Daily Times – Former British premier Tony Blair warned in an interview on Wednesday that the international community may have ‘no alternative’ to taking military action against Iran if it develops a nuclear weapon. “I am saying that I think it is wholly unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapons capability and I think we have got to be prepared to confront them, if necessary militarily,” he said in extracts pre-released by the BBC from an interview to publicise his memoirs. “I think there is no alternative to that if they continue to develop nuclear weapons. They need to get that message loud and clear.” Read Article
The Independent – Tony Blair secretly courted Robert Mugabe in an effort to win lucrative trade deals for Britain, it has emerged in correspondence released to The Independent under the Freedom of Information Act. The documents show that the relationship between New Labour and the Zimbabwean President blossomed soon after Tony Blair took office in Downing Street. Just weeks after the Government unveiled its ethical foreign policy in May 1997, the British PM wrote a personal letter to Mr Mugabe congratulating him on his role in unifying Africa and helping to improve relations between the continent and Britain. Read Article
The Guardian – Fidel Castro has more reason than most to believe conspiracy theories involving dark forces in Washington. After all, the CIA tried to blow his head off with an exploding cigar. But the ageing Cuban revolutionary may have gone too far for all but the most ardent believer in the reach and competence of America’s intelligence agency. He has claimed that Osama bin Laden is in the pay of the CIA and that President George Bush summoned up the al-Qaida leader whenever he needed to increase the fear quotient. The former Cuban president said he knows it because he has read WikiLeaks. Read Article
Editorial Note: Before everyone shouts “Conspiracy Theory!” it might be worth just re-reading these earlier mainstream news articles that we have referenced over the years:
1 November 2001 – CIA agent alleged to have met Bin Laden in July
3 September 2003 – Bin Laden family evacuated from US
29 October 2004 – Cronkite: Karl Rove Set Up Bin Laden Tape
16 June 2006 – Bush Senior Met With Bin Laden’s Brother on 9/11
Wall Street Journal – The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation took advantage of sagging stock prices in the second quarter to add Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), one of the most storied names in finance, to its portfolio, according to a 13F regulatory filing. Read Article
Huffington Post – Monsanto in Gates’ Clothing? The Emperor’s New GMO’s – If you had any doubts about where the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is really placing its bets, AGRA Watch’s recent announcement of the Foundation’s investment of $23.1 million in 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock should put them to rest. Genetic engineering: full speed ahead. Read Article
Jewish Chronicle – Tony Blair has declared himself “a passionate believer in Israel” and has said that there is a “collective duty… to argue vigorously against the de-legitimisation of Israel.” The Quartet representative and former UK prime minister and made the comments at a symposium at IDC University in Herzliya. Mr Blair called on European leaders not to “apply rules to the government of Israel that you would never dream of applying to your own country. Read Article
Press TV – A press report says former French President Jacques Chirac and his conservative UMP party have agreed to pay a fine to escape prosecution on charges of fraud. The report, confirmed by the city of Paris, reveals a deal under which Chirac and France’s ruling UMP party will pay the city 2.2 million euros to drop its fraud charges against the former president, Deutsche Welle reported. Read Article
BBC – Australia should become a republic when Queen Elizabeth II dies, Prime Minister Julia Gillard has said just days ahead of a general election. Welsh-born Ms Gillard said the Queen’s death would be an “appropriate point” for Australia to move away from having a British monarch as head of state. Australians voted against beoming a republic in a 1999 referendum, but the issue continues to be divisive. Read Article
“Civil disobedience, that’s not our problem. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.”
- Howard Zinn
As voted for by OYEN readers on our Facebook page this week, selected from the daily Thoughts of The Day. Did you have your say?
Globe & Mail – B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell’s trip to this year’s ultra-secret Bilderberg conference of movers and shakers in Spain didn’t come cheap, with airfare alone costing more than $6,000, according to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail. Billing records and other documents provided to The Globe as a result of a freedom-of-information request show Mr. Campbell’s business-class flight to Barcelona for the June 3-6 meeting in the small city of Sitges, southwest of Barcelona, cost $6,430.96. In Spain, Mr. Campbell was among about 130 luminaries such as Bill Gates; Henry Kissinger; former U.S. treasury secretary Robert Rubin; Lawrence Summers, director of the U.S. National Economic Council; and Richard Holbrooke, U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Read Article
With the article that we published yesterday that the UN Climate Change Panel calling for $100bn a year in new taxes for a climate fund, it is pertinent to bring to the attention of Open Your Eyes News readers the findings of some of the most recent peer reviewed papers on this subject, as well as a broader picture of the huge financial and moral issues at stake. CLICK HERE TO READ EDITORIAL
The West Australian – Forty of America’s billionaires and their families have pledged to give more than half of their fortune to charity in a drive organised by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. The group includes CNN founder Ted Turner, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and Hollywood director George Lucas, as well as Microsoft mogul Gates and investment guru Buffett. The idea, announced just six weeks ago as “The Giving Pledge,” was thought up by Gates and Buffett to convince billionaires to give most of their money – 50 per cent or more – to charity. Read article
“It is as much psychological and social phenomenon as anything else… Global warming is strictly an imaginary problem of the First World middleclass…The modern environmental move has hijacked itself by looking for an excuse to stay comfortable and stay away from actual battle……… If you are really concerned about saving world’s forests or habitat destruction, then fight against habitat destruction, don’t go off in tenuous thing about co2 concentration in the atmosphere. Actually address the question; otherwise you are weakening your effect as an activist.”
