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TG wrote:It is imperative we detach from religion. Religion is the perfect cover for elite
psychopaths to hide behind.

Israel's PM opens historic exhibit at Auschwitz

OSWIECIM, Poland (AP) — Standing in front of a former prisoner block at the infamous Auschwitz death camp, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the world Thursday of not doing enough to stop the Holocaust and said Israel can only rely on itself to prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again.
The scathing speech marked the most dramatic point of a two-day visit to Poland, a trip that comes as Netanyahu urges the world to put forth a credible military threat against Iran and its burgeoning nuclear program.

Netanyahu has long linked the Holocaust with Iranian threats toward Israel, and has faced disapproval for doing so. In defiance of his critics, he clearly chose Auschwitz as the venue for his latest salvo because of its symbolic significance as the site of some of the worst crimes ever committed against the Jewish people.

Though he never mentioned Iran by name, he suggested that Israel faces dangers that parallel the Holocaust, when 6 million Jews were killed by Nazi Germany, using harsher language than he usually does.

"The leaders of the Allies knew about the Holocaust in real time. They understood exactly what was happening in the death camps. They were asked to act, they could have acted and they did not," he said, in front of a red-brick building where he inaugurated a new pavilion to educate visitors.

"For us Jews, the lesson is clear. We must not be complacent in the face of threats of annihilation. We must not bury our heads in the sand or allow others to do the work for us," he said. "From here, the place that attests to the desire to destroy our people, I, as prime minister of Israel, the state of the Jewish people, tell the nations of the world: the state of Israel will do whatever is necessary to prevent another Holocaust. Because also today there are those who express their intention to destroy millions of Jews and to wipe their state off the face of the earth."

Israel considers Iran its greatest threat because of its support of Islamic militant groups, its questioning of the Holocaust, its arsenal of long-range missiles and primarily its advanced nuclear program. Iran insists its uranium enrichment program has only peaceful goals.

Auschwitz remains the most vivid symbol of the cruelty of Nazi Germany's genocide of World War II. More than 1.1 million Jews died in Auschwitz and the adjacent Birkenau death camp in gas chambers or from starvation, disease and forced labor.

The camps were the most notorious in a system that Nazi Germany built and operated in occupied Poland, home to Europe's largest Jewish population and at the heart of a railway network that allowed the Nazis to easily transport Jews there from elsewhere in Europe.

The new exhibit in Block 27 presents Auschwitz in the larger context of the Nazis' systematic attempt to exterminate Europe's Jews. The initial exhibit meant to tell the Jewish narrative was erected under communist rule in the 1960s. Over time, though, it became neglected and outdated and most visitors ignored it.

Following the visit of then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2005, Israel decided to revamp the exhibit. The result is "Shoah," an $8-million exhibit that presents a 360-degree montage of vibrant pre-war Jewish life in Europe, drawings of some of the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered in the Holocaust, videos of survivor testimonies and recordings of the anti-Semitic speeches of Nazi leaders.

Curated by Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, the exhibit aims to provide a backdrop to the Holocaust for a first-time visitor, presenting the racist Nazi ideology that led to the killings and the struggles of the victims and those who survived.

"We felt it our duty to recount the comprehensive story of the Shoah, the story of the Jews that were persecuted and murdered, here and across Europe, only because they were Jews," said Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev.

To highlight the extent of the carnage, Yad Vashem displayed the 4.2 million names of Holocaust victims it has painstakingly gathered over the years in a massive collection of pages stretching 14 meters (yards) long. Among the list, Netanyahu found the name of Yehudit Hun, the twin sister of his late father-in-law, killed in Bilgoraj, in southeastern Poland.

"If there are Holocaust deniers, have them come to Block 27 and go over the names, one at a time," he said, in a clear reference to Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who questions the extent of the Holocaust. "There are those who say that the approach to Jews in the world has changes since the Holocaust. And I say what has really changed?"

Yaacov Silberstein, an 88-year-old Auschwitz survivor who returned for Thursday's ceremony, remembered the camp where he endured three years of horror between 1942-1945. "There didn't use to be grass here. If there had been we would have eaten it since there was nothing else to eat," he said aboard the prime minister's plane back to Israel.

On his arm, the number 68743 remained inked. "How did I stay alive there? It was a gift from the heavens," he said. "We must never let what happened here be forgotten."

Everybody's so angry!

