Showing posts with label William Hague. Show all posts
Showing posts with label William Hague. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 26, 2018






Lord William Hague and Angelina Jolie are co-founders of the Preventing Sexual Violence In Conflict Initiative, a global campaign to end the use of rape as a weapon of war



Posted by at
Labels: , ,

Tuesday, April 26, 2016




dailymail

...enjoying a meal with Conservative politician William Hague on Monday evening.
The American actress cut a typically stylish figure as she grabbed dinner with the former UK Foreign Secretary at celebrity favourite Quaglino’s in Mayfair.







 

 








Posted by at
Labels:

Friday, June 12, 2015




getty












William Hague vows to exploit ‘unusual alliance’ with Angelina Jolie-Pitt for greater good

Former foreign secretary and Conservative Party leader joins Hollywood actress and director at African Union summit to urge leaders to clamp down on sexual violence in their countries

By , Johannesburg
3:29PM BST 12 Jun 2015

William Hague, the former British foreign secretary, has vowed to use his “unusual alliance” with Angelina Jolie-Pitt to continue fighting sexual violence in the world’s most troubled regions.
Mr Hague said he and the Hollywood actress had accepted a rare invitation for outsiders to an African Union summit in Johannesburg in a bid to persuade largely male African leaders to take responsibility for the epidemic.

Mrs Jolie-Pitt told African foreign ministers that a groundswell of support for womens’ rights by their citizens meant their remaining in power depended on upholding them.

She said that sexual violence was not a uniquely African problem but added: “few parts of the world have suffered as much as nations in Africa”.

“There is a global epidemic of violence against women – both within conflict zones and within societies at peace – and it is still treated as a lesser crime and lower priority,” she said.


“The near-total impunity that exists worldwide for crimes against women in conflict zones in particular, means that we are seeing more and more armed groups turn to it as a weapon of choice: Women and girls are bearing the brunt of extremists that revel in treating them barbarically.”

Her appearance at the concrete convention centre in Sandton, Johannesburg’s business capital, enlivened the usually stolid proceedings and drew a large crowd to the centre’s main auditorium.
Mr Hague said the pair would continue to press their Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative, which they established in 2012, until they saw tangible changes by governments.

“It can be done – we are starting to make progress and there are a number of countries in Africa changing laws and training security forces to prevent it from happening,” he told The Telegraph.

“This is a key responsibility for men as well as women. There are a lot of male foreign ministers around that table and these crimes are committed by men and we men alongside leading women have to make sure they are challenged.”

The Yorkshire-born former Conservative Party leader conceded his pairing with Lara Croft actress drew attention and said he was happy to exploit it for the greater good.

“It’s an unusual alliance absolutely but it does seem to work in drawing attention to the issue and drawing support: the diplomacy of a major country like the UK and the global recognition and reach of someone like Angelina Jolie-Pitt," he said. "Because we have now worked on it for three years, we are sufficiently well-known around the world for doing it and we get a hearing.”


















Posted by at
Labels: , , ,

Thursday, June 11, 2015







































Posted by at
Labels: , ,

Tuesday, March 17, 2015






The former Foreign Secretary and current Leader of the House of Commons will not contest his seat at the General Election in May

Jenn Selby Author Biography
Tuesday 17 March 2015

William Hague is leaving his role in parliament as Leader of the House of Commons to spend more time with Angelina Jolie.
The former Foreign Secretary and current Leader of the House of Commons will not contest his seat at the General Election in May, he says, so he can continue on his quest with the actress and UN Ambassador to confront the issue of sexual violence being used as a weapon in war zones.
“It is too important to leave it,” he told the Evening Standard. “The momentum has to be maintained, and we have to show that it is possible to take action all over the world.”
The pair met at a foreign office screening of her directorial debut In The Land of Blood and Honey in 2011 .
“Angelina has done so much,” he continued. “She is very, very knowledgeable about this. She is incredibly dedicated to the cause.”
Hague first recognised the conflict zone crisis when he visited refugee camps in Darfur and Bosnia in his role as shadow foreign secretary in 2006.
“There were tens of thousands of rapes there in the Nineties and very few people have ever been brought to justice,” he continued.
Jolie’s emotive film, he said, “helped bring everything together” for him.

