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Sir Richard Branson throws weight behind genocide prevention group

The Virgin billionare has donated a week on Necker Island, his private resort, to Aegis.

Sir Richard Branson has personally donated a week for two on Necker Island to an auction benefitting genocide prevention charity the Aegis Trust. The prize will be introduced by Clive Owen at an exclusive event at Royal Windsor Racecourse on 10 October hosted by Heloise Agelou, a 24-year-old Parisian socialite and founder of racehorse management company, Hagelou, working in partnership with International Thoroughbred Consultants (ITC).

An auction site has been launched to allow bidders around the world to take part in the auction, which will also feature some exceptional fine art. Pieces going in the auction include an original sculpture by Salvador Dali and an egg designed by Sarah Fabergé, granddaughter of the great Carl Fabergé. In the tradition of the Fabergé family, who famously crafted these coveted pieces for the Tzars of Imperial Russia, there will be a unique surprise in the egg; a horse and jockey which can be enameled in colours specified by the winning bidder.

"I'm immensely proud to be an ambassador for Aegis," says Clive Owen, who last year visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial, established by the Aegis Trust, to pay tribute to the victims of the 1994 genocide and to see how Aegis is helping widows and orphans there today. "I've seen how it touches and transforms people's lives, but I've also seen just how much more there is to do. The future is in the hands of the next generation, and Aegis provides the tools they need to help prevent genocide happening again. So Aegis needs all the help we can offer."

Aegis, which last year helped to secure a change in UK law to close loopholes on genocide suspects entering or living in Britain, works to prevent genocide through education, campaigning, providing evidence-based advice for policy makers and support for international justice.

Aegis CEO, Dr James Smith, commented, "We are thrilled Sir Richard Branson has thrown his weight behind the Aegis Trust with this generous and wonderful prize, which is certain to attract huge interest for a truly once in a lifetime visit to Necker Island."

Heloise Agelou added, "I am thrilled to be hosting this event for the Aegis Trust, our guests are very excited about bidding for this outstanding prize and I am sure it will raise substantial, vital funds the charity which I'm very fond of and keen to support due to their amazing work."

Sarah-Jane Sherwood is a freelance writer, she grew up in South Africa at the end of the Apartheid and has written for the Telegraph, the Guardian and a number of trade and consumer titles.

 

 

5 comments

Freeman2's picture

I do admire people who give to charity, at no cost to themselves (and probably tax deductible as well).

Buckskins's picture

That dude is drinking way to much ugly juice.

Gideon Polya's picture

Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention states that "In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group" (see: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ).

Any organization opposing genocide must be applauded but unfortunately genocide as defined by the UN Genocide Convention is implicit in the policies of the US Alliance. Thus war-related violent deaths and avoidable deaths from war- and occupation-imposed deprivation total 4.6 million (Iraqi Genocide, 1990-2011), 5.0 million (Afghan Genocide, 2001-2011), 2.2 million (Somali Genocide, 1992-2011) and 0.3 million (Palestinian Genocide just in the period of 1967-2011) (see Muslim Holocaust, Muslim Genocide: https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ ).

Thus many leading anti-racist Jewish, Arab and Western scholars and journalists writing about the continuing, Western-backed, racist Zionist destruction of the Indigenous Palestinian population refer to an ongoing Palestinian Genocide (see the recent multi-author book "The Plight of the Palestinians": http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/4047-the-plight-of-the-palestinians.html ). However Mainstream Western silence simply means more of the same: thus the racist Zionist Israelis have been involved in the Sri Lankan Tamil Genocide (see Professor Francis Boyle's "The Tamil Genocide by Sri Lanka": http://www.claritypress.com/Boyle-Tamil.html ) and the genocide of Guatemalan Indians.

Australia has a shocking secret genocide history, having been involved in 2 dozen genocide atrocities, 10 of them ongoing (see: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/10256-australian-anzac-a-armenian-geno... ). I have repeatedly made formal complaints to the International Criminal Court (ICC) about US Alliance and Australian involvement in genocidal atrocities, most seriously the worsening Climate Genocide that is set to kill 10 billion non-Europeans this century if man-made climate change is not addressed (see: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/9-january-2010 ). However the ICC is a cowardly lackey of the racist, genocidal US that does not even recognize ICC authority over US citizens and has become an accessory to US Alliance genocides and directly complicit in genocide itself, backing the France-UK-US (FUKUS) Coalition invasion of Libya that has so far been associate, so far, with about 30,000 Libyans killed and about 50,000 wounded (figures from the FUKUS-backed rebel government).

Captain Sensible's picture

Started his business by tax busting, records, from Amsterdam, Just do it!

Captain Sensible's picture

Well let him attack the Chinese then for Tibet and Turkestan, all of the arabs and Iranians for Kurdistan? Lets have a world war then? Screw just do it lets blast the Jews who cheat by buying cheap records from Amsterdam then bringing them back in a Van and not Morrison. This piece of dope unlike Jobs got lucky, we should super tax him!

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