Russia deploys intel ship off coast of Syria

Tony Blair strikes business deals in Brazil and Colombia
Tony Blair has secured a contract to become advisor to São Paulo, one of the world’s biggest cities, Tony Blair’s consultancy, the Government Advisory Practice, has signed a contract worth £4m a year to advise the state of São Paulo, the economic powerhouse behind Brazil’s rapid growth
It was another day, another city and for Tony Blair another multi-million pound business opportunity.

The World Economic Forum on Latin America provided the perfect backdrop; a chance for its powerful financiers and industrialists to discuss the continent’s future direction.

For the former Labour prime minister, a guest speaker at the three-day event, it was the kind of situation in which he thrives.

At the summit in Rio de Janeiro 18 months ago, Mr Blair met Erik Camarano, the chief executive of a free-market consultancy, and within months was proposing that they go into business together.

A little over a year later those talks were to bear considerable fruit. Mr Blair’s consultancy — the Government Advisory Practice — landed a contract worth almost £4million a year to advise the state government of São Paulo, the economic powerhouse behind Brazil’s rapidly growing economy.
About £2 million has been earmarked for the travel and accommodation costs and Mr Blair’s fees, according to the Brazilian company that signed the contract with him. The sum is disputed by Mr Blair.

Mr Blair has peddled his model for good governance — based on his Downing Street delivery unit — around the world. He has contracts in oil and gas-rich Kuwait and Kazakhstan which have now been followed, The Telegraph can disclose, by deals in Brazil and Colombia.

“We first had contact with Mr Blair at the World Economic Forum last year,” explained Mr Camarano. “We were then approached by him and he now has an office in São Paulo. He wanted to bring his expertise to Brazil.

"He saw that Brazil was coming to a state of maturity where we could make use of his experience.

“The situation in Sao Paulo is very specific. It’s different from other states in Brazil where sometimes a lack of money is the crucial question. In Sao Paulo you do have resources, you have a huge public budget and you have a huge amount of resources to invest from the public sector.”

The initial trip to Latin America in April 2011 had been bountiful. A day before the Rio meeting began, Mr Blair had been in Colombia meeting his “close friend”, President Juan Manuel Santos.

Nine months earlier, Mr Blair’s Government Advisory Practice secured a deal with Colombia to provide a team of consultants. The value of that contract is not known but is also likely to run into millions.

There is no mention of Mr Blair’s Government Advisory Practice on any of the former prime minister’s websites. Its exact contracts are not known.

The consultancy is run out of Mr Blair’s headquarters in Mayfair in London by Stephan Kriesel, a German who studied in São Paulo.
Mr Blair’s close friend Jonathan Powell, his former chief of staff in Downing Street, is a consultant — he has visited Kazakhstan on Mr Blair’s behalf — while its South American office is run by Joe Capp, a former senior employee with the worldwide consultancy McKinsey, where Dr Kriesel also once worked.

Dr Kriesel appears to enjoy his role. His Facebook page, which is open to public viewing, shows him in various locations — often wearing flamboyant clothing, including a bright white suit and gold turban, or else photographed on a camel wearing Arab dress.

The deal with São Paulo casts a rare light on the Government Advisory Practice’s workings.

The project in São Paulo state, an area larger than the UK and with a population of more than 40 million, is costing 12million Brazilian reals (£3.7million), according to Mr Camarano.

His company Movimento Brasil Competitivo (MBC) is co-partner on the deal and receives only a small portion of the fees.

“So 10 per cent of that value [of the contract] will be to MBC,” said Mr Camarano,

He said that around 40 per cent would go in taxes, because his office would be hiring foreign services. “I would say that the remaining part, which is maybe 6-7 million reals (£1.8-£2.1 million), one part is logistics — which is international travelling, the consulting involved, lodging, accommodations — and then there is a part that is the fee for his office for the consulting work.”
Mr Camarano said that the consulting group would have a large number of experts in fields such as transport, security, education and health.

A São Paulo state spokesman said: “The company of the former British prime minister Tony Blair is advising the government of São Paulo in its long-term planning.

"This is being done in partnership with the Movimento Brasil Competitivo, a private organisation that is bearing all the costs of the consultation.”

Mr Blair and his team of consultants will help to institute policy reform and produce a strategic vision for the region called SP2030. The deal to advise São Paulo state and Geraldo Alckmin, its governor, was agreed three months ago.

The Sunday Telegraph pieced together the complex business dealings of the Government Advisory Practice, which also appears to operate under an alternative title Policy Advisory Group, through a trail of conferences that Mr Blair’s employees have attended.