“If we know so much about the crimes that are being committed, how can we not act?”
“We will deal more effectively with the crises of the future if we can solve these problems,” he added elsewhere. “Sexual violence perpetuates conflict; it is often intended to perpetuate conflict. It is used systematically to make peace harder to achieve, to make communities irreconcilable.”
Jolie and Hague recently opened a new centre for research into the prevention of rape in war zones at the London School of Economics, dedicating the building to a teenage survivor of Isis who had been captured as a sex slave.
“What we have begun at LSE today is for that Iraqi girl and others like her, who pay the price for the culture of impunity for crimes against women, and our failure to prevent conflict,” Jolie said in February.
Last year, she was presented with an honorary damehood by the Queen for her humanitarian efforts.
Jolie was named in the Diplomatic Service and Overseas list in June 2014 for her services to the UK foreign policy and the campaign to end war-zone sexual violence.
Earlier the same year, she co-hosted the End Sexual Violence in Conflict global summit in London with William Hague.





Posted by at
Labels:

Sunday, February 1, 2015








William Hague: It’s been great but time is right to go

The long hair may be gone, but the Yorkshire tones are still unmistakeable in William Hague.

......
Perhaps we will see him in the background as Angelina Jolie uses whatever advice he has given her.
“Ooh, I don’t share with anyone the advice I’ve given to Angelina Jolie,” he said.
“We’ve worked together and co-founded the global campaign to prevent sexual violence in conflict and I will continue that work after leaving Parliament.
“There are a couple of causes I want to continue with. I will continue to work with her on that, using all the contacts, all the reputation we’ve developed. We will keep on that vital work. I will keep trying to end the illegal wildlife trade.
“But Angelina Jolie doesn’t need advice from me. She knows how to present herself very well. Her integrity and knowledge of these issues is enormous. Sometimes people think a Hollywood celebrity is just a name. But really she has the huge commitment and knowledge of all the issues.”
He has no regrets about his time as party leader, but admits it may have been the wrong time for him personally. “It did come too soon in a narrow sense. In a career sense it came to soon. But somebody had to do it then. Somebody had to do the night shift, as I said once or twice before, and somebody had to hold the Conservative party together through that difficult time.
“Having done that I went on to be foreign secretary which is the job I wanted to do and did for four years. I’ve no regrets about that at all.
“My proudest moment is passing the Disability Discrimination Act in 1995. I designed that act.
That is my proudest achievement,” he said.


Posted by at
Labels:

Sunday, September 28, 2014






By
7:05AM BST 28 Sep 2014

Just William: William Hague in the Palace of Westminster Photo: Julian Simmonds/Telegraph

Inside William Hague’s ornate Commons office, deep in the heart of the Palace of Westminster, one image stands out among the political portraits, oil paintings and bronze and marble busts.

It is a snatched photograph of a beaming David Cameron, in his shirtsleeves, with his arms tightly gripped around the necks of Mr Hague, on one side, and George Osborne, on the other. All three men are bursting with excitement, fresh from their victory on the May night in 2010 when they finally got the Conservatives into power.

As this image makes clear, the Chancellor and the Prime Minister are more than just good colleagues to Mr Hague. “They also happen to be – and this is why serving in this government has been such a pleasure in many ways – my two closest friends in the senior levels of politics,” he says.

But the Prime Minister’s bear-like grip on his most trusted ally is now loosening. To the delight of Mr Hague’s wife, Ffion, the 53-year-old has stepped aside after four years traversing the globe as foreign secretary, and will stand down as an MP at next year’s election, after 26 years in Parliament.

It was a decision he discussed at length – and in great secrecy – with both Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne, a year before the move was announced in July’s reshuffle.

