quartet roles. Apparently, the Qatari company, Ooredoo (formerly Qatar Telecom), has been a donor to and worked with Cherie Blair’s foundation, though neither it nor the foundation will reveal the size of the donations. Ooredoo is a “long-standing client of JPMorgan” where Blair is a £2 million a year advisor. Blair prioritized a contract for Ooredoo as part of the Quartet’s position, including pushing Israel to allocate bandwidth space for the company….
…etc….
…When he talks about the new, inspiring leadership in Africa, is he talking as a philanthropist working with his “team” on governance issues? Or is this Blair as influence broker, helping by his mere presence to burnish the images of sometimes less than salutary leaders, such as former Nigerian dictator Muhammadu Buhari, whom Blair met with just before the Nigerian elections, the late Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, and Ethiopia’s Menes Zenawi, just to name a few?
Some GPF attendees were enthralled by Blair’s description of the “rhythm of change”—at the beginning, it is thought impossible; while implementing change, “doing it is hell”; and when the process is done, you wish you had done more. Conference participants took note of his recommendation that the “whole reinventing government” movement has to be revived, and government has to engage with business and philanthropy across a broad range of partnerships. People nodded when he asked, “How do you get government to open up better to innovative thinking?” But the comments were generally platitudes, without clarification of which Tony Blair was speaking or which philanthropic or business client’s learning he was drawing on to explain the value of partnerships.
I hope this message reaches a wide audience. Rick Cohen, its author, has a strong background and haands-on experience in nonprofit and social programmes.
Blair’s presentation, scratching his chin throughout…
Some students of body language would say, ‘lying throughout’…
Bearing in mind Blair’s close parallels with the Clinton operation – Bill has mentored Blair, they frequently get invited to the same gigs, the impenetrable maze of charitable and profitable subsystems and the involvement of other family members – bearing these in mind, and also Blair’s currently criticised activities in Colombia, this is of interest:
http://nypost.com/2015/04/20/book-claims-foreign-cash-made-bill-and-hillary-filthy-rich/
True, this is by a Republican, and true, the GOP is shit scared that Hilary will become the next POTUS (and true, Tony got three standing ovations while addressing a recent GOP coven), but it sorta makes you think.
One example of an alleged quid pro quo cited by the Times and other sources involved the State Department’s backing of a free-trade agreement with Colombia that benefited a company founded by a big donor to the Clinton Foundation.
Hillary opposed the trade deal when running for president in 2008 because of the South American country’s poor record on workers’ rights.
But then the company, Canadian-based Pacific Rubiales, and its founder, Clinton Foundation board member Frank Giustra, donated “millions” to the foundation, The International Business Times reported.
In 2010, the State Department under Hillary lauded Colombia’s human rights record, allowing Giustra’s company to reap huge profits.
As is now customary. lesser mortals, and the press, are not privy to the deliberations of our mighty leaders as they happen. This was explicitly the case at John McCain’s Sedona Forum, to which Tony hastened after philanthropising at the GPF (24th, above).
Edited titbits have now been released to the hungering proles via the Republican senator’s Twitter account, and we learn that David Miliband, Elliot Abrams , David Petraeus and the Arizona Coyotes and Cardinals* were on hand to assist McCain’s ‘good friend’ Bambi with the Pax Americana. David Miliband, eh? Well,
future leadership seems to have been one of the themes
https://twitter.com/senjohnmccain
Read to the bitter end to discover that Angelina Jolie is now a quotable expert on international affairs…I’m not joking.
*No, neither do I. Something to do with ball games, I imagine.
Ah. This is new. And very, very Blair.
Background:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/citydiary/10559570/Bob-Diamond-nets-900000-from-Barclays-share-price-rally.html?mobile=basic
The colourful financier’s charitable return on investment in the bank he used to run helped to boost the foundation’s net assets to $2.2m, allowing Diamond to make $700,000-worth of grants to good causes, up from $150,150 in 2012.
Recipients of six-figure donations include Boris Johnson’s Mayor’s Fund for London, and – a new entrant in 2013 – the Governance Initiative set up by the former Prime Minister Tony Blair.
No doubt the controversial pair – Diamond is currently looking to buy an African bank; Blair hopes to “strengthen African governments” – have plenty to talk about.
Indeed. They probably talked about it at the Mining Indaba earlier this year (Note also Asshish Thakkar):
https://www.miningindaba.com/ehome/indaba/PR4_BigNames/
And possibly at Sedona (certainly attended by Blair) last weekend – Diamond is a trustee of the McCain Institute…
http://www.mccaininstitute.org/about/board-of-trustees/
Here’s Diamond (and Thakkar) in Rwanda :
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/28/business/dealbook/atlas-mara-in-talks-for-stake-in-second-rwandan-bank.html?_r=0
Which Blair has also illuminated with his presence this year, and whose deeply dodgy dictator, “visionary” Paul Kagame, has blessed Blair with an advisory contract.
