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When Diana, the 'People's Princess' died, Tony Blair felt a duty to 'protect the monarchy from itself'. Diana, Princess of Wales was down to earth, charming and intelligent, but also stubborn and prone to be over-emotional, says Mr Blair. He recalls meeting the Princess at Chequers in July 1997, the month before she died, saying he felt an uneasiness about her relationship with Dodi Fayed but could not put his finger on why. He says she did not appreciate him broaching the subject with her. “We were both, in our own way, manipulators” — good at grasping the feelings of...

HERZLIYA, Israel – Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair called on Israelis and Palestinians Tuesday to bring serious proposals to a new round of peace talks set to start on Sept. 2. Blair's comments come amid moves by both sides to lay out their starting positions since the new U.S.-backed talks were announced last week. Speaking at an Israeli academic conference, Blair said peace talks would only work if they address the main sticking points. "There will be no successful negotiations unless all the final status issues are on the table," he said. "Proposals on these issues will be a...

TONY Blair's much-hyped autobiography is more like "a love letter" to ex-US President George W. Bush, say insiders who have seen drafts of the book.... The News of the World can reveal Blair says he thinks Bush was the only politician in the world with the courage and commitment to take on al-Qaeda after the 9/11 terror attacks.

An aide to Tony Blair told the News of the World that the book launches a full defence of the much-derided US president, saying he was the only man with the courage to take on Al-Qaeda. "It is the biggest and most unapologetic defence of Bush and his ideas ever written," the paper quoted the aide as saying. "It is basically an extended love letter. Tony says he was wowed by Bush's strength, courage and conviction and saw him as a highly intelligent and visionary friend. "He says the Americans were the only ones with an effective vision on how...

May 29, 2008 By Andrew Walden (Hawai'i Free Press) Nadhmi Auchi, seen here with the Governor of Illinois, Rob Blagojevich (middle) at a 2004 Chicago dinner in Auchi's honor arranged by Antonin Rezko (potentially, right)[1]. All three men have been convicted of corruption related charges (Auchi 2003, Rezko 2008, Blagojevich 2009).[2] “A British-Iraqi billionaire lent millions of dollars to Barack Obama's fundraiser (dual US-Syrian citizen Tony Rezko) just weeks before an imprudent land deal that has returned to haunt the presidential contender, an investigation by The Times discloses. The money transfer raises the question of whether funds from Nadhmi Auchi,...

More Climate Wealth Bethany Stotts, May 27, 2010 Those students at green colleges learning about sustainability and reducing their carbon footprint might want to consider the record of those who represent such initiatives. Carbon king Al Gore has acquired a “$9 million dollar manse in swanky Montecito California…” according to AIA’s Deborah Lambert. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is set to profit off climate change as well, as reported by the London Evening Standard (LES) on May 26. “The former prime minister will be paid at least £700,000 a year to act as a ‘strategic adviser’ to Khosla Ventures,...

The new HBO movie "The Special Relationship" -- about the friendship between Bill Clinton and Britain's Tony Blair -- is missing something: a scene about Monica Lewinsky. The scene that showed Bill telling Hillary for the first time about his affair with Monica Lewinsky was shot but cut from the film at the last moment, according to actress Hope Davis, who plays the former First Lady in the movie. "It felt very strange trying to shoot it," Davis told the celebrity-news Web site becksmithhollywood.com. "It was a very uncomfortable feeling."

Vinod Khosla, Silicon Valley's most prominent "green" venture capitalist, announced today that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is joining Khosla Ventures as a senior adviser. The announcement, made at a small invitation-only gathering at the picturesque Cavallo Point Lodge in Sausalito, adds international star power to Khosla Ventures. Since leaving office, Blair has focused on climate change, energy security and public policy and is one of the world's most eloquent advocates for the environment. "I'm absolutely thrilled, honored and delighted to team up with Vinod and the people he has working for him," said Blair today. "Vinod is one...

SNIPPET: "And thus ends the saga of "Shiekh Umar Rabie, Emir of al Qaeda in the UK". I haven't commented publicly on this for some time because I was involved in the case. I testified at Ishaq Kanmi's terrorism trial last year and was asked not to comment publicly, but now that he's plead guilty that commitment has passed. I don't think I'm giving away too much when I say that long before UK authorities had "The Blackburn Resistance " under surveillance, they were on our radar screens. Why? Because a year before the "Emir of al Qaeda in the...

Obama, Brown, and the ‘Third Way’The Left loses its way by abandoning the “third way.”  Left parties are in trouble in the Anglosphere. Here in America, Democrats are doing worse in the polls today than at any time in the last 50 years. In Britain, the Labour party is on the brink of finishing third, behind both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, in the election next Thursday. All of which raises the question: What happened to the “third way” center-left movement that once seemed to sweep all before it? Only a dozen years ago, in 1998, President Clinton enjoyed...