But despite no longer being foreign secretary, Mr Hague remains “First Secretary of State”, while Mr Cameron describes him as his “deputy in all but name”. He continues to sit on the National Security Council, where he receives regular intelligence briefings.

Above all, the Prime Minister values Mr Hague’s experience, which spans three decades at Westminster, including as a Cabinet minister in Sir John Major’s government and as party leader between 1997 and 2001.

In his new role as Leader of the House of Commons, Mr Hague has spent the past week arranging for the recall of Parliament to debate British air strikes in Iraq.

In an extensive interview with The Sunday Telegraph, he sets out starkly the logic behind ordering British forces into action against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil). He warns of a long struggle – which could even, one day, require the deployment of British ground troops.

Mr Hague urges fellow Tories to reject the UK Independence Party and to “work very hard” to defeat “the least electable” Labour opposition he has ever seen, as he prepares his final speech to the party conference in Birmingham this week.

Looking to a future outside Westminster, he describes how the unstinting support of his wife has kept him sane, and reveals that the couple are eager to be free from the shackles of political life.


AIR STRIKES
It is the prospect of Britain returning to military action in Iraq that looms largest in Mr Hague’s mind as we meet in his office, a few feet from the Commons chamber that he first entered as a 27-year-old in 1989.
“None of us relish military action,” Mr Hague says, “but we are convinced across politics that sadly it is necessary.
“This is the gravest threat since this Government came into power and since I have been on the National Security Council. And it is growing,” he warns.
“The consequences of inaction would be the further mushrooming, the possibly rapid growth of one or more extremely dangerous organisations, which are committing appalling atrocities and human rights abuses against the people in the Middle Eastern region, and destabilising states in the region, but which also intend to pose a direct threat to us here in the UK.
“It would come to hit us very quickly. Indeed there have already been plots.
“We have to face up to it, we have to confront it and when other nations are taking part in that we have to play our part.”

BOOTS ON THE GROUND
The motion that MPs voted for on Friday explicitly rules out deploying combat soldiers, limiting the action to air strikes against targets in Iraq.
Can he really be so sure that British troops will not end up fighting the jihadists in the desert?
“I don’t suppose it’s possible to exclude anything,” he says. “We can’t, we don’t know what situations will arise in the future, so one can’t exclude anything in the future.”
But he argues that it is far better to seek to ensure that the ground combat troops are provided by the Iraqi army, the Kurdish forces and, in Syria, moderate opposition.
“Clearly we are looking to work with other countries such as the Iraqis and the Kurds, rather than to send in ground combat troops ourselves.”
Some MPs – mostly on the Conservative benches – are concerned that the government is not planning strikes against Isil in Syria.
Mr Hague declines to say whether Ed Miliband’s hesitancy prevented the government from seeking authorisation from MPs for a broader campaign.
But the wording of the Commons motion authorising air strikes was drawn up in close consultation with Labour, he says. “Questions about Syria are for another day.”

A DANGEROUS WORLD
Mr Hague’s assessment of global security, after four years at the Foreign Office, is bleak.
“The world is becoming less stable and more dangerous, for all sorts of reasons, and it is particularly evident in the Middle East.”
What does he make of disclosures, reported in The Sunday Telegraph, that Gulf states such as Qatar have been allowing funding to be passed to violent Islamists, while ostensibly signing up to the Western-led coalition against Isil?
“We are very clear in all our contacts with all Gulf states and Arab nations that none of us should be giving support to groups that either are – or metamorphose into – terrorist groups that threaten countries in the Middle East or in the West.
“Any deliberate or accidental financing of groups that can turn into terrorist groups must be avoided.”

.......