Further connections can be traced through the public profiles on the networking site LinkedIn.

The employees are not easily traced back to Mr Blair except that Dr Kriesel attended a conference in the Kazakh city of Astana earlier this year under the billing head of Government Advisory Practice at the Office of Tony Blair.

There were seven people in Mr Blair’s delegation at the conference. His contract with Kazakhstan is worth as much as £16million over two years, according to unconfirmed reports.

Mr Blair set up two complex company structures on leaving office in 2007. One set of companies and partnerships is called Windrush Ventures and the other is Firerush Ventures.
It is thought the fees from his Government Advisory Practice are channelled through Windrush Ventures while another consultancy — Tony Blair Associates, which acts for private businesses — is run through Firerush Ventures.

Their company accounts are not easily discerned due to the complicated set-up.

Earlier this year, The Telegraph disclosed that Windrush Ventures Limited, which provides management services to some of Mr Blair’s other interests, recorded a turnover of £12,005,000 and administrative expenses of £10,919,000, leaving the company with a profit of just over £1million on which Mr Blair paid tax of £315,000.

The Government Advisory Practice does not appear to be registered in either Britain or Brazil. But in March this year — and four months after he began working for Mr Blair — Mr Capp registered a company in São Paulo called SDA Consultants in Socioeconomic Development in Brazil.

The filing states the business management consultancy became active on February 1. Its address is listed at a gated community outside the city centre.

A spokesman for Mr Blair said: “The figures you put to us regarding Mr Blair’s Government Advisory Practice’s work in Brazil are totally wrong – both for the contract value and expenses.

"Also, this contract is with MBC, not the state of São Paulo. We would also point out that all costs for the work are being met by national and international business – not government.

"The fee received is in line with international consultancy rates for this kind of work and covers a full-time team of experts that will live and work in Brazil, with the objective of helping the state of São Paulo develop its economy, modernise its public services and strengthen its position as the economic powerhouse of Latin America.

"This is completely consistent with the work of other organisations the world over.”

Blair Inc: How Tony Blair makes his fortune
We knew Tony Blair was making a lot of money. Now for the first time, we have the clearest indication yet of just how much.
Since walking out of Downing Street in June 2007, Mr Blair, the most successful Prime Minister in Labour’s history, has struck a number of lucrative deals that have earned him millions of pounds.

Tony Blair is a burgeoning brand. He is an adviser, sometimes paid, sometimes unpaid, to foreign governments - and in some cases dictators; a hugely in demand, highly paid public speaker; an international business consultant; and a philanthropist with two charities in his name and another devoted to improving the plight of Africans. He is also a Middle East peace envoy with an office in Jerusalem and author of a best-selling memoir, the proceeds of which he gave to charity.

Mr Blair is paid in the region of £3 million a year to advise both JP Morgan, the US investment bank, and also Zurich International, the global insurer based in Switzerland. On top of that he runs his own consultancy firm - Tony Blair Associates - which advises the oil and gas rich governments of Kuwait and Kazakhstan.

It is a confusing mix of business, politics and philanthropy that is administered by a complex system of companies, operating out of plush offices in Grosvenor Square in Mayfair in central London.

There are two parallel companies both with similar structures. One is called Windrush Ventures and another is called Firerush Ventures.
The structures are seemingly complex, consisting of a number of limited companies, limited liability partnerships (LLPs) and limited partnerships (LPs).

Windrush Ventures Limited is the management company that runs the Windrush Ventures Group. It is described in emails sent by Mr Blair’s staff as the “trading name” of The Office of Tony Blair.

Within the group there is - besides Windrush Ventures Limited - a Windrush Ventures No.1 Ltd, Windrush Ventures No.2 LLP and Windrush Ventures No.3 LP. The LP - because it is a liability partnership rather than a limited company - does not have any legal obligation to publish accounts. Firerush Ventures has a similar set up.

It is the publication of accounts, running to 22 pages, of Windrush Ventures Limited, which casts at least some light on the scale of Mr Blair’s income - and his corporate tax arrangements.

Lodged with Companies House on Dec 30, in the quiet period between Christmas and New Year, they are audited by KPMG and signed off by Catherine Rimmer, one of Windrush venture’s directors. Ms Rimmer, a former Downing Street aide, is officially Mr Blair’s strategic director. Incidentally, Windrush Venture’s highest paid director, presumed to be Ms Rimmer, earns £200,000, according to the accounts.