FORMER British prime minister Tony Blair sparked a fire alert when he tried to cook breakfast at his country home, sending four fire engines racing to the scene. Mr Blair and his wife Cherie were attempting to make toast late yesterday (AEST) at their 17th-century property in Wotton Underwood, southeast England, when the smoke alarm went off. As the house is on an official list of buildings deemed to be of historic interest, the alarm was automatically connected to the local fire station, said the ex-premier's spokesman today.

"Air Force strikes in Gaza" SNIPPET: "IDF retaliates for deadly Qassam attack: Air Force hits several Gaza targets, including metal foundry, smuggling tunnel; Vice PM Shalom says Israel to offer strong response to rocket attack that killed Thai worker Thursday" SNIPPET: "IDF aircraft struck at least four targets in the Gaza Strip on Friday, a day after a rocket fired from the Palestinian enclave killed a Thai worker in Israel, Hamas security officials and witnesses said." SNIPPET: "Israel also sent a letter of complaint to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who is due to visit Israel at the weekend,...

Tony Blair is preparing to launch a "faith offensive" across the United States over the next year, after building up relationships with a network of influential religious leaders and faith organisations. With Afghanistan and Iraq casting a shadow over his popularity at home in Britain, Blair's focus has increasingly shifted across the Atlantic, to where the nexus of faith and power is immutable and he is feted like a rock star. According to the annual accounts of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, a UK-based charity that promotes cohesion between the major faiths, the foundation is to develop a US arm...

The grilling the former British PM is getting over invading Iraq suits the enemy just fine It’s supposed to be Sept. 12—that’s to say, the post-9/11 era. For over seven years the entire Western world was forced to live out a kind of geopolitical Groundhog Day in which Bush, Cheney, Rummy and the rest of the gang woke up each dawn to the same eternal Tuesday morning in September, the same long shadows of the Twin Towers, the same undying certainty of another six decades of hard, cold, martial winter. It wasn’t only the ideologically opposed among the campus left...

The former PM reminds the world why Saddam had to go, and the lesson for Iran. The British media are outraged that Tony Blair still does not regret toppling Saddam Hussein. Pundits from left and right are aghast that the former premier, testifying at yet another Iraq war inquiry on Friday, offered no apology for his role in deposing a man who had repeatedly invaded his neighbors and massacred his own people by the hundreds of thousands. We're not sure what real purpose the so-called Chilcot Commission—named for its chairman, retired civil servant John Chilcot—is supposed to serve. Ostensibly, its...

Tony Blair's much vaunted Africa Progress Panel may be wound up, having 'failed' to deliver its anti-poverty pledges - while its founder has not been to meetings for two years. A top-level panel set up by Tony Blair to monitor official aid pledges to the global Live8 campaign will hold its final scheduled session this week with him not having attended a single meeting since 2007. Convened with great fanfare in the wake of the 2005 G8 summit at Gleneagles, the Africa Progress Panel was charged with ensuring that Western governments did not renege on their promises to pump billions...

A twisted drama is playing out in England. The Chilcot Inquiry into the legality or illegality of Britain’s entry into the Iraq War grows uglier by the day. The words “War Criminal” and “War Crimes” are being waved about by Members of Parliament, anti-war activists and British journalists, all directed at former Prime Minister Tony Blair. Blair is scheduled to take the witness stand on Friday. The International Criminal Court (ICC) always waits just across the English Channel in The Netherlands. Members of the Obama administration must certainly be following this Inquiry very closely, especially Attorney General Eric Holder’s Office....

A twisted drama is playing out in England. The Chilcot Inquiry into the legality or illegality of Britain’s entry into the Iraq War grows uglier by the day. The words “War Criminal” and “War Crimes” are being waved about by Members of Parliament, anti-war activists and British journalists, all directed at former Prime Minister Tony Blair. Blair is scheduled to take the witness stand on Friday. The International Criminal Court (ICC) always waits just across the English Channel in The Netherlands. Members of the Obama administration must certainly be following this Inquiry very closely, especially Attorney General Eric Holder’s Office....

I said Obama could turn out to be America's Tony Blair - just a vacuous showman. This week we'll find out if U.S. voters agree. On Tuesday, almost a year to the day since he took the oath of office, Barack Obama faces a referendum on his presidency. The jury is out and the verdict is far from certain. Voters in Massachussetts go to the ballot box to elect a successor to Senator Edward Kennedy, who died of brain cancer last August. It should be a formality for the Democrats, who have held the state since the late John F....

The title of that article above, from the LA Times, is titled: WMD Not Point Of Iraq War. Of course it wasn't. It was One of MANY reasons for that war, one of which....and the most important in my opinion...was Saddam's support of terrorists. After 9/11 we could not allow this tyrant to continue to support our enemies while thumbing his nose at the entire world for the previous 13 years. As the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Phase II investigation report on pre-war Iraq Intelligence stated: Conclusion 10: Statements in the major speeches analyzed, as well additional statements, regarding...