SIGNING OFF
However passionately he feels about the party’s election battle, Mr Hague knows that this time his future will not depend on the result.
As he prepares his final speech to the Conservative Party conference, he reflects that nobody has spoken more times at the annual gathering. He made his debut as a 16‑year-old, an appearance immortalised in famous footage of him on stage with long blond hair and a broad grin.
In the 37 intervening years, the hair has departed, but the smile remains. Will his last speech be an emotional moment? “I hardly ever get carried away with the emotion of the occasion, as a good Yorkshireman,” he jokes. “But it will be an important moment for me.”
Is he sorry to have left the Foreign Office, with its seemingly endless opportunities for travel and excitement? “No. It was my decision,” he says. “You don’t get a lot of sleep as foreign secretary.
“It is a job in the modern world that you can’t really do for more than four or five years, because it does involve ceaseless travel, working seven days a week, usually around the clock. There are no holidays, really, even on Christmas Day.”
His legacy at the Foreign Office, he hopes, will include restoring the department to its proper place as “a great institution again.”
Mr Hague is especially proud of his alliance with the film star Angelina Jolie, with whom he intends to continue working after he leaves Parliament in order to end the use of mass rape as a “weapon of war”.

......

Read the rest at the telegraph







Posted by at
Labels:

Wednesday, July 16, 2014











Angelina Jolie Applauds Outgoing British Foreign Minister's New Role

7:53 AM PST 07/16/2014 by Alex Ritman



LONDON — The U.K. government’s cabinet reshuffle might not normally be something exciting enough to warrant a response from Hollywood, but the news that British Foreign Secretary William Hague would be moving to a new position has been met with applause by Angelina Jolie.

On Tuesday, it was revealed that Hague would be leaving his post as head of Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office but had been appointed a special representative on preventing sexual violence in conflict. 



 “I’m delighted that William Hague has been appointed the Prime Minister’s Special Representative on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict and to see the U.K.’s continuing leadership on this issue,” Jolie said in a statement.

“William and I are now very much focused on the next stage of our campaign. We will be asking countries to live up to the promises they made at the London Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, and working alongside them in that effort,” she added.



U.N. special envoy Jolie and Hague have been working together on the issue of sexual violence in warzones for the past two years after the politician saw Jolie’s 2011 Golden Globe-nominated directorial debut In the Land of Blood and Honey.
 Since then, the pair have traveled to a number of countries to meet victims of rape. In 2013, they visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where UNICEF estimates the ongoing conflict sees an average of 36 women and girls raped daily. This spring, they went to Bosnia and Herzegovina to speak with survivors of rape from the Bosnian war.

Last year, Hague and Jolie, alongside the Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Zainab Hawa Bangura, unveiled a G8 Declaration on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict, containing pledges to end impunity and outlining how to investigate and prosecute rape. So far a reported 150 countries have signed the declaration.

 Last week, the first trailer from Jolie’s second feature as director was unveiled. Legendary Pictures’ Unbroken, based on the nonfiction book Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand and adapted by the Coen Brothers, follows the story of U.S. Air Force captain Louis Zamperini, who was shot down from his plane in the Pacific in 1943.
Following 47 days adrift at sea, Zamperini and his fellow survivor reached the Marshall Islands but were immediately captured by the Japanese and subsequently spent two years in a prisoner-of-war camp.

Zamperini died two weeks ago, on July 2, at age 97. Unbroken is due out this December.







Angelina Jolie welcomes post-reshuffle role for William Hague

Following Hague's departure as foreign secretary in a cabinet reshuffle, the actor and director welcomed his new role tackling sexual violence in war zones

William Hague with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie last month at the London summit on ending sexual violence in conflict. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA

William Hague's time as foreign secretary may have come to an end following David Cameron's far-reaching cabinet reshuffle, but his much-publicised work with unlikely ally Angelina Jolie will continue, as part of a new government role.

The pair have been campaigning on the issue of sexual violence in war zones since 2012, after Hague saw Jolie's film In the Land of Blood and Honey, which depicted camps during the Bosnian war where thousands of women were raped. "It was when I saw Angelina's film that I decided we should launch a global initiative on this," Hague said last year. "When you get into the detail of it, it's too terrible not to do something about."

The pair have since joined forces regularly, visiting countries like the DRC and Bosnia, and sending forensic experts to investigate Syrian, Malian and Libyan conflicts. They also collaborated on the well-attended End Sexual Violence in Conflict summit last month in London.

