Students can boost their exam grades by smelling ROSEMARY as it helps to improve recollection

The woody herb has long had a reputation as being helpful to the memory

Researchers found that rosemary essential oil is helpful to children's recollection

This follows on from old research that it is beneficial in boosting adult memories

Improve Memory By Smelling Rosemary Study

Researchers at Northumbria University found that rosemary essential oil is helpful to children's recollection, following on from previous research that it boosts adult memories.

6 Secret Health Benefits of Rosemary 

The Secret War Between China and the US for Africa's Oil Riches

600 years of Chinese bloodline in Kenya

By Chris Mansur - Nov 20, 2012, 5:48 PM CST

C H I N A - One Belt One Road Vision- Ethiopia- Tanzania- Zambia

In the struggle to secure energy resources, the great powers consider all states to be fair game. Indeed, this is precisely what characterizes American foreign policy in the modern era. When it comes to economic and geopolitical interests, Washington seldom differentiates between democratic leaders and despots, especially when those interests involve oil. Currently, the stakes are high in the rush to secure oil resources and nowhere is this more evident than in the Sino-American rivalry in Africa. Both states are competing to secure their share of oil supplies in order to quench their addiction to the coveted ‘black gold.’

China to Build Military Base In Africa Next to Critical Oil Transit Choke Point

One of Washington’s primary energy security concerns has been to diversify its sources of foreign oil. During the 1970s oil crisis, the United States imported one-third of its petroleum. Now, it imports approximately 11.4 million barrels per day of petroleum (which includes crude oil and petroleum products), amounting to 45 percent of all petroleum consumed in America . While most of its foreign oil comes from the western hemisphere, a sizable portion comes from Africa and the Persian Gulf . Despite the fact that America’s reliance on foreign oil has decreased since its peak in 2005, it is still vulnerable to supply disruptions, oil price shocks and OPEC supply squeezing. For Washington, the need to decrease its vulnerability to foreign oil is a principle national security interest, and the solution lies in diversifying imports away from overreliance on any one region.

China's growing influence in Africa

West African oil remains strategically important for U.S. policy makers, especially since it provides an alternative to Persian Gulf oil. West Africa is also geographically closer, making transportation less costly than oil from the Persian Gulf. The high-quality sweet crude that is produced by the Gulf of Guinea states is crucial to the U.S. market. As such, oil corporations are doing whatever they can to secure this important hydrocarbon and Washington is fervently promoting free trade in Africa in order to make it easier for them. 

CHINESE BEGIN CONSTRUCTION OF AFRICAN NAVAL BASE

Sub-Saharan Africa is home to two of the largest oil-producing states: Nigeria and Angola. These two states account for 53 percent and 26 percent of total U.S. petroleum imports from Sub-Saharan Africa respectively . Thus, it is no surprise that the two states also receive the largest share of U.S. security assistance to Africa.

WHY IS CHINA INVESTING IN AFRICA CONGO REP STUDY CASE

In order to boost its influence in Africa and secure the loyalty of governments, the U.S. has provided military arms and developed military training programs with individual African governments. To increase its military presence, it has acquired basing rights and access to airfields in Djibouti, Uganda, Mali, Senegal and Gabon, along with port facilities in Morocco and Tunisia. In addition, it has also expanded its covert intelligence operations across Africa in the name of combatting terrorism. Yet, these operations also serve another purpose. By expanding its military presence in Africa, Washington is reminding its rivals that it is both willing and able to respond to threats to its strategic interests, the likes of which include the unimpeded flow of African oil.

In 2007, the U.S. African Command (AFRICOM) was established as the ninth of the Unified Combatant Commands under the supervision of the U.S. Department of Defence (DoD). The alleged purpose is to oversee American military operations on the African continent in order to enhance the stability of the region and to promote U.S. national security objectives. Many critics of AFRICOM, including energy security expert Michael T. Klare, believe there is a direct relationship between the existence of AFRICOM and America’s interest in African oil .