- Dr. Denis Rancourt, former professor and environmental science researcher at the University of Ottawa
AP – Carbon taxes, add-ons to international air fares and a levy on cross-border money movements are among ways being considered by a panel of the world’s leading economists to raise a staggering $100 billion a year to fight climate change.The advisory panel is chaired by the prime ministers of Norway and Ethiopia and the president of Guyana. Its members include French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers, billionaire financier George Soros and public planners from China, India, Singapore and several international banks. Read Article
New York Times – A Lexus-Mercedes caravan of privilege disturbs the sylvan stillness along a Northern California back road, motoring under an honor guard of redwoods that have no choice in the matter. In defiance of nature’s odds, every driver is a man. This can only mean that it is time again for the annual Bohemian Grove encampment, where, for more than a century, thousands of men have shed wives and cares to hike, listen to lectures, drink, discuss current events, celebrate the arts, drink, share frat-boy traditions, enjoy boon companionship no woman could understand, and drink. Read Article
Editorial Comment - One would imagine that an annual gathering of the most powerful people on the planet would be newsworthy. After-all it has been well documented that previous attendees have included Reagan, Nixon, Bush Snr & Jnr, Clinton, Blair, Rockerfeller, Kissinger, Murdoch and even Schwarzenegger. For some strange reason the only mainstream news outlet to even mention it this year is the New York Times with this whitewashing piece. Curious. Why do you think that would be?
The Independent – There is no question there was a plot. The question is whether the plot worked,or whether it got what it wanted by a remarkable coincidence. Is your life worth more to your government than a few pence added to BP’s share price? At first, this will sound like a strange question. But sometimes there is a news story that lays out the priorities that drive our governments once the doors are closed and the cameras are switched off. The story of the attempt to trade the Lockerbie bomber for oil is one of those moments. Read Article
New Scientist – A powerful group of scientists, venture capitalists and conservative think tanks is coalescing around the idea of reproducing this cooling effect by injecting sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere to counter climate change. Despite the enormity of what is being proposed – nothing less than seizing control of the climate – the public has been almost entirely excluded from the planning. Up to now, governments have been reluctant to talk about geoengineering. The reason is simple: apart from its unknown side effects, it would weaken resolve to reduce emissions. Read Article
Express – TONY BLAIR faces a Parliamentary inquiry into the spiralling cost of his security after six police officers were photographed guarding the rear of his home. Local residents say the presence of such large numbers of armed officers is making them nervous and affecting the once calm atmosphere of the upmarket neighbourhood. Tory MP Mark Field will this week table a Commons question about the costs of protecting Mr Blair, estimated at £6million a year and rising. Read article
Press Democract – Some of the world’s wealthiest and most prominent begin arriving today for the annual encampment at the Bohemian Grove, a gathering some describe as a benign men’s club and others as an insidious gathering of power. The encampment is expected to have 2,000 attendees at any one time, a guest list that has included U.S. presidents and foreign heads of state, politicians, industrial barons, actors, artists and musicians. As in the past, their identities and a description of the programs are closely guarded by officials of the San Francisco-based Bohemian Club. Read Article
Daily Mail – Tony Blair was flown to Libya for secret talks with Colonel Gaddafi just days after denying he was an adviser to the dictator. Mr Blair was ‘entertained as a brother’, a senior Libyan government source has revealed. He told the Daily Mail that the former prime minister had offered Gaddafi, with whom he is on first-name terms, ‘a great deal of invaluable advice’. Read Article
Daily Mail – All five candidates for the Labour Party leadership have been scuttling to distance themselves from the record of Gordon Brown in power. But the odds-on favourite to win the leadership contest, former Foreign Secretary David Miliband, is finding it very hard indeed to disentangle himself from the most sordid and shameful aspect of New Labour rule – British involvement in the torture of numerous terror suspects overseas. Read Article
Wall Street Journal – NBTY Inc. (NTY) agreed to be acquired by private-equity firm Carlyle Group in a deal valued at $3.5 billion in one of the largest transactions to take a public company private since the credit bubble burst. Carlyle and Blackstone Group LP (BX), two of the world’s largest buyout firms, had been eyeing the vitamin and nutritional-supplement maker, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday night. Read Article
Guardian – The coalition made one of its most controversial appointments to date today as it named Lord Browne, the former head of BP, as its new Whitehall “super-director” charged with injecting business ethos into the heart of government. Browne will play a key part in the Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition’s plans to find efficiencies across government and there have been rumours of the move for some weeks. But the appointment is controversial given his resignation from BP in 2007 after he lied in the high court to protect his personal life. Read Article
Daily Mail – A charity established by Tony Blair to aid the African poor is being run by a banker who helped to mastermind toxic mortgage investments at the centre of an alleged multi-million-pound fraud. Paolo Pellegrini, an Italian-born financier, quietly became president last year of the US arm of the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative, set up to foster economic development on the continent. The 53-year-old banker is a controversial figure in New York because of his role in devising a scheme to bet on the collapse of the US housing market, which earned his company an estimated £645?million while other investors lost the same amount. Read Article
The Guardian – A company headed by the Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal says it plans to launch a new Arabic television news channel in partnership with Rupert Murdoch’s Fox network. The prince said the Kingdom Holding company’s 24-hour channel “will be an addition and alternative” for Arab viewers. It will compete with al-Arabiya and al-Jazeera. He named the veteran Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi as chief of the new network, but did not say when it would begin broadcasting. Alwaleed, who owns the giant Rotana Group, was ranked last year by Forbes as the world’s 19th wealthiest person. Read article
As we have previously observed, recent British Governments have taken fully to heart the old political maxim that states “you only have an official inquiry if you are sure the result will be favourable”. With the last of three Climate-gate inquires concluding this week with a fresh coat of whitewash Open Your Eyes News chief editor, James Fairbairn, takes a closer look at the recent British record of appeasing concerns with a “nothing to see here” verdict. TO READ CLICK HERE