Now, as well as promising to "focus all my efforts on supporting the government in parliament and gaining a Conservative victory in the general election", Hague has been appointed as a special representative on preventing sexual violence in conflict, as part of his ongoing Foreign Office work.
"I'm delighted that William Hague has been appointed... and to see the UK's continuing leadership on this issue," Jolie said in a statement. "William and I are now very much focused on the next stage of our campaign. We will be asking countries to live up to the promises they made at the London summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, and working alongside them in that effort. We are both absolutely committed to this cause and to our partnership on this issue."

Jolie also works on issues surrounding refugees in a special envoy role with the UN's High Commissioner for Refugees, and this week was invited to visit the Pacific island of Nauru, where Australian asylum seekers are being detained.

Following the triumphant critical and commercial success of the big-budget Disney film Maleficent, in which she took the leading role, Jolie is now gearing up to release her next directorial effort Unbroken. The true story of an Olympic runner turned second world war airman turned prisoner of war, it stars young British actor Jack O'Connell in the leading role, alongside Domhnall Gleeson and Garrett Hedlund, while the Coen brothers have written the screenplay.









Posted by at
Labels:

Tuesday, July 15, 2014







Lindsey Hilsum on International Affairs


Tuesday 15 Jul 2014

William Hague, Angelina Jolie and Britain’s imperial decline

In his wilderness years, between being leader of the Tory party in opposition and Foreign Secretary, William Hague wrote the biography of William Pitt the Younger, the prime minister who presided over Britain’s rise as a colonial power in the mid 18th century.

15 hague1 g w William Hague, Angelina Jolie and Britains imperial decline
Pitt was in power when Britain lost the war of American independence and again when it trounced Napoleon at the battle of Trafalgar. This was a time when Britain’s military and diplomatic power swayed empires, when Britannia did indeed rule the waves and – win or lose – the impact was felt across the globe. In an interview last summer Mr Hague reflected: “It’s the aftermath of empire - the withdrawal of Britain from too many places in the world, a kind of psychology of decline that we inherited, in many ways. It’s been difficult, but this is what I’ve set out to challenge in the Foreign Office.”
Alas, that was beyond the reach of any modern day British politician.
“It’s not a personal failure to make an impact but people just don’t ask the British foreign secretary to solve crises any more, not even as much as they did a decade ago,” said a recently retired ambassador.
Britain’s decline as a colonial power in the last century was matched by the rise of the US. In the cold war the choice between the US and USSR was stark, but in the period that has followed, Britain has struggled to find a role other than as US ally and disciple.
Mr Hague, like the last dozen or more foreign secretaries, has regarded the alliance with the US as more important than Britain’s role in Europe. The result is that Britain is always playing a subservient position, backing up the US, often when other European countries are reluctant. The British public, especially the tabloids, long for a time when what Britain said and did mattered, while the rest of the world looks on, somewhat baffled.
15 williampitt g w William Hague, Angelina Jolie and Britains imperial decline
“The gap between how we see ourselves and how others see us is enormous,” said the former  ambassador. “It’s a myth that the Foreign Office is a great department of state. Britain is just not relevant in the way we used to be.”
Under Labour, as the Foreign Office declined, the power and budget of the Department for International Development grew. The Tories have continued that policy, reaching the target of 0.7 per cent of GDP now being devoted to aid. As a result, Britain’s policy in Africa has become more about the dispersal of funds and less about political or diplomatic influence. If the Foreign Office has five staff in country and DfID has 20, and the latter have a huge budget and the former almost none, which would you regard as the more important?
Some mocked Mr Hague when he teamed up with the film star Angelina Jolie to campaign for an end to sexual violence in conflict. I disagree. I think that as an historian he understood the limits of his power as foreign secretary and calculated that this was an area where he could have an impact. He will continue as the prime minister’s special envoy on the subject even after he is no longer foreign secretary.
When people say his attempt to stop wartime rape is impossibly idealistic, Mr Hague frequently refers to William Wilberforce, the great 18th century campaigner who did more than anyone else to bring an end to slavery, and who happened to be a friend of Pitt the Younger. Maybe Wilberforce will be the subject of  Mr Hague’s next historical biography when he has left parliament and can think more about the glories of the past and less about the limits of modern day politics.
Follow @lindseyhilsum on Twitter
Posted by at
Labels: ,