There is a parallel between America’s increased military presence in Africa and its military expansion into the Persian Gulf since the establishment of the Carter Doctrine. While this endeavour is noticeably more limited in Africa and does not involve any significant oil-for-security arrangements- at least, not yet- there is no doubt that America would respond with force if oil supplies were threatened. The difference is in style, not substance; America seeks a more subtle presence in order to engage in rapid combat and covert operations, when necessary. This operational capacity is equal parts the U.S. bending to the strategic realities of the 21stcentury and a response to African governments, for obvious historical reasons, not welcoming permanent military bases on their soil.

There may be another, often overlooked, purpose of AFRICOM. The presence of China in Africa is creating some concern for American officials. Beijing is competing with Washington for both the loyalty of African governments and the steady supply of African oil. There is a growing sentiment in Washington that China’s presence in Africa could challenge U.S. security interests now and in the years to come. China’s unconditional financial aid and its steady flow of cheap goods to African states (in exchange for oil contracts) have often made it a more appealing trading partner than America. Indeed, a 2005 DoD report indicated that China’s need to forge close ties with African governments to secure energy supplies could lead to ‘a more activist [Chinese] military presence abroad’ . In this regard, AFRICOM would monitor Chinese activity and contain any Chinese incursion into American zones of interest by flexing America’s naval presence.

The stakes for Beijing, however, seem to be greater for three reasons. First, China has an annual GDP growth rate of 7.4 percent. To sustain this, the Chinese economy relies heavily on the consumption of oil. It is constantly seeking new sources of oil to meet its domestic demand, but its African oil supplies are indispensable. Second, China imports more from oil from Africa than America does (30 percent vs. 20 percent) . China’s oil imports from Africa will likely grow to be bigger than America’s in the decades to come, and China is expected to take America’s spot as the world’s biggest oil importer very soon. By 2020, China will import approximately 65 percent of its oil . Lastly, China is not a newcomer to Africa. In the 1960s and 1970s, it supported many national liberation movements, provided a large share of arms to post-independence governments and invested heavily in national infrastructure projects . In this sense, Beijing perceives its presence in Africa as a continuation of its legacy and as an important geopolitical interest on the road to major power status.

However, Africa might not provide the most secure alternative to Persian Gulf oil. Africa’s production capacity is more limited than that of the Persian Gulf, and it also has fewer proven reserves. In terms of aggregate global oil production, Africa is still lagging behind other major crude oil-producing regions . If we assume that ‘peak oil’ estimates are accurate, then (according to BP’s reserves-to-production ratio) Sub-Saharan Africa, as a whole, has an oil-producing capacity that will end by 2030. This would leave only Nigeria and Sudan as major oil-producing states in the region (of course, this assumes that production will remain constant and that no new reserves will be discovered) 

In addition, Africa’s political environment can be as unstable as the Persian Gulf. Internal instability, the rise of transnational terrorist networks, military coups, civil strife, endemic corruption and the conflict-stricken Niger Delta all pose significant problems for business operations in the African continent.

America must show restraint in its expansion into Africa. While a military conflict with China over access to African oil may seem presently unrealistic- especially given America and China’s mutual economic dependence- future regional developments and the further militarization of the region could shift the Sino-American rivalry into a more adversarial direction . The ‘military security paradox’ is an important lesson to be learned by the great powers. Militarizing a region in the pursuit of regional stability and security can often have the opposite effect. Only time will tell if Washington and Beijing heed this warning.

By. Chris Mansur

Islamic Fundamentalism in Africa - African Soldiers March

The proliferation of Islamic fundamentalist groups across Africa represents the latest iteration of the War on Terror. Much to the chagrin of the United States, Islamist militant groups from Nigeria to Somalia are increasingly coordinating their efforts and forging close links to al-Qaeda. This dossier will serve as a brief introduction to four of the most prominent Islamic fundamentalist groups operating in Africa today.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)

Algeria and the SahelFounded in Algeria, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is a Sunni group that is largely responsible for the renewal of Islamic insurgency in North Africa. It was previously known as theSalafist Group for Preaching and Combat, though a merger with al-Qaeda in 2006 rebranded the movement as a local chapter of al-Qaeda. AQIM’s stated goals are the overthrow of the Algerian government and the establishment of an Islamic state in its place. Despite its roots as a local insurrection tied to the Algerian Civil War of the early nineties, AQIM has become increasingly internationalized since merging with al-Qaeda. The group’s operations now extend across the Sahel, and it has attacked targets in Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Chad. AQIM has also gained notoriety for kidnapping various European tourists in North Africa. But despite these occasional reaches beyond its borders, AQIM remains a largely Algerian operation, drawing from the Kabyle and Sahrawi communities for membership. According to the head of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), AQIM is now the richest faction of al-Qaeda.

