MPs slam Theresa May over lack of a plan if Brexit talks collapse

PM plans to trigger article 50 ‘within days’ but all-party parliamentary committee says she is putting national interest at risk

 Theresa May preparing to address a media conference at an EU summit in Brussels last Thursday. Photograph: Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP

Toby Helm and Tracy McVeigh-Saturday 11 March 2017

Theresa May has been accused by a powerful parliamentary committee of putting the national interest at risk by failing to prepare for the “real prospect” that two years of Brexit negotiations could end with no deal.

The criticism – and warnings of dire consequences – is levelled at May by the all-party foreign affairs select committee only days before she is expected to trigger article 50 – the formal process that will end the UK’s 44-year membership of the European Union.

After a detailed inquiry into what would happen if Brexit negotiations failed, the Tory chairman of the committee, Crispin Blunt, a supporter of leaving the EU, said: “The possibility of ‘no deal’ is real enough to require the government to plan how to deal with it.

“But there is no evidence to indicate that this is receiving the consideration it deserves or that serious contingency planning is under way. The government has repeatedly said that it will walk away from a ‘bad’ final deal. That makes preparing for ‘no deal’ all the more essential.

“Last year, the committee described the government’s failure to plan for a Leave vote as an act of gross negligence. This government must not make a comparable mistake.”

His committee’s report says Brexit talks could break down for several reasons, including a deal being torpedoed at the 11th hour by the European parliament. The UK would be cast adrift and have to trade on World Trade Organisation rules, an outcome that would risk serious economic damage.

“It is clear from our evidence that a complete breakdown in negotiations represents a very destructive outcome, leading to mutually assured damage to the EU and the UK. Both sides would suffer economic losses and harm to their international reputations. Individuals and businesses in both the UK and EU could be subject to considerable uncertainty and legal confusion.. It is a key national and European Union interest that such a situation is avoided.”

The conclusions are likely to embolden MPs – including a number of Tory rebels – who will insist tomorrow that the government guarantee them a vote before any decision is made to leave the EU without a deal.

While amendments passed in the House of Lords are likely to be defeated, Tory MPs are determined to extract pledges from the government, even if they are not written into the Brexit bill.

 The House of Lords amendments will probably be defeated. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Government whips are confident that the bill will gain royal assent by the middle of the week, allowing the prime minister to write to European Council president Donald Tusk to tell him that the UK is ready to begin formal divorce talks.

Last night, in a sign that the government is keen to push ahead as soon as it can, the Brexit secretary, David Davis, issued a statement saying it was time to act on the will of the British people and leave the EU.

“However they voted in the referendum, the majority of people now want the prime minister to be able to get on with the job. By a majority of four to one, MPs passed straightforward legislation allowing the government to move ahead with no strings attached. I will be asking MPs to send the legislation back to the House of Lords in its original form so that we can start building a global Britain and a strong new partnership with the EU. Our new position in the world means we can restore national self-determination, build new trading links and become even more global in spirit and action.”

Labour’s Brexit spokesman, Keir Starmer, said he believed there was a high probability that May would trigger article 50 in the middle of this week. Referring to the select committee report he said: “It is a reminder of the stark choices we face over Brexit and the huge risks of the PM failing to get a good deal. 

Labour is clear that no deal is the worst possible deal and would not be in the national interest. The PM should be fighting for a close, collaborative future relationship with the EU and rule out the danger of reverting to WTO terms, as this would be disastrous for British jobs and businesses.”

But the debate continued to cause divisions in Labour as a group of around 30 Labour MPs, including a serving whip and a member of the shadow front bench, wrote an open letter criticising the leadership for failing to support a policy of staying in the EU single market.

The statement, drawn up by former shadow cabinet member Chuka Umunna and published on theguardian.com, says: “It is the basic responsibility of the Labour party to mount the strongest possible opposition to Theresa May’s government and fight for a Brexit deal that respects the will of the British people but ensures that they will not be made substantially worse off. As the party that has always stood up for working people, we must fight tooth and nail for a future that does not destroy their jobs and livelihoods. Single Market membership outside the EU is the way to achieve this and is what Labour should be arguing for.” The Labour leadership has argued for maximum access to the single market rather than full membership.

The select committee report states that in the event of “no deal”, British people living in European countries could be left with no rights to healthcare, work, or benefits. “The worst-case scenario for UK migrants in the EU would be that they would be treated differently in different EU countries, at any rate where they had resided in a country for fewer than five years.”