What the accounts show is that in the 12 months to March 31 2011, Windrush Ventures recorded a group turnover of a little over £12 million. In other words, Mr Blair’s management company was being paid £12 million - most of it coming from the secretive Windrush Ventures LP - for “the provision of management services”.

The accounts show that about £3 million of it went on office and staffing costs. What happens to the rest of it is not entirely clear. Windrush Ventures employs 26 people with a total wage bill of almost £2.3 million at an average salary of £88,000. It has office rental costs of £550,00 and a further £300,000 is spent on equipment. With a profit of £1 million - on which he pays tax of £315,000 - that leaves Windrush Ventures with about £8 million of “administrative expenses” unaccounted for. There is no obligation under company law to say what happens to that money.

The accounts also show that in the previous year, Windrush ventures received about £8.5 million and paid tax after expenses were deducted of £154,000. That means that in the past two years, Windrush ventures was paid £20 million for management services and paid a total of £470,000 in tax. There is no suggestion that the accounts are anything other than legitimate.

It is not clear what monies go through Windrush and what income is channelled through Firerush. Mr Blair is tight-lipped about the corporate structure - even going so far as to refusing to say why the companies are so named. There have been reports that Firerush is the structure set up to handle income from Tony Blair Associates, which if true - and on the scale of the Windrush accounts - would suggest the Blair Empire, including his charities, have incomes far beyond what anybody had realised. Firerush’s accounts have only partially been published and reveal little, although fuller accounts are anticipated later in the year.

As recently as September, Mr Blair protested that if he was really only interested in making money, he would not devote so much of his time to charitable causes and other unpaid activities.

“I probably spend two-thirds of my time on pro-bono activity, I probably spend the biggest single chunk of my time on the Middle East peace process which I do unpaid,” he said in an interview with an Indian television company. “So if what I was interested in doing was making money I could make a lot more and have a very gentle and easy life.”

In all, he reckoned he had 150 staff working for him in various guises across his charities and consultancies.

That interview was in response to a Sunday Telegraph investigation into Mr Blair’s friendship with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, whom he visited at least six times after leaving Downing Street. At least twice, Mr Blair flew to Libya on a private jet paid for by Gaddafi.

An email from JP Morgan, seen by the Sunday Telegraph, suggested one of those visits was linked to a multi-billion dollar loan deal the bank was trying to set up between the Libyans and a Russian oligarch - although Mr Blair has denied any knowledge of the deal.

Mr Blair’s is undoubtedly a jet set lifestyle. But there are home comforts too. In the UK, his property portfolio of seven homes is worth £14 million and includes a £4 million Georgian townhouse in central London and a country estate not far from Chequers.

In office, he was the labour’s most successful prime minister. Out of it, he appears to be doing even better.

Published on Aug 17, 2013
Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton left a voicemail for a lobbyist in which she brazenly begs for a "contribution." It's a not-so-subtle reminder of how legalized bribery is the standard operating procedure in Washington. Until money is taken out of politics, this kind of corruption will only get worse and worse. The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.

Eleanor Holmes Norton (born June 13, 1937) is a Delegate to the United States Congress representing the District of Columbia. As a non-voting member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Norton may serve on committees, as well as speak on the House floor; however, she is not permitted to vote on the final passage of any legislation. As a member of the House, Norton is also known as Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton.

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Procurement Agent Manager/Team Leader

The U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA), located in Rosslyn, Arlington, Virginia, is an independent U.S. Government foreign assistance agency pursuant to section 661 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended (22 USC 2421).

Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) introduced a 923-page rewrite of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act last week. He first vowed to rewrite the bill in 2008 when he was chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Unfortunately, Berman has only days left in Congress and the bill won’t go anywhere before he leaves. Still, the draft captures years of thinking about the United States’ legislative approach to foreign assistance and offers a possible blueprint for co-sponsor Gerry Connolly (D-VA) or others to carry forward.

Zak was also an Adjunct Professor of Law and has taught International Project Finance at the Boston University School of Law, Morin Center for Banking and Financial Law Studies and at the Georgetown University Law Center.

She [Eleanor Holmes Norton] has also served as a senior fellow of the Urban Institute. Norton became a professor at Georgetown University Law Center in 1982. During this time, she was a vocal anti-apartheid activist in the U.S., and was a part of the Free South Africa Movement.

Worth $355mn, Issa richest US lawmaker