What are the South Sudanese neighbours stakes???

By Steve Paterno

South Sudan is a country in turmoil, undergoing a transitional transformation. As such, the world and most importantly, its neighbours put it under the radar and eying for their raison d’État (own interest). Sudan, for example, has of a recent rambling and threatening to intervene into South Sudan’s affairs. In other words, it wants to fight literally in South Sudan. Of course, this is a country that is been interfering into South Sudanese affairs from day one. South Sudan fought this country for decades and obtained its independence. When South Sudan obtained its independence, Sudan is left crumbled, fighting itself, with rebellion all over, trying to overthrow a rogue Islamic regime. Its economy, which is dependent on South Sudan’s oil, is in shamble. For a regime that cannot get a mandate from its citizens, it must look, elsewhere, from outside to claim legitimacy. Therefore, deviating attention into South Sudan as a place to look for problems, while it has its own problems.

Luckily, Sudan has allies in South Sudan, commonly referred to as militias, traitors and betrayers. The infamous South Sudanese militias always find a home in Khartoum. They are there now with the sole interest to disestablish South Sudan. (Their names are not worth to be mentioned in this space). For South Sudan to counter such belligerence, it has all the natural options. For examples, South Sudan is home to hundreds of thousands of refugees, fleeing the Islamic regime In Khartoum. South Sudan can do more by welcoming those victims and strengthen them to change the regime in Khartoum. Not only that, Sudan has various rebel groups, struggling to overthrow the regime in Khartoum. It will only take no time for South Sudan to gather these groups and unleash them in direction of Khartoum, which, without doubt, will take them only days to drink tea in Omdurman in celebration of the victory. This will mark a revolutionary end of that rogue regime if South Sudan undertake.

There is actually more South Sudan can do to deter the belligerence of the Islamic regime in Khartoum and rescue the Sudanese people in the process. Then, there will be peace between the sisterly countries.

Another country with much stake in South Sudan is Uganda. For some reasons, Uganda has seamlessly interwoven into South Sudan as ‘one people and one country.’ The ties between these two countries and the people are historic. For the government of Uganda, it has obligations, of course, such as. For example, if Ugandan citizens get killed in South Sudan by the rebels, by virtue of responsibility, Uganda government is responsible to hold accountable the culprits. Again, if a Ugandan citizen who is doing business in South Sudan has his or her loads attacked and looted by rebels in South Sudan, the country is accountable as well. So, Uganda is justified to intervene in South Sudan any time.

Hence, South Sudan and Uganda must work together in such areas of mutual interest. This will mean, Uganda must not allow South Sudan cross-border rebellion to take place and likewise with South Sudan.

It is all about raison d’Etat and South Sudan stands a better chance with its neighbours to claim its rights among nations.

Steve Paterno is the author of The Rev. Fr. Saturnino Lohure, A Romain Catholic Priest Turned Rebel. 

Atrocities for sale in South Sudan

By Duop Chak Wuol

The December 2013 killing of ethnic Nuer civilians by South Sudanese President Salva Kiir, recent targeted killings in the Equatoria region, Wau, as well as other areas, have become a marketable brand being traded publicly for money. South Sudan civil war is now a lucrative business for some greedy foreign governments.

Who are the investors in South Sudan atrocities?

The number one committed investor in South Sudan’s atrocities is the Ugandan government. Other known silence investors in Kiir’s bloody regime are the Kenyan, Egyptian, Moroccan, and Eritrean governments. These governments invest in these atrocious crimes in total disregard of innocent victims, some of whom were brutally burned alive by Juba’s regime. It is unconscionable for any thinking being to invest in war crimes and crimes against humanity. Nonetheless, these countries have no problem with investing in South Sudan’s war crimes. As you can see, Kiir’s atrocities for sale strategy has no shortness of investors — he is laughing at anyone who questions the tyranny of his illegitimate government. In fact, he is happy and believes the country can be peaceful if he keeps getting financial and weapons help from his regime investors. I can assure you that the list of Juba’s crimes investors I included is incomplete. There are a few other nations that I intentionally left out, but their names will appear in upcoming writings.

