Blair also praised the CM for the state’s success in different sectors. He appreciated the 5T initiative for bringing transformative changes in governance…reports Asian Lite News
Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair met Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday at the latter’s residence, Naveen Niwas in Bhubaneshwar, said the Odisha CM’s office.
The two leaders discussed the economic development and growth of Odisha and the future perspectives.
The Government of Odisha has inked an MoU with the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) on July 21, 2023. As per this agreement, TBI will provide free policy support and assistance in developing a comprehensive economic strategy for Odisha, it said in a press release.
The Chief Minister appreciated the preliminary suggestions of TBI and expected this cooperation will help in securing balanced industrial growth and resultant inclusive benefit to citizens. He thanked Blair for the support, the release added.
#WATCH | Former United Kingdom PM, Tony Blair met Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik today. Both leaders discussed the economic development and growth of Odisha and the future perspectives. pic.twitter.com/bTLBNpUj8A
Blair also praised the CM for the state’s success in different sectors. He appreciated the 5T initiative for bringing transformative changes in governance.
The TBI will deploy 4 resources for a period of 24 months. This project team will work under the direct guidance of TBI’s leadership and its network of global experts.
The team will work in close collaboration with team Odisha team.
It is a pleasure meeting former UK Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair. Had a meaningful discussion on economic development and growth of #Odisha & future perspectives. Thank Mr. Blair for extending policy support, assistance in developing a comprehensive economic strategy for… pic.twitter.com/QdK6ElvscD
Headquartered in London and founded in 2016, TBI is helmed by Former Prime Minister of the UK, Tony Blair. TBI works in over 45 countries. TBI’s domains of expertise include governance, foreign policy, investments, infrastructure and cities, climate and energy, and human capital.
In Odisha, the project team will undertake a range of activities such as current-state analysis, external benchmarking, roadmap design, capacity development, and effective communication of core reforms to enhance adoption. Prioritization of emerging industries and development of multimodal transport logistics will be the main agenda to supercharge growth, the release said. (ANI)
Talking about technology and how it has reformed the way the world functions, Blair complimented India and its digital program…reports Asian Lite News
The position of India is now more powerful than it has ever been, said former Prime Minister, Tony Blair. “India’s position is potentially more powerful than ever with the G20 and it is absurd to think that India is not a permanent member of the UNSC. You could say that about other countries as well,” said Blair speaking at a panel discussion during Raisina Dialogue.
India’s position in shifting geopolitics is absolutely critical because the progress the country has made in the last few years has been remarkable, the former PM said.
“UK India’s relations are great today. The fact that we have a Prime Minister who is of Indian origin shows how much things have changed,” Blair added.
Talking about technology and how it has reformed the way the world functions, Blair complimented India and its digital program.
“India’s digital ID program (referring to Aadhar) is the best in the world,” he said adding that on the flip side of technology, social media is a bane at times.
“Conventionally it is believed and understood that those who shout the loudest do not need to be heard. But this doesn’t apply to social media,” Blair said.
Noting that the real challenge today is how to make sense of the shifting geo-politics, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has said that India's position is potentially more powerful than ever with the G20…https://t.co/mLCRnpFsef
Blair noted that India today is a bigger economy than Britain.
“It is a geopolitical power, it is a post-colonial country that dominates the original English sport of cricket,” he said during the discussion that included External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar and former England Cricketer Kevin Pietersen.
He said that increasingly around the world when countries are worried about whether they have to choose between the USA and China, “I think India is a country seen by many as an objective friend.”
The MailOnline’s report came as an opinion poll published by UK polling company YouGov revealed 63 percent of Britons are opposed to Blair being knighted…reports Asian Lite News.
Hundreds of thousands of people in the United Kingdom have joined a call for former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to be stripped of his knighthood, citing his role in the Iraq War.
An online petition had attracted more than 700,000 signatures as of Wednesday morning, just four days after it was set up in response to Blair being made a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter in Queen Elizabeth II’s New Year’s honours list.
The petition says Blair is “the least deserving person of any public honour” and calls for him to be held accountable for “war crimes”.
“Tony Blair caused irreparable damage to both the constitution of the United Kingdom and to the very fabric of the nation’s society. He was personally responsible for causing the death of countless innocent, civilian lives and servicemen in various conflicts,” it adds.
The ex-Labour Party leader, who served as prime minister from 1997 to 2007, has faced constant criticism in recent decades over his involvement in the United States-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The invasion, which resulted in former President Saddam Hussein’s removal from power and subsequent execution, ushered in years of conflict that saw hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed as the country descended into chaos.
To justify the invasion, Blair and then-US President George Bush had cast Hussein as a global threat who possessed weapons of mass destruction as Washington, in particular, focused on neutralising supposed threats in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
But no such weapons were ever found.
Late on Tuesday, as the campaign to remove Blair’s knighthood was gathering pace, the UK’s MailOnline news website published resurfaced allegations against Blair.
The site said a former aide of his had in 2003 ordered then-Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon to “burn” a memo written by then-Attorney General Peter Goldsmith that said the invasion of Iraq could be illegal.
At the time, the US and UK had failed to secure a specific UN resolution giving them international backing for the incursion.
Hoon said his secretary was told “in no uncertain terms” by Jonathan Powell, Blair’s then-chief of staff, that the note was to be destroyed after it had been read, the Daily Mail reported, citing passages from Hoon’s recently published memoir, See How They Run.
However, this order was defied and the memo was locked in a safe at the UK’s Ministry of Defence instead.
Blair and Powell have previously dismissed these allegations – which first emerged in 2015 – as false.
