Monday 21 February 2011

The Colonel and his special advisor in happier times.

Personal friends? Tony Blair meets Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi at his desert base

From here:
Colonel Gaddafi is understood to be on first name terms with Mr Blair, who saw his work in Libya as one of the great foreign policy successes of his premiership.[...] Mr Blair's trip to Tripoli in 2004, where he shook Colonel Gaddafi's hand and declared a 'new relationship'. The meeting led to lucrative Libyan oil contracts for Shell.
A month before stepping down as PM, Mr Blair visited-Colonel Gaddafi in Tripoli again at the same time that BP signed a $900 million deal with the Libyan National Oil Company.[...] Since becoming a part-time Middle East peace envoy on leaving office in 2007, Mr Blair has exploited his contacts to amass a personal fortune in excess of £20 million.
He has a lucrative contract to advise JP Morgan, which pays him £2million a year. Part of his job for them is to develop banking opportunities in Libya. It is understood that British firms Mr Blair is linked to are also being given contracts to tap Libya's massive natural resources, and to help rebuild the country's outdated infrastructure.
The details are sketchy because he has built a labyrinthine business empire of interlocking partnerships designed, it seems, to conceal the sources and scale of his income.
So how's that working out for you these days, Tony? You enjoying your blood for oil money?

For anyone who has spent the last week in an isolation tank, here's a summary of what's happening in Libya.

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