How can a reasonable person still trust a murderous tyrant, who deliberately planned the infamous December 2013 self-managed coup in an attempt to destroy his political adversaries so that he could run the country like a mafia boss?

It is rather stunning when I hear a world leader call on Kiir to respect human rights and implement the now-defunct August 2015 peace agreement when in fact Kiir and tribal hooligans of the so-called Jieng Council of Elders keep pursuing a destructive policy for the sole purpose of maintaining a seemingly ethnic ideology.

There is no such a thing as peace in South Sudan because of the current First Vice President Taban Deng Gai, who claims to be the leader of a Juba-based SPLM/A-IO, is merely a toothless leader. FVP Gai is probably the first opposition leader in the history of modern Africa who never opposed a single agenda of Kiir’s government since he became the First Vice President. In a realistic sense, Kiir and Gai are chairmen of two different political parties with supposedly different political ideologies. If this is the case, then, it can also be logically concluded that Gai has simply been serving as an extension of Kiir’s tyrannical rule, and any hope of achieving peace under the two men is a pure fantasy.

Why does the world seem to only be interested in humanitarian assistance rather than in ending the civil war? Did Kiir bribe East African leaders to look the other way? Is Kiir’s policy of deceit helping him? Is there a global complicity towards South Sudan’s armed opposition? Why do Russia and China always claim that any sanction against South Sudan would not solve anything? Do Moscow and Beijing have a secret deal with Juba? Are the alleged claims that South Sudan, South Africa, the United Nations, and the United States conspired against South Sudanese rebel leader Dr Riek Machar true? Who is giving the South African government a monthly payment to keep Machar in South Africa?

Some of these questions I present are for you to draw your own conclusions. However, there are those who fallaciously argue that Riek Machar is the cause of the ongoing civil war and that his presence in South Sudan would magically escalate the violence. Well, I want to make it clear that only a ruthless tyrant with a cowboy hat would believe this naked argument. People should know that South Sudanese rebels are not fighting for Riek Machar. Even if Machar decided to retire from politics today, the war would still rage tomorrow. Any sound-minded person should not solve a problem by trying to punish the victim and reward the instigator — this is like embracing a person who just returned from a killing spree. Those who glorify Kiir’s crimes should consult their consciences. Machar is a victim of Kiir’s political madness. This Macharphobia must stop.

It is now clear that Kiir’s atrocities for sale scheme are a continuation of business as usual. If the African Union and the international community have no real plan to help stop the war or at least shame Kiir’s war crimes and crimes against humanity investors, then the future of South Sudan is doomed.

Duop Chak Wuol is the Editor-in-Chief of the South Sudan News Agency. He can be reached at duop282@gmail.com. The views expressed in this article are his and should not be attributed to the South Sudan News Agency.

Darfur, the most ‘successful’ genocide in a century

By Eric Reeves

The Darfur region of western Sudan has been recognized since 2004 as the site of genocide since 2004 by dozens of political officials and bodies (including the U.S. Congress and the EU Parliament), human rights groups, a wide range of genocide and human rights scholars, and such commemorative bodies as the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Vad Yashem in Israel. Senator, candidate and President Obama not only declared that genocide was occurring in Darfur but campaigned on the issue in 2008, referring to the Darfur genocide as a “stain on our souls.” Indeed.

These judgments should hardly have been surprising. The annihilating character of attacks on non-Arab/African civilians and villages in Darfur; the systematic denial of humanitarian aid to these ethnic populations; and the pointed pronouncements of various officials and proxies of the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime—all made “genocide” the inevitable characterization. Only political diffidence or disingenuousness kept the characterization from being universally accepted.

China secret war in South Sudan dafur - Watch the video

Moreover, the outlines of the genocidal ambition were articulated with remarkable clarity in a memorandum originating from the headquarters of notoriously brutal Arab militia leader (Janjaweed) Musa Hilal in Misteriya, North Darfur at the height of the violence: “change the demography” of Darfur and “empty it of African tribes.”