The MailOnline’s report came as an opinion poll published by UK polling company YouGov revealed 63 percent of Britons are opposed to Blair being knighted.
The survey was based on responses from 2,441 Britons and suggested that most Labour voters were also against the move.
Despite the mounting public pressure for Blair’s knighthood to be revoked, several leading politicians have spoken out in favour of him being honoured by Queen Elizabeth II.
Current Labour leader Keir Starmer and Speaker of the House of Commons Lindsay Hoyle, both of whom have already been knighted by the monarch, made separate remarks on Tuesday defending the former prime minister as a worthy recipient of the decoration.
AMorgan Stanley spokesperson said: “We do not create offshore companies…. This process is independent of the firm and at the discretion and direction of the client.” …reports Asian Lite News.
Millions of leaked documents have uncovered financial secrets of 35 current and former world leaders, more than 330 politicians and public officials in 91 countries and territories, and a global lineup of fugitives, con artists and murderers, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) said.
The secret documents expose offshore dealings of the King of Jordan, the presidents of Ukraine, Kenya and Ecuador, the prime minister of the Czech Republic and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The files also detail financial activities of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “unofficial minister of propaganda” and more than 130 billionaires from Russia, the United States, Turkey and other nations.
The leaked records reveal that many of the power players who could help bring an end to the offshore system instead benefit from it — stashing assets in covert companies and trusts while their governments do little to slow a global stream of illicit money that enriches criminals and impoverishes nations.
Among the hidden treasures revealed in the documents:
A $22 million chateau in the French Riviera — replete with a cinema and two swimming pools — purchased through offshore companies by the Czech Republic’s populist prime minister, a billionaire who has railed against the corruption of economic and political elites.
More than $13 million tucked in a secrecy-shaded trust in the Great Plains of the United States by a scion of one of Guatemala’s most powerful families, a dynasty that controls a soap and lipsticks conglomerate that’s been accused of harming workers and the earth.
Three beachfront mansions in Malibu purchased through three offshore companies for $68 million by the King of Jordan in the years after Jordanians filled the streets during Arab Spring to protest joblessness and corruption.
The secret records are known as the Pandora Papers.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists obtained the trove of more than 11.9 million confidential files and led a team of more than 600 journalists from 150 news outlets that spent two years sifting through them, tracking down hard-to-find sources and digging into court records and other public documents from dozens of countries.
The leaked records come from 14 offshore services firms from around the world that set up shell companies and other offshore nooks for clients often seeking to keep their financial activities in the shadows. The records include information about the dealings of nearly three times as many current and former country leaders as any previous leak of documents from offshore havens.
In an era of widening authoritarianism and inequality, the Pandora Papers investigation provides an unequaled perspective on how money and power operate in the 21st century — and how the rule of law has been bent and broken around the world by a system of financial secrecy enabled by the US and other wealthy nations.
The findings by ICIJ and its media partners spotlight how deeply secretive finance has infiltrated global politics — and offer insights into why governments and global organizations have made little headway in ending offshore financial abuses.
An ICIJ analysis of the secret documents identified 956 companies in offshore havens tied to 336 high-level politicians and public officials, including country leaders, cabinet ministers, ambassadors and others. More than two-thirds of those companies were set up in the British Virgin Islands, a jurisdiction long known as a key cog in the offshore system.
At least $11.3 trillion is held “offshore”, according to a 2020 study by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Because of the complexity and secrecy of the offshore system, it’s not possible to know how much of that wealth is tied to tax evasion and other crimes and how much of it involves funds that come from legitimate sources and have been reported to proper authorities.
Pandora Papers (ANI)
A document in the Pandora Papers shows that banks around the world helped their customers set up at least 3,926 offshore companies with the assistance of Aleman, Cordero, Galindo & Lee, a Panamanian law firm led by a former ambassador to the US. The document shows that the firm — also known as Alcogal — set up at least 312 companies in the British Virgin Islands for clients of the American financial services giant Morgan Stanley.
A Morgan Stanley spokesperson said: “We do not create offshore companies…. This process is independent of the firm and at the discretion and direction of the client.”
The Pandora Papers investigation also highlights how Baker McKenzie, the largest law firm in the US, helped create the modern offshore system and continues to be a mainstay of this shadow economy.
Baker McKenzie and its global affiliates have used their lobbying and legislation-drafting know-how to shape financial laws around the world. They have also profited from work done for people tied to fraud and corruption, reporting by ICIJ has found.
The people that the firm has done work for includes Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, who US authorities allege laundered $5.5 billion through a tangle of shell companies, purchasing factories and commercial properties across the US heartland.
Baker McKenzie also did work for Jho Low, a now-fugitive financier accused by authorities in multiple countries of masterminding the embezzlement of more than $4.5 billion from a Malaysian economic development fund known as 1MDB. ICIJ’s reporting found that Low relied on Baker McKenzie and its affiliates to help him and his associates build a web of companies in Malaysia and Hong Kong. US authorities allege they used some of those companies to shift money looted from 1MDB.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpNUpC-Hmz4
The Pandora Papers investigation is larger and more global than even ICIJ’s landmark Panama Papers, which rocked the world in 2016, spawning police raids and new laws in dozens of countries and the fall of prime ministers in Iceland and Pakistan.
The Panama Papers came from the files of a single offshore services provider — the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. The Pandora Papers shine a light on a far wider cross-section of the lawyers and middlemen who are at the heart of the offshore industry.
The Pandora Papers provide more than twice as much information about the ownership of offshore companies. In all, the new leak of documents reveals the real owners of more than 29,000 offshore companies. The owners come from more than 200 countries and territories, with the largest contingents from Russia, the UK, Argentina and China.
