Like Blair with Bush, so Clegg seems to be with David Cameron, too flattered now that he is in the big room with the most powerful people. He no longer seems himself

The book is called A Journey. Not an honestly introspective one for sure. In his years out of office Blair does not appear to have spent much time on quiet reflection or a reassessment of his key decisions, some of which irreversibly tarnished the name of Britain, divided the nation – economically and politically – and degraded the very idea of ethical governance. Instead he keeps himself busy, busy, frenetically busy, getting rich, striding the earth as though he is a Roman God, imagining he is still making war here, ordering peace there, at will. Undiminished is his "absolute" certainty about how right he always was and is.

In the days and weeks to come, not only is his much anticipated (by others, not me) book launched, but he will also play at being a Middle East peace envoy at the talks in Washington between Israel and Palestine, then with his broad- smiling, multi-propertied family he is off to Philadelphia to receive a Liberty medal. Then there are big media interviews and book events.

Here, he has let it be known that all his earnings from the memoirs will go to the Royal British Legion, a move both cynical and provocative – as if money wipes this dark episode clean and redeems him. Call it chequebook expiation, kill and pay: it clearly works. Many now heap praise on the leader whose popularity and credibility had plummeted. Benedicte Page of The Bookseller says, for example, that this gesture (for that is what it is) will mollify his critics and many more will buy the book.

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe says windfall revenues from recently approved diamond sales must benefit the whole country and not just a few individuals.  Speaking at the funeral of his sister, he also lashed out at Western governments for refusing to lift sanctions against senior officials.

President Mugabe urged what he called greedy people to curb their drive for self-enrichment and ensure that revenues from an upcoming sale of Zimbabwean diamonds benefit the entire country.

The Zimbabwean leader was speaking to several-thousand mourners at the funeral of his younger sister, Sabina, who died last week after a lengthy illness.

The diamond control body, the Kimberley Process, recently approved the sale of some rough diamonds from fields in eastern Zimbabwe.

Human-rights groups opposed the sale saying members of the military and Mr. Mugabe's ZANU-PF party had committed human rights abuses there and were smuggling some of the diamonds for their personal gain.

The Zimbabwean government says it has mined nearly $175 million worth of the precious stones in the past seven years.  It hopes their sale will boost an 18-month-old economic turn-around.

Mr. Mugabe criticized Western governments for failing to support the recovery and not ending sanctions against senior ZANU-PF leaders.

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/Zimbabwes-Mugabe-Speaks-Out-on-Diamond-Sales-99767434.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Zimbabwe plans to adopt the Chinese yuan as legal tender in return for debt cancellation worth about $40m - a move one economist predicted "has no future at all".

China has become the largest investor in Zimbabwe, which has been shunned by the West over its human rights record and is struggling to emerge from a deep 1999-2008 recession that forced the government to ditch its own currency in 2009.

Zimbabwe's Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa announced the plan in a statement on Monday and said the use of the yuan "will be a function of trade between China and Zimbabwe and acceptability with customers in Zimbabwe".

read more: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/12/zimbabwe-adopt-china-currency-yuan-151222070618785.html