Thursday, June 19, 2014








 The foreign secretary was taken to task for campaigning with the movie star, but he can take comfort in being far more famous than his critics

William Hague, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pit: one of these people is not a movie star. Photograph: Lefteris Pitarakis/AP

Posted by


Poor William Hague, the now rather cross half of Will.i.ange or Willangelina or rather Dame Angelague. Just this week, the foreign secretary was co-chairing the international summit on sexual violence in war with Hollywood movie star Angelina Jolie, enjoying some A-list celebrity prestige and dynamic international policy-making. Now he's being criticised on air by the BBC's John Humphrys for being "starstruck", allegedly neglecting the Iraqi situation while he sucks up to a film star. He denied it. But in an age when everyone routinely says we are far too in hock to celeb culture, there could be no more humiliating charge.

It was probably those unfortunate photos that did it for Hague: the ones showing him, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie striding three-abreast into a lobby wearing black suits from what seemed like the same designer. It looked like they were having their Reservoir Dogs or Ocean's Eleven moment. In the words of Sacha Baron Cohen's fashion journalist Brüno, Hague, Pitt and Jolie were very "matchy-matchy". They say politics is showbusiness for ugly people, and in that showbizzy lineup it wasn't hard to spot the politician. So what happens now? Could it be that now Angelina has got her damehood, Hague will find that she is not returning his calls? It is a situation to which only David Hare's pen could do justice.

 Brad Pitt, William Hague and Angelina Jolie. Photograph: Karwai Tang/WireImage 
 
  Of course Hague was starstruck. There's no shame in it. No self-respecting sophisticate admits to being impressed by celebrity, of course, but it is almost a physiological impossibility not to be starstruck when meeting someone whose face is usually up on a big screen, and in whose identity you have, without entirely realising it, been making some kind of imaginative investment for years. He will himself have had the pleasurable experience of star-striking people: awed constituency workers, passersby in shopping malls, Conservative officials on the rubber chicken circuit. The foreign secretary's offices, far grander than anything in Number 10, are there to star-strike visiting dignitaries, dating from an era when our empire was bigger than Hollywood.

Tony Blair was intensely starstruck by Bill Clinton and George W Bush and the erotic display of political power in the White House: the sleek limos, the motorcycle outriders, the press conferences. Like members of the general public who have met the Potus, Blair will have felt the intoxicating laser-focus of a president's attention directed entirely and flatteringly his way. The late Alan Clark, diarist and Tory MP, used to say that Margaret Thatcher would exert this stardust, and that people would be woozy with her Führer Kontakt, provocatively reviving a hideous Nazi-era word for the stunning experience of actually meeting Adolf Hitler.

Starstruck

Meeting the famous has changed. It used to be that people asked for autographs. Now celebs get papped by fans with mobile phones, or get asked for joint selfies with people who have a tiny sense of their own micro-fame on social media. Yet, in fact, these people are not "starstruck" in the full sense of the word. They think it's a great laugh to meet the famous person; they have a clear sense of the difference between their Twitter following-number and, say, Katy Perry's. Everyone knows their place. The dangerously "starstruck" person is someone who for some reason gets to chat with the A-lister on quasi-equal terms: the digital media executive, the charity CEO, the friend of the producer, the foreign secretary, people who for a fraction of a second entertain the notion of some kind of relationship. (It is the basis of Richard Curtis's classic romcom Notting Hill.)