Just one sour note –
http://www.wsj.com/articles/bob-diamonds-african-banking-venture-runs-into-problems-1427868648
And – guess what? Bob Diamond (see above) is at the Milken Institute today:
http://www.milkeninstitute.org/events/conferences/global-conference/global-conference-2015/panel-detail/5426
As is Paul Kagame:
http://www.milkeninstitute.org/events/conferences/global-conference/global-conference-2015/speaker-detail/17988
Blair:
http://www.milkeninstitute.org/events/conferences/global-conference/global-conference-2015/speaker-detail/18222
Blair (Mrs)
http://www.milkeninstitute.org/events/conferences/global-conference/global-conference-2015/speaker-detail/16546
Old friends like Michael Hintze:
http://www.milkeninstitute.org/events/conferences/global-conference/global-conference-2015/speaker-detail/17671
and in short any well nourished suit with an eye on the main chance.
Cosy.
Not with his newly-appointed advisor, Tony Blair, at the Milken Institute’s 2015 Global conference, today, is Uhuru Kenyatta. He’s got scruples?…
http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Convicted-felon-would-have-hosted-Uhuru-US-conference/-/1056/2697566/-/cr9519/-/index.html
No, just worried about being shot down over Yemen, allegedly. (That’s an unusual way to get from Dar-es-Salaam to Los Angeles, I’d have thought.)
Good point:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=WQ&reference=E-2015-005690&format=XML&language=EN
What The Quartet’s “representative” has been up to is generally discoverable only on the “representative’s” website, filtered through the “representative’s” uncritical PR organisation. This may include the “representative’s” recent leaking of a possible intention to vacate the post – not yet confirmed in any way. So, what has he done, and when is he pushing off?
“…I’ve been writing to Tony Blair at the Office of the Quartet trying to get something done on Israel’s restrictions…”
http://www.thenational.ae/world/middle-east/job-prospects-in-gaza-even-bleaker-after-latest-war
Good luck with that, mate.
Conflict of interest. Cherie Blair (at unspecified gig apparently in honour of Cherie Blair, but probably not unrelated to Milken corporate love-in) ostentatiously supports student prisoners of he Myanmar regime….
http://yangon.coconuts.co/2015/05/01/cherie-blair-supports-myanmar-students-still-no-word-what-tonys-doing-though
Pesky yangon.coconuts. Who spotted Tony in Myanmar in March –
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/02/an-apology/comment-page-1/#comment-512908
Let’s just clarify whether Tony’s supporting the regime prisoners or the regime again, shall we?
http://www.irrawaddy.org/burma/tony-blair-criticized-poor-transparency-burma-dealings.html
https://www.dvb.no/news/burmese-army-using-chemical-weapons-say-kokang-rebels-burma-myanmar/50218
Tony?
What can have happened here?
Google search result:
‘It’s with me all the time’: Norman Tebbit remembers the IRA …
europe.newsweek.com/its-me-all-time-norman-tebbit-remembers-ira-brig…
5 hours ago – Try Newsweek: subscription offers. Tebbit, 84, is speaking in the study at his house in Bury St Edmunds. It swiftly … Tony Blair, Tebbit tells me, is “the most corrupt bastard we’ve had as prime minister since the 18th century.
http://europe.newsweek.com/its-me-all-time-norman-tebbit-remembers-ira-brighton-bombing-326697
“Newsweek
HOME
Politics
BUSINESS
CULTURE
Technology
Science
Health
THIS WEEK’S EDITION
Page not found”
Well, well.
Newsweek link above is back up. On which, in full:
Tony Blair, Tebbit tells me, is “the most corrupt bastard we’ve had as prime minister since the 18th century. Utterly corrupt. Awful creature. But,” he adds, with a last subtle flourish of the blade, “very plausible.” He’d have voted for same-sex marriage, he says, “if it had been restricted to – no, imposed upon – Cherie Blair and Hillary Clinton.”
Tony Blair, despite the rumours, is still commuting to Tel Aviv and Cairo, where he fetched up on Sunday. That peace process has been a nice little earner. Wonder how long he can spin it out?
http://news.videonews.us/tony-blair-arrives-cairo-049544.html
The same source reports on freedom of speech under Blair’s chum al-Sisi:
http://news.videonews.us/press-conditions-egypt-gloomy-journalists-union-049543.html
Still, at least the bastard’s not bothering us atm.