China secret war in South Sudan dafur - Watch the video


Lest we think Musa Hilal as only a “man of letters,” we should recall that he was identified by numerous eyewitnesses as having presided at the February 2004 slaughter at Tawila, North Darfur. More than 100 people were killed, 350 girls and women were abducted, and more than 100 women were raped. A number of the women and girls were raped in front of their fathers, who were then killed. This was Musa Hilal’s idea of “demographic change.” And this was only one of many atrocities that he either directed or orchestrated.

More than a decade later, in September 2015, Human Rights Watch provided the world with a clear, authoritative, and deeply researched report on the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), by then the dominant militia force in Darfur, called by some the “new Janjaweed.” This report is more important than ever as we survey the “militia state” that Darfur has become as part of Khartoum’s genocidal counter-insurgency, and the report provides compelling evidence that Musa Hilal’s ambitions continue to animate the violence orchestrated by Khartoum against non-Arab/African tribal populations. The voice of particular significance in this report is that of Vice President of the regime, Hassabo Mohammed Abdel Rahman—reported by a defecting militiaman:

Ahmed said that a few days prior to leaving for East Jebel Marra, Sudanese Vice President Hassabo Mohammed Abdel Rahman directly addressed several hundred army and RSF soldiers: “Hassabo told us to clear the area east of Jebel Marra. To kill any male. He said we want to clear the area of insects. … He said East Jebel Marra is the kingdom of the rebels. We don’t want anyone there to be alive.”

I am astonished that these words by Khartoum’s Vice President have not registered in a consequential way with those Western nations formulating various policies of accommodation with the regime, particularly since they define so precisely the nature of the violence that accelerated from 2012 through the militarily successful campaign against the Jebel Marra massif in Central Darfur in 2016.

Notably, the Jebel Marra campaign included the use of chemical weapons against clearly civilian populations in the region, a fact that raised not a shred of international indignation of the sort Bashar al-Assad’s attacks in Syria have. The campaign was successful and denied rebel forces in Darfur their last significant military redoubt. The genocidal counter-insurgency has—after fourteen years of unspeakable violence, destruction, and deprivation—succeeded.

In the wake of such victory, Khartoum is eager to begin dismantling the camps for displaced persons that have done so much to define destruction and suffering during the Darfur genocide. UN figures suggest that approximately 3 million people remain displaced from their homes, some 300,000 as refugees in eastern Chad. They are overwhelmingly people from the non-Arab/African tribal populations of Darfur. Extant mortality data and reports, while limited in many ways by Khartoum, when aggregated strongly suggest that well over 500,000 people have been killed directly or indirectly by the violence Khartoum has so effectively engineered Many tens of thousands of girls and women have been raped as sexual violence continues to be deployed as a brutal weapon of war.

Deprivation is unspeakable in many locations as the best current estimate is that 30 percent of the population in Darfur that remains inaccessible to humanitarian relief operations because of Khartoum’s obstructionist policies. Children die in unforgivably large numbers for lack of food, medicine, and shelter. 30 percent of the population in need represents almost 1 million people, as the UN has recently estimated that Darfur’s population in need is 3.3 million people.

I offer in a recent analysis representative examples of camps and locations that remain inaccessible despite the claim by former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power that there has been a “sea change” of improvement in humanitarian access in Sudan. Hers is a preposterous falsehood, and yet it stands uncorrected by any U.S. government official—past or present. It is a particularly outrageous falsehood, given the fact that in addition to obstructing humanitarian relief in Darfur, Khartoum continues to impose a total humanitarian blockade on the large and highly distressed populations in rebel-controlled areas of South Kordofan and Blue Nile. By crediting Khartoum with a “sea change” of improved humanitarian access, Power’s statement perversely works to diminish incentives for the regime actually to make such improvements.

All this is particularly significant given the terms of the last-minute Executive Order signed by President by President Obama in the last week of his administration, lifting sanctions on Khartoum and stipulating terms for the permanent lifting of U.S. sanctions on Khartoum—which include prominently an improvement in humanitarian access.

What does Darfur look like in the wake of this ghastly “success”?

The character of Khartoum’s success in Darfur is revealed in an soul-destroying dispatch from Radio Dabanga as well recent reports from the Small Arms Survey (“Remote-control breakdown: Sudanese paramilitary forces and pro-government militias”) and the Enough Project (“Border Control from Hell: How the EU’s migration partnership legitimizes Sudan’s militia state”). What they have in common is the characterization of the region as a “militia state,” one in which security has essentially been turned over to the militia forces that have fought for Khartoum and which will sustain themselves—beyond significant salaries in the case of the RSF—primarily by continuing predations on civilians and permanent and by violent expropriation of farmlands and pasturage.

Hamid Nur, a man known to me as someone of extraordinary knowledge, integrity, and humanity, is reported by Radio Dabanga as having offered this assessment:

Sudan’s western region is politically, militarily, and economically dominated by militias, says the head of the Darfur Civil Society Platform. The Darfur displaced and refugees have no way to return to their [homes and farms] as the places are occupied by militiamen and their families. In an interview with Radio Dabanga, Hamid Ali Nur, head of the Darfur Civil Society Platform, called the repeated statements by the Sudanese government and the recent report by the US military attaché about the improved security situation in Darfur inaccurate and incorrect.

According to the civil society leader, the Khartoum government has, to a large extent, succeeded in changing the Darfur population itself. “Militiamen and their families have occupied the villages and farms left by fleeing Darfuris during all these years.”

The civil society activist said that the government’s options given to the Darfur displaced, either to return to their villages of origin or integrate them into the local communities by re-structuring the camps, are fake. “As the displaced are not able to return, Khartoum’s policy is aimed at permanently displacing them from their homes, lands, and heritage.”

This is the face of a “successful” genocide—successful for the perpetrators, catastrophic for the victims, the non-Arab/African populations of Darfur.

We have had warnings of such genocidal success for more than thirteen years. In February 2004 I warned in the Washington Post that,

There can be no reasonable scepticism about Khartoum’s use of these militias to “destroy, in whole or in part, ethnic or racial groups”—in short, to commit genocide. Khartoum has so far refused to rein in its Arab militias; has refused to enter into meaningful peace talks with the insurgency groups; and, most disturbingly, has refused to grant unrestricted humanitarian access. The international community has been slow to react to Darfur’s catastrophe and has yet to move with sufficient urgency and commitment. A credible peace forum must be rapidly created. Immediate plans for humanitarian intervention should begin. The alternative is to allow tens of thousands of civilians to die in the weeks and months ahead in what will be continuing genocidal destruction.

These words have a morally scandalous relevance to this day, although I must admit I had no idea that I should be speaking of a genocide that would last years, not weeks or months—or that mortality from genocidal violence would be measured not in tens of thousands but hundreds of thousands of human lives.

Darfur has made “Never again!” seem to me the most appalling, the most disgraceful, and finally the most obscene phrase in the English language.

Eric Reeves, Senior Fellow at Harvard University’s François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights

Brussels admits it faces an 'explosive' crisis if UK refuses Brexit bill

Chief negotiator makes shock admission that the bloc could crumble if Britain resists payment
Michael Barnier, EU's chief Brexit negotiator, issued warning about fragile bloc

Analysts say settlement has ballooned to around 100bn euros (£85bn)

EU's latest demands were rejected by Brexit Secretary David Davis

THE EU'S TIMETABLE FOR BREXIT TALKS 

JUNE: Detailed Brexit talks get under way after the general election.
The first phase will cover the 'principles' of the financial settlement, the status of expats living on the continent and in the UK, and the future border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.
OCTOBER-NOVEMBER: EU takes a decision on whether enough progress has been made to move on to the next phase of talks.
NOVEMBER TO OCTOBER 2018: Discussions on future trade arrangements.
OCTOBER 2018-MARCH 2019: Potential votes at the European Parliament and Westminster to ratify agreement.
END MARCH 2019: UK formally leaves the EU. 


BRUSSELS BREXIT RULES DEMAND RIGHTS FOR LIFE FOR ANY EU NATIONALS WHO MOVE HERE UNTIL MARCH 2019 

EU citizens who are in Britain on the date of Brexit in 2019 must keep all of the same rights for life, Brussels bureaucrats have claimed today.

An EU factsheet said these rights should still be enforceable in the EU's court, even after Brexit is finished. There are currently 3.2million EU nationals in Britain.

The EU Commission has agreed a 'directive' that sets out the rules for the two years of Brexit talks.

The document follows the unanimous agreement by EU leaders of negotiating guidelines that represent a hard-line opening gambit on Brexit.

It means the EU will demand all EU citizens in Britain  get lifetime guarantees on rights to in-work benefits, unemployment benefits, pensions and other benefits.
It also seeks guarantees they would be able to marry a citizen of a third country and stay here with them. 

An EU citizen who has worked in the UK for ten years will also be able to claim unemployment benefit to find another job elsewhere in Europe. 

They currently get these rights by virtue of Britain's EU membership. Britons on the continent have similar access in their host countries.  

British politicians had hoped to effectively backdate the accrual of lifetime right to either the referendum in June 2016 or the triggering of Article 50 in March 2017. 

Striking an agreement on citizens rights - and on the Brexit Bill and the Irish border - is a requirement of beginning talks on the future trade deal. 

The directive also makes clear that the EU will try to force the UK to accept that the European Court of Justice will decide on disputed between the sides - a prospect that Mrs May has rejected.

The divorce bill is described as an 'essential element of the negotiations on the orderly separation', with a promise that it will be based on 'objective and verifiable data'. 
However, it indicates that the sum will not factor in billions of pounds of assets held by the EU, such as buildings. 

Theresa May reacted with fury to a week of poisonous briefings by Brussels officials, accusing them of trying to interfere in the general election and undermine Brexit negotiations

The EU's latest demands were rejected by Brexit Secretary David Davis. He also dismissed threats from Brussels to use the issue to block a trade deal, insisting Britain will not pay a penny if talks collapse

THE BREXIT BILL

What Brussels wants: A claimed 100billion euro Brexit 'divorce bill'.

Analysis: In public, Mr Barnier claimed the demands were 'not a punishment, nor an exit tax'. But in an anonymous briefing to the Remain-supporting Financial Times, Brussels doubled its 50billion estimate. Mr Barnier said Britain must agree to pay for long-term programmes, relocating EU agencies from London and parts of the EU-Turkey refugee deal. Officials ruled out the UK getting credit for its share of the EU's 800billion euros of collective assets. Our government will honour its commitments, but will not pay anything like the sums demanded.

EU JUDGES

What Brussels wants: Huge powers for the unelected European Court of Justice (ECJ).

Analysis: The EU says the judges in Luxembourg should retain huge influence over the UK. The court should also have power to rule over cases before we leave, over UK 'state aid' support for industry, and rights of EU nationals living here. Significantly, it should 'adjudicate' in disputes over terms of the deal – particularly money. Mrs May is determined to end ECJ influence.

EU MIGRANTS/UK EXPATS

What Brussels wants: Blanket rights for EU nationals in the UK to bring in family.

Analysis: Like Mrs May, the EU wants an early deal on rights of the three million EU nationals in the UK and 1.2million British expats on the continent. Brussels demands any EU national who arrives before Brexit – even if they have been here a day – has the right to remain after five years' residency. They should also have the right to bring in relatives who would receive similar protections. While some of the EU's demands will be difficult to swallow, the government will compromise – but only if British nationals on the continent are fully protected.

POST-BREXIT TRADE DEAL

What Brussels says: Nothing.

Analysis: On the first page of its negotiating position, the EU makes clear it is addressing the UK's 'orderly withdrawal' and not future arrangements. Mr Barnier says we must secure a framework deal on money, EU migrants and the ECJ before a trade deal. Mrs May wants to discuss the issues at the same time. Yesterday she repeated her mantra 'no deal is better than a bad deal'. If trade is not on the table, Mrs May will have to walk away

Comey: The Metadata Made Me Do It

The FBI director tries to explain to Congress his pre-election letters about the missing Clinton emails.

Why did FBI Director James Comey tell Congress he was “re-opening” the Clinton email investigation just nine days before the election? Metadata and a misunderstanding.

That’s what Comey told lawmakers on Wednesday, explaining his momentous decision for the first time. He said that the FBI team looking into Clinton’s lost emails became very excited about the discovery of Anthony Weiner’s laptop, upon which was stored metadata that pointed to various messages, and the possibility — false, as it turns out — that it metadata would show criminal intent. The team also told Comey that it would take a long time to go through the data, which also proved untrue.

Bottom line, Comey said: he did not know how much evidence they had or how long it would take to examine it, and he decided on Oct. 28 to send a letter telling lawmakers that the investigation was open again.  

Here’s how it went down: On the morning of Oct. 27, the FBI investigative team met with Comey in his conference room.

“They laid out what they could see from the metadata on this fellow Anthony Weiner’s laptop,” Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee.  ”What they could see was that there were thousands of Secretary Clinton’s emails on that device, including what they thought were the missing emails from her first three months as Secretary of State.”

The metadata on Weiner’s device pointed to emails from Clinton’s Verizon Blackberry, a device she used during her first three months as Secretary of State, Comey said.

“That’s obviously very important because if there was evidence she was acting with bad intent that’s where it would be,” he told a somewhat agitated Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. “We never found any emails from her first three months.”

After the investigators said that they would need a search warrant to go further, Comey verified that with the Justice Department, then granted his team permission to seek it.

Comey told lawmakers that once he had given permission to obtain a search warrant, he would have two choices. He could either conceal or reveal that he had given permission for the agents to continue their investigation. Concealing it would have been “catastrophic,” to public trust in the FBI, he said.


As well, Comey told lawmakers, his team had informed him that searching the 650,000-plus emails could not be completed before the Nov. 8 election. That proved untrue.

Instead, he said, “They found thousands of new emails and they called me the Saturday night before the election and said, ‘Thanks to the wizardry of our technology, we’ve only had to personally read 6,000. We think we can finish tomorrow morning, Sunday.’”

At the time, some observers and political players, such as disgraced former National Security Advisor and former Defense Intelligence Agency director Michael Flynn, said that a thorough review of emails in that timeframe would be impossible.



“We’d routinely collect terabytes of data in a search. I’d know what was important before I left the guy’s house,” one former FBI forensics analyst told WIRED’s Andy Greenberg.

Shouldn’t Comey have known better? There are any number of methods or software tools available for searching enormous corpuses of data quickly…if you know what you are looking for. While there are tags and other indicators that can quickly show that a message contains classified information, the object of Comey’s obsession was a bit more vaporous: a clear indication of criminal intent on behalf of Hillary Clinton. Even so, it proved easy to eliminate a large majority of emails that definitely contained no such proof, leaving a much smaller pile to go through more carefully..

Comey told the committee that the investigators came back to him the Saturday before the election.

“They said, ’We found a lot of new stuff. We did not find anything that changes our view of her intent. We’re in the same place we were in July.’”

What effect did Comey’s letter have on the election?

Sam Wang at the Princeton Consortium did a quick analysis on the prevalence of Hillary Clinton’s email as a voting issue in the final days before the election. Unsurprisingly, there was a spike.

“The big change does coincide well with the release of the Comey letter. Opinion swung toward Trump by 4 percentage points, and about half of this was a lasting change. This was larger than the victory margin in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Wisconsin. Many factors went into this year’s Presidential race, but on the home stretch, Comey’s letter appears to have been a critical factor in the home stretch,” Wang wrote.

Statistician Nate Silver at Fivethirtyeight found that Clinton’s support waned whenever Comey talked about her emails, as he did in July when he first closed the investigation.

At very least, Comey’s letter of Oct. 28 certainly changed the optics and themes of the campaign in its final days. “It got Trump out of the spotlight for vulgar comments on the Access Hollywood video and back on offense. He and his allies used word of a new FBI investigation and an erroneous report on Fox News to argue that Clinton was about to be indicted,” USA Today’s Susan Page observed.

Still, pinning a specific perception change in the minds of million of voters on a single event is an ambitious feat with even the best data. But had Comey simply called his own forensic experts or consulted someone with expertise in parsing big data, rather than rely entirely on the judgment of agents whose expertise was elsewhere, he might have sent a better letter to lawmakers. That might have changed history.

Patrick Tucker is technology editor for Defense One