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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1309824/American-billionaire-George-Soros-gives-100m-human-rights-group.html
Billionaire financier George Soros hands $100m gift to U.S. human rights group
By Daniel Bates
Last updated at 12:31 AM on 8th September 2010
Investor and philanthropist George Soros has announced he is to donate $100million to Human Rights Watch, the largest single gift he has ever made.
The 80-year-old said he was donating the equivalent of £65million to the pressure group, which investigates and campaigns against human rights abuses, because it `underpins our greatest aspirations'.
He said that the United States had lost the moral high ground and that in order to regain respect New York-based Human Rights Watch had to become `genuinely international in scope'.
The money will be spread over 10 years and will help the organisation to expand its operation in developing countries and increase its staff of 300 by one third.
It is the largest donation Human Rights Watch has ever received and the second largest given by anyone this year as donors cut back amid the economic downturn.
Soros, who has an estimated net worth of $12billion, has long been one of the world's most generous philanthropists.
So far this year has donated around $700million to good causes, including his latest pledge, which he said would be the first of many.
`Human Rights Watch is one of the most effective organisations I support,' he said.
`Human rights underpin our greatest aspirations: they're at the heart of open societies.'
Soros, who made a fortune betting against the pound when it fell out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism on Black Wednesday in 1992, was also critical of George W Bush and said his administration had caused American campaign groups to lose respect around the world.
`I'm afraid the United States has lost the moral high ground under the Bush administration, but the principles that Human Rights Watch promotes have not lost their universal applicability.
`So to be more effective, I think the organisation has to be seen as more international, less an American organisation.' With a staff of almost 300 human rights conditions in nearly 90 countries, Human Rights Watch publishes around 100 reports and several hundred news releases each year.
The grant challenges the organisation to raise an additional $100million in matching private donations, although the Soros money will arrive regardless.
Its executive director Kenneth Roth said the donation would enable it to invest additional resources to fill significant gaps in its reporting network, including in parts of Africa and Asia.
Soros had planned to give away all his fortune in his lifetime but as he gets older he has changed his plans to ensure the giving continues after his death via his own Open Society Institute foundation.
`My foundation should continue, but I still would like to do a lot of giving during my lifetime, and doing it this way, with such size, is a step in that direction,' he said.
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WARNING FROM RAEL: For those who don't use their intelligence at its full
capacity, the label "selected by RAEL" on some articles does not mean that I
agree with their content or support it. "Selected by RAEL" means that I believe
it is important for the people of this planet to know about what people think or
do, even when what they think or do is completely stupid and against our
philosophy. When I selected articles in the past about stupid Christian
fundamentalists in America praying for rain, I am sure no Rael-Science reader
was stupid enough to believe that I was supporting praying to change the
weather. So, when I select articles which are in favor of drugs, anti-semitic,
anti-Jewish, racist, revisionist, or inciting hatred against any group or
religion, or any other stupid article, it does not mean that I support them. It
just means that it is important for all human beings to know about them. Common
sense, which is usually very good among our readers, is good enough to
understand that. When, like in the recent articles on drug decriminalization, it
is necessary to make it clearer, I add a comment, which in this case was very
clear: I support decriminalizing all drugs, as it is stupid to throw depressed
and sad people (as only depressed and sad people use drugs) in prison and ruin
their life with a criminal record. That does not mean that there is any change
to the Message which says clearly that we must not use any drug except for
medical purposes. The same applies to the freedom of expression which must be
absolute. That does not mean again of course that I agree with anti-Jews,
antisemites, racists of any kind or anti-Raelians. But by knowing your enemies
or the enemies of your values, you are better equipped to fight them. With love
and respect of course, and with the wonderful sentence of the French philosopher
Voltaire in mind: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death
your right to say it".
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"Ethics" is simply a last-gasp attempt by deist conservatives and
orthodox dogmatics to keep humanity in ignorance and obscurantism,
through the well tried fermentation of fear, the fear of science and
new technologies.
There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history,
it is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations.
On the contrary, let us embrace Science and the new technologies
unfettered, for it is these which will liberate mankind from the
myth of god, and free us from our age old fears, from disease,
death and the sweat of labour.
Rael
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