In his New Yorker profile of George Clooney, Ian Parker describes the star's compassionate sense of how people meeting him may freak and make fools of themselves ("star-strike-out" perhaps) and how he finds ways of giving them a tactful exit strategy from the encounter. "'Your job is to find the best way for those people to hold on to their dignity,' he explained to me. 'For a second, they have thrown it out.' … As Clooney described it, they have to be shown a path back to their normal selves.
I'm sorry to say, however, that Clooney did not feel a great need to finesse the situation and show me the path back to my normal self when I met him at a Bafta party a couple of years ago. The handshake happened; that legendary face was presented inches from mine in a very charming grin, and then while my head was still going Boinggggg he just vanished.

Well, perhaps Dame Angelina did not see any reason to show Hague a path back to his normal self until he had helped her with a cause that she passionately believed in. She used her celebrity to a purpose. Princess Diana did the same.

Starstruck is how the system works. Starstruck is how the movie world goes round: it's the dilithium crystal powering the Enterprise. People are impressed by movie stars. Big names are attached. Stars sell the film before and after it gets made; they may make appearances to potential investors. Their involvement persuades talented technicians and others to get involved, perhaps at a lower rate than usual.

Getting starstruck can be a painful business. But Hague can comfort himself with one thought. Like it or not, he is a bigger star than the snarky British journalists giving him a hard time.








Posted by at
Labels: ,

Monday, June 16, 2014





dailymail

Hague dismisses 'ridiculous' claims he was starstruck hobnobbing with Pitt and Jolie while war raged in Iraq


By Matt Chorley, Mailonline Political Editor
Published: 03:55 EST, 16 June 2014 | Updated: 06:03 EST, 16 June 2014

William Hague today dismissed 'ridiculous' criticism of his decision to spend four days with Hollywood star Angelina Jolie while war raged in Iraq.
The Foreign Secretary appeared to accuse Radio 4 presenter John Humphrys of not asking intelligent questions about his appearances with Miss Jolie and her husband Brad Pitt.
Mr Hague insisted the star-studded summit to end sexual violence against women in war did not divert his attention away from the crisis of the day, stressing the UK government was 'entirely capable of doing both'.

Miss Jolie and Mr Hague launched a joint campaign in 2012 to fight sexual violence in war.
It came after she wrote and directed a film, called In the Land of Blood and Honey, in 2011 set during the Bosnian war. Up to 50,000 women were raped during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
Last week the pair hosted a four-day summit in London, which culminated in a new international protocol which they hope will 'shatter the culture of impunity' around sexual violence in war.
However, it meant that as Islamist jihadists swept through large areas of Iraq, Mr Hague was posing for photographs with two of the world's biggest film stars.

Miss Jolie also made a trip to Downing Street, where she was pictured smiling in the sunshine with David Cameron. 
Today Mr Hague insisted the government was capable of focussing on immediate problems while also addressing long-term issues, like sexual violence in war at the summit.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'Anybody who thinks that should have been there, should have come along to it... This is about conflict prevention. 
'It brought together most of the world. We’re not going to solve conflicts of the many sorts we debate on this programme unless we address these appalling crimes. 
'The idea that you can never deal with long-term issues because there’s always something short-term, I always find rather ridiculous.' 




He stressed that he had been able to hold talks about Iraq with US Secretary of State John Kerry, who had been in London for the summit. 
And in apparent swipe at Mr Humphrys for even asking the question, he added: 'With respect, I think the basis of your question has less basis than most of the highly intelligent questions.'
The summit attracted delegations from 123 countries. Organisers, hope it will pave the way for more support for survivors of rape of warzones, and a commitment to bring perpetrators to justice as well as ‘raising awareness dramatically’ of the crimes across the world.
Mr Hague added: 'We’re trying to change global attitudes all over the world, which governments alone cannot do. And foreign policy today involves working with different people outside government – NGOs, civil society, people who can reach people who never listen to governments. 
'We’re trying to effect a change in attitudes of the entire world so that the terrible violence meted out to vulnerable people, particularly women all over the world, can be brought to an end or can be greatly diminished.
'And I think we should make those alliances to do that. We don’t stop doing that work because we’re dealing also with the crisis of the day. We’re entirely capable in the British government of doing both.'