Also from videonews.us, more on other friends of Blair’s:
http://news.videonews.us/israeli-troops-told-kill-sight-gaza-war-ngo-049588.html
The NGO said “the rules of engagement” relayed to soldiers “were the most permissive Breaking the Silence has ever heard,” adding that numerous soldiers had testified that “the orders they received were to shoot to kill every person sighted in the area.”
It went on to assert that Israeli soldiers had been misled in some cases into believing that the army’s combat activities were taking place in areas devoid of civilians, when, “in reality, the [army] forces entered areas in which innocent civilians, and sometimes even entire families, remained.”
During the seven-week onslaught against Gaza, the Israeli army “carried out mass destruction of civilian infrastructure and homes,” the NGO noted, adding that, “in many cases, the destruction occurred without any clear operational justification and after ground forces had already ‘cleared’ and left the area.”
Peace process, eh, Tony?
Cunt leaves Cairo.
http://www1.el-balad.com/1518073
Cunt endorses corrupt cunt, says should not be jailed for being criminal cunt
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/olmert-uses-tony-blair-as-character-witness/2015/05/05/
Now they’ll throw away the key.
http://www.jewishnews.co.uk/blair-labour-will-continue-traditional-support-for-israel-in-government/
In a rare pre-election intervention just two days before Britain goes to the polls, Blair hailed the Jewish state as “a beacon (of) democracy, economic development and rule of law”, adding: “Its security is our security. Those who would threaten it, threaten us here too.”
It’s a depressing thought that someone thick enough to believe that actually governed this country for a decade.
Blair has craftily done nothing but promote neoconservatism to the defeated Labour Party for some days. Hugely uninteresting stuff, even by Blair’s lowest self-promotional standards, so here’s the morning after which he unaccountably missed, en francais:
http://heyevent.com/event/1396756393976949/rencontre-entre-dmitri-medvedev-et-tony-blair-gentil-poisson-davril
I’m afraid the link text contains the clue.
Hey, it keeps the thread open until the next burst of global blairity.
Phew. For a while there, I thought he’d been raptured. But no. Fresh from telling the party he walked out on after destroying how to reconnect with his lack of principle, he’s back on the Africa Governance trail, in now ebola-free Liberia:
http://www.micatliberia.com/index.php/blog/latest-news/3582-tony-blair-pays-solidarity-visit-to-redemption-hospital.html
Cue concerned face, you know what you gotta do is….
http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2014/country-chapters/liberia
It’s another Africa tour. Now in Nigeria to accept whatever it was that was negotiated at South Pavilion when (and where) he met Buhari just before the latter won the Nigerian election*.
http://thenewsnigeria.com.ng/2015/05/13/tony-blair-visits-buhari-pledges-uk-support/
Blair is no longer in government, holds no official UK diplomatic or commercial position, and is employed by two foreign banks, several dodgy dictatorships and the UAE’s sovereign wealth fund. How come he’s offering *British* assistance? Eh? Riddle me that.
Blair finds a fellow-spirit here:
http://ketekete.com/photo-of-sen-saraki-and-tony-blair-in-abuja/
Saraki, by his own account, is a contender for Messiah status:
http://www.abubakarbukolasaraki.com/background/my-story/
I hope they can agree which one of them gets it, or maybe they can share.
* Parliamentary expense allocation was presumably one of the topics discussed:
http://ketekete.com/jackpot-buhari-to-give-his-ministers-and-lawmakers-n9bn-housing-furniture-allowance/
Phone interview with Jabba the Hut-alike major Clinton donor John Catsimatidis’ NY radio station on April 26th.
Prime Minister (sic) Blair begins emitting at 18.04 minutes, with Land of Hope And Glory as an intro. He’s terrible on radio. And adds nothing to the sum of human knowledge. Sorry I mentioned it.
http://www.catsimatidis.com/radio/tony-blair-scott-walker-and-more-speak-at-the-cats-roundtable-radio-show/
Blair’s Twitter account (one of them) announces, under yesterdays dateline, that the Dear Leader is to visit Sierra Leone ‘today’.
https://twitter.com/tonyblairoffice/status/598821102039732224
The comments are roughly what one would expect from accomplished students of Blair. The positive one is from a Claire Bourdon, who appears to be a charter jet trolley dolly, and possibly less than impartial.
And ebola has not yet been eradicated in Sierra Leone.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/nurse-in-italy-infected-with-ebola-returned-from-sierra-leone-1.3072651
We can only hope for a just outcome.