Deals for EU citizens living here could also become “chaotic”, said the committee. An unplanned Brexit would lead to “high levels of anxiety” for British people living elsewhere in the EU, and EU migrants in the UK.

Sudan Is Open for Business – for Now

Two weeks after Barack Obama began rehabilitating the pariah state, Donald Trump slammed the door on it once again.

BY NESRINE MALIK-MARCH 7, 2017

KHARTOUM, Sudan – Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is famous for railing against the United States in his speeches, has lately been sounding a more conciliatory tone. When President Donald Trump’s travel ban targeting the citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, including Sudan, went into effect in January, New Yorkers protesting at John F. Kennedy International Airport had more to say about it than the Sudanese government. It fell to Abdel-Ghani al-Naim, Bashir’s undersecretary of foreign affairs, to object — but not too vigorously and only after underscoring Sudan’s keenness to “continue the dialogue and cooperation with the American side at all levels.”

There was a clear message being telegraphed through this mild response: While Khartoum considers the travel ban an inconvenience, it does not want it to jeopardize the recent progress it has made towards normalizing its relations with the United States. After more than two decades in the cold, the Sudanese government is intent on shedding its pariah status — so the Sudanese students and green card holders stranded at U.S. airports were forced to look to the American Civil Liberties Union for assistance. Khartoum was not about to make a fuss on their behalf.

That’s because prior to Trump’s travel ban, things had been looking up for Bashir, who was indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court in 2009. In the dying hours of his presidency, Barack Obama signed an executive order partially lifting economic sanctions that had been in place since 1997, when Sudan ran afoul of the United States by hosting Osama bin Laden and other terrorists.

Obama’s executive order lifted restrictions on Sudan’s oil and gas industry, unfroze some Sudanese assets in the United States, and allowed for the import and export of certain approved goods and services. But it came with a six-month probation period during which Sudan must improve access for aid groups, cease the bombing of rebel-held areas in Darfur and the Nuba Mountains, stop supporting rebels in neighboring South Sudan, and cooperate with American intelligence agencies.

In other words, the Trump administration has the ability to put Sudan back in the penalty box if it’s not satisfied with the government’s conduct in any of these areas.

Sanctions relief is certainly welcome news for an economy in distress. In January, Sudan’s Central Bureau of Statistics reported that inflation rose for the eighth consecutive month to 32.86 percent.

Sudan’s economy has faltered since the southern half of the country seceded in 2011, taking with it the lion’s share of the oil reserves. Government revenue and foreign exchange income diminished significantly and unexpectedly after that as revenue-sharing agreements with South Sudan collapsed amid political turmoil. This, coupled with lack of access to the international financial system, meant severe hard currency shortages, which the government tried to alleviate by banning some imports and imposing high tariffs on others. In the end, all it did was boost inflation.

Even in the comparatively affluent capital, consumers are buying commodities in daily sachets in order to feed households in meal-sized measurements until their money runs out. The traders in the city’s street markets worry that their goods will rot before they are sold. Apart from a small coterie of political and business elites close to the regime, everyone is hurting.

It’s difficult to say how much of this is attributable to U.S. sanctions and how much is the result of government mismanagement — both have taken their toll on the Sudanese economy. But Obama’s Jan. 13 executive order is expected to improve the outlook for sectors like manufacturing, agriculture, and healthcare, which have been starved of equipment, technology, and investment.

“The effect of sanctions has been devastating on the economy. Banks refuse to deal with Sudanese residents and private businesses cannot even make international transfers,” said Amin Sid Ahmed, a financial consultant and economist who has written extensively on the sanctions regime. “How then are you going to purchase basic agricultural inputs for example? How are you going to purchase life saving drugs? The man on the street who has no political affiliation has suffered the most.”

It is for this reason that the business class has welcomed Obama’s executive order, even if ordinary Sudanese greeted it with a shrug, having long ago grown weary of government promises that their economic prospects will ever be improved. But the sanctions relief hasn’t been as dramatic as some had hoped.

“Even since the sanctions were partially lifted, banks have been sluggish to change their regulations,” said Mohamed Abelrahman, the general manager of Newtech Consulting Group, an engineering firm based in Khartoum that has projects in 16 African and Middle Eastern countries.

The $8.9 billion penalty imposed on BNP Paribas for violating sanctions on Sudan, Cuba, and Iran still looms large over the financial industry. Some banks prefer to avoid the risk of operating in Sudan, even if Obama’s executive order makes doing business technically legal.

“Banks are afraid of fines and thus over-comply, refusing to deal with Sudanese businesses even when they have bank accounts abroad,” said Abelrahman.

Trump’s travel ban, an amended version of which was reimposed Monday after a federal judge blocked the government from implementing the original version, does not roll back the sanctions relief offered by Obama. But it does impede the ability of Sudanese to do business in the United States.

“It’s rather difficult to transact legitimate business that is allowed under [Obama’s] executive order of Jan. 13 if even holders of valid visas issued by the U.S. government cannot come to the U.S. to transact the allowed business,” said J. Peter Pham, the director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council, adding that the impact of the sanctions relief will depend in part on how Trump’s travel ban is enforced.

Abelrahman says the ban could impede Newtech’s ability to bid on projects that are funded by development finance institutions with headquarters in the United States, since his employees would be unable to attend meetings there. He foresees similar headaches for other Sudanese businesses, whose competitiveness will take a hit.

“Again, it is the citizens that are suffering; the Sudanese government is a sovereign and so can find its ways to move money and people,” he said.

It was not just the economy that suffered under the sanctions regime. Young people chafed under the economic, diplomatic, and cultural isolation imposed on Sudan. Those who could, left the country, contributing to significant brain drain and a general weakening of civil society.

The number of non-immigrant visas issued to Sudanese citizens for business, tourism, and study in the United States has slowly risen since the sanctions were imposed: 5,080 were issued in 2015, compared to 3,362 in 1997.

The travel ban threatens to reduce this number to zero. But instead of fixing the problem of brain drain it is likely to breed disaffection among the elite. Despite Khartoum’s eagerness not to let it derail the lifting of sanctions, the travel ban reinforces the notion that Sudan is a rogue state and impedes full normalization of relations with the United States.

The ban also serves as a reminder that Sudan remains on the State Department’s list of “state sponsors of terrorism,” despite the fact that most U.S. policymakers agree that it no longer deserves to be there. The list, which can only be altered with congressional approval, served as the basis for the travel ban, which targeted seven countries designated either as “state sponsors” or as terrorist “safe havens.” (The amended travel ban excludes Iraq.) As long as Sudan remains on the “state sponsors” list, it will remain a pariah in the eyes of the international community.

In the meantime, life goes on as usual in Sudan, with the populace continuing to plug the gaps left by governmental malpractice and crippling international isolation. Many people can’t even recall what life was like before the sanctions; a whole generation came of age during the embargo.

“We have developed so many survival mechanisms,” said Heba Mohamed, an unemployed junior medical doctor. “It is hard to imagine how things can be different.”
Ty McCormick contributed reporting from Nairobi.

Top image: ASHRAF SHAZLY/AFP/Getty Images

During his political rise, Stephen K. Bannon was a man with no fixed address
Stephen Bannon at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Feb. 23. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)--Bannon is seen as President Trump meets with business leaders in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Jan. 23. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

Bannon was registered to vote at this house on Onaway Drive in Miami from February 2015 to August 2016. (Obtained by The Washington Post)--Bannon hosts New Hampshire primary coverage on the radio from Manchester, N.H., on Feb. 8, 2016. (Paul Marotta/Getty Images for SiriusXM)

By Robert O'Harrow Jr. and Shawn Boburg March 11 at 11:09 AM

In the three years before he became Donald Trump’s chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon lived as a virtual nomad in a quest to build a populist political insurgency.

During his political rise.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

Tech Can Help Us Cheat Death: Yes Serious!

Interview by Kev Kharas
Photography by Joachim Belaieff
Courtesy: unlimited.world

( March 11, 2017, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Hannes Sjoblad is the fresh face attempting to popularise the biohacking movement – a small but growing group of people and organisations operating in countries across the world to fuse their own bodies with technology. Sjoblad, a member of the biohacking group BioNyfiken, has chips implanted in his hands that mean instead of filling his pockets with house and car keys, business cards, security passes and the other usual detritus, he merely has to present his hand to whatever digital scanner is blocking his path and continue on his way.

The movement’s DIY ethos is a refreshing and more agile alternative to the slow-moving machinations of the corporate forces currently exploring the possibilities of human-robotic fusion.

VICE: How do you think biohacking could change the relationship humans have with time?

Hannes Sjoblad: Life extension – most obviously. If we can live longer, healthier lives, we’d have a different view on time, stress, careers and relationships.

How do you think the world will look in 20 years, in terms of lifespans?

Everyone from the UN to pension companies make forecasts on population development. If you look at the trends we see in health tech and biotech – stem cell therapies, DNA sequencing, 3D printing of organs based on your own cells, for example – I think we are significantly underestimating our expected lifespan. We’re going to live much longer than the previous generation. I am a business person with a strong career drive. When I started to think that I could live to be 120 or 150, I was working a job in the finance industry in London, seven days a week. But I thought, ‘If I’m going to live another hundred years, there’s no point stressing to make that million in the next three. There is plenty of time, to enjoy life, to explore different priorities and to not rush as much.’

How do you think that we as humans should adapt to this shift?

The classical model is that you grow up, go to school, get your degree, work hard for 30, 40 years, then you retire. But I think that model is changing. If we are healthy and in sound mind, we could be working till we are 100 years old – maybe I can take a PhD when I’m 95.

Understanding the possible impact of exponential technological development changed my life. I think this realisation will reach more people over time.

You’ve talked before about biohacker implants that monitor our health. Do you think eventually these implants won’t just be monitoring our health, but talking to each other to respond to changes in our physiology and automatically carrying out repairs, or making adjustments?

Oh, definitely. That must happen. We see prototypes today in things like glucose meters, where parents can monitor their diabetic children’s glucose levels and calibrate doses of insulin using a smartphone app. Just like we have a system that monitors a power plant, we need to have the same for our bodies. Imagine if we had a dashboard showing us what was going on in our bodies, and giving us the ability to take action accordingly. It would transform the way we look at health. At the moment we are reliant on a shitty system called the central nervous system. It has weaknesses – if you stuff your face with a huge bag of candy, your body tells you: ‘Thumbs up, this is good. Give me more!’ However, studies have shown that more people are dying today from diseases related to eating too much than they are from not eating enough. So the way our bodies are built and our rewards systems are simply not tuned to the world that we inhabit.

Hannes at his Stockholm lab

What could the impetus be for biohacking to go fully mainstream, in the way that home computing did in the mid 90s?

We have the sensors, we know how to make implants, we just need to create a good enough user experience. Once that’s done, I’m 100 per cent convinced that health-monitoring chip implants will benefit billions of people on this planet.

Do you think the gap between humans and robots will ever be so slim as to be insignificant?

I think we will see a great diversity in types of people. People with different genetics, morphology – just like we have in fashion, people will be exploring in different directions. There will definitely be those who upgrade and improve themselves with robotics – things like health logging chip implants, augmented reality contact lenses, wearable soft exoskeletons.

 But there will be other avenues of human augmentation as well; genetic intervention with somatic or germ line therapies would be an example of this.

Do you think much about what kind of legacy you want to leave behind for future generations?

Not so much. What drives me is that there are ideas that I really want to share – that we can overcome ageing, overcome the limitations of these bodies that we’re born into, and that the tools are available right there in front of us.

What is the single biggest misconception that people have about time?

In general, I think a lot of people in modern society are stressing way too much. People think they need to accomplish things very, very fast – like a career or getting rich. But in the US, the FDA now consider ageing a disease that we need to work to cure. Billions are being invested in human longevity projects such as Calico by Google and Longevity Inc. From a medical perspective, we have a much better understanding of ageing than we did ten years ago. I think we can make people more happy and harmonious if they just understand they may have a lot more time than they think.

Rule of law in Burma faces another test as violence rattles northeast

Suu Kyi has yet to extend an olive branch to the many minority groups that form Burma. Source: AP/Aung Shine Oo.

By Matthew Abbey | 11th March 2017

MORE than 20,000 people have fled ongoing violence between ethnic minorities and security officials in northern Burma (Myanmar), arriving in camps on the Chinese side of the border.

The violence is jeopardising the democratisation process initiated by the National League for Democracy (NLD).

De facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi has yet to extend an olive branch to the many minority groups that form the modern nation state.

This is in part due to her inability to outmanoeuvre the military as well as seeing eye-to-eye with minorities like the Rohingya.

China is another country feeling the brunt of the exodus.

According to Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang on Thursday, “China supports Myanmar’s peace process and hopes all sides can use peaceful means to resolve their differences via dialogue and consultation”.

China is taking steps to stabilise the border region.

The Rohingya may grab the headlines, but other militia groups continue to rebel with violent means against decades-long persecution.

SEE ALSO: Burma: Ethnic groups clash with security forces along border, 30 dead – govt

On Tuesday, 30 people were killed by ethnic Chinese rebels in the town of Laukkai in the Kokang region of Shan state.

The display of violence has worsened relations between Burma and China.

The Kokang region is historically close to China. The yuan is used there and locals speak a Chinese dialect.

Displaced people are seen with their belongings after Tuesday’s attack in Laukkai, Burma. Source: Reuters

Both governments want to end the violence as soon as possible to avoid further refugee movements.

Shuang called for both sides to “exercise restraint and immediately cease fire”, but faced with continued persecution, ethnic minorities may have little reason to give up the struggle.

Fighting spilled over the border in 2015, which rightly angered Beijing.

Despite the rhetoric, China has played only a minor role in encouraging a peaceful settlement to the ongoing conflict.

China is one of Burma’s closest allies, but fails to use its influence over the government.

Instead, China conducts extensive business in Rakhine state amid high levels of persecution against the Rohingya.

Through denouncing the recent violence, China is aiming for a secure border, rather than a secure Burma.

According to Yangon-based analyst Richard Horsey, “in the context of the peace process… [the Tuesday attack] shakes confidence not only in Kokang, but more generally… it’s a direct political challenge, as well as a security incident.”

Suu Kyi has promised national reconciliation, but many ethnic groups continue to face persecution throughout the country.

A peace deal has yet to come around, despite this being a chief goal of the new administration.

SEE ALSO: Burma: Full UN probe on Rohingya abuse unlikely after EU fails to seek one

In the country’s northwest, the government faces a continued insurgency in Rakhine state.

Thousands of Rohingya continue to flee to Bangladesh.

In December 2016,  the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs spokesman Pierre Peron said, “Humanitarian access to conflict areas in Kachin and Shan states is currently worse than at any point in the past few years.”

“This has seriously affected the ability of humanitarian organisations to provide life-saving aid to tens of thousands of (internally displaced) and other conflict-affected people.”

Hindered by ongoing violence on several fronts, any peace process faces some insurmountable tasks.

The last time a nationwide ceasefire was negotiated in 2011 under the military-backed government, only eight of 15 rebel groups signed. Conflict has continued ever since.

Can sweat patches revolutionise diabetes?

By James Gallagher-9 March 2017

Scientists have developed a sensor that can monitor blood sugar levels by analysing sweaty skin.

But rather than a gym-soaked t-shirt, it needs just one millionth of a litre of sweat to do the testing.

The team - in South Korea - showed the sensor was accurate and think it could eventually help patients with diabetes.

And in extra tests on mice, the sensor was hooked up to a patch of tiny needles to automatically inject diabetes medication.

The team at the Seoul National University were trying to overcome the need for "painful blood collection" needed in diabetes patients.

• Type 1 diabetes is caused by the immune system attacking the part of the body that controls blood sugar levels
• Type 2 diabetes is often caused by lifestyle damaging the body's ability to control blood sugar levels
• Patients with both conditions need to medically control their blood sugar levels to prevent damage to the body and even death

This is how patients with diabetes would normally keep track of blood sugar levels:

GETTY IMAGESImage copyright

And this could be the future:

HYUNJAE LEE AND CHANGYEONG SONGImage copyright

The sensor is flexible so it can move with the skin it is stuck onto.

However, the scientists needed to overcome a series of challenges to make it work.

There is less sugar in sweat than blood so it is harder to find, and other chemicals in sweat such as lactic acid can disrupt the results.

So the patch has three sensors keeping track of sugar levels, four that test the acidity of the sweat and a humidity sensor to analyse the amount of sweat.

It is all encased in a porous layer that allows the sweat to soak through and bathe the electronics.

All this information is passed onto a portable computer which does the analysis to work out the sugar levels.

HYUNJAE LEE AND CHANGYEONG SONG

Tests before and after people sat down for a meal, published in the journal Science Advances, showed the results from the sweat patch "agree well" with those from traditional kit.

However, for the next stage the researchers turned to mice with diabetes.

They used the blood sugar monitor to control an array of microneedles to give the mice doses of the diabetes drug metformin.

HYUNJAE LEE AND CHANGYEONG SONG

The researchers conclude: "The current system provides important new advances toward the painless and stress-free" care for diabetes.

However, there is a leap between proving something can sense sugar levels in a lab