At the closing ceremony of the summit on Friday, Miss Jolie said she will work with Mr Hague and others for 'as long as it takes' to prevail in the struggle of sexual violence in conflict.
She said the work begun at the summit is 'very, very much linked' with violence against women in other contexts, such as the kidnap of the schoolgirls in Nigeria or the recent rape cases in India and Pakistan. 
She added: 'One of the most heartening aspects of this summit has been to see so many male leaders prepared to confront the taboo surrounding sexual violence in conflict. Indeed I believe one of the outcomes of this summit is that this subject is now firmly on the top table of international diplomacy and we will work to ensure that it stays there…it goes to the heart of international peace and security.’
On Saturday it was announced Jolie had been made a dame by Mr Hague.







Posted by at
Labels: , ,

Friday, May 9, 2014





dailymail

Brad Pitt can't resist a squeeze of Angelina Jolie's calf as the couple go from swish royal soiree to low-key dinner with Foreign Secretary William Hague

Published: 02:48 EST, 9 May 2014 | Updated: 05:35 EST, 9 May 2014

It was a packed day for Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.
The celebrity couple spent Thursday afternoon at a private reception at Kensington Palace in London in which props and costumes from the the actress's new Disney movie, Maleficent, were exhibited in aid of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital.
And in the evening Angelina, 38 and Brad, 50, had dinner with Foreign Secretary William Hague and his wife at their home in the posh neighbourhood of Mayfair.



A quick squeeze: Brad lovingly squeeze Angelina's calf as they left the dinner that evening









....
But it wasn't just her general fabulousness that caught our attention. After a big film premiere, many stars would be whisked away to a glam after-party featuring velvet ropes and expensive champagne. But not Angie. Instead, she and Brad headed straight to the Mayfair home of Foreign Secretary William Hague for an intimate dinner. (Okay, we're guessing there was still expensive champagne -- but in a much more high-brow setting.)
Read more at http://www.marieclaire.co.uk/news/celebrity/546410/just-in-case-you-need-more-proof-that-angelina-jolie-is-actually-superwoman.html#ffYW2IJcXd8EIkM0.99
But it wasn't just her general fabulousness that caught our attention. After a big film premiere, many stars would be whisked away to a glam after-party featuring velvet ropes and expensive champagne. But not Angie. Instead, she and Brad headed straight to the Mayfair home of Foreign Secretary William Hague for an intimate dinner.
...












Posted by at
Labels: , , ,

Saturday, March 29, 2014



photos HQ
usatoday




















Posted by at
Labels: ,

Friday, March 28, 2014





dailymail video
Angelina Jolie at conference on wartime sexual violence in Bosnia
Angelina Jolie and British Foreign Secretary William Hague were both on hand for the opening of a conference on wartime sexual violence in Bosnia.




uinterview

Angelina Jolie Visits Bosnia, Accompanied By William Hague

03/28/2014
Angelina Jolie visited Bosnia on Friday with British Secretary of State, William Hague, for a humanitarian mission.

Together, Jolie, a special envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and Hague toured the Memorial Center in Potocari. On Thursday, after meeting up with Hague in London, Jolie and the politician visited Sarajevo on their humanitarian mission.

In Sarajevo, Jolie and Hague met with individuals who were the victims of sexual violence during the Bosnian War in the early 90s. These women are still seeking justice for the crimes committed against them two decades ago. The pair also met with the NGOs, who are working to help the sexual violence survivors, as well as judges and prosecutors who are involved in their cases.

After the stops in Sarajevo and Potocari, Jolie and Hague took a helicopter to Zenica. There, they stopped by the Medica organization and visited their safe house for abused women.

In June of this year, Jolie and Hague will co-host a summit regarding the sexual abuse during the Bosnian war in London.

– Chelsea Regan
















other photos
jared




Posted by at
Labels: , , ,

















dnevnik








klix














































radioSarajevo




































Posted by at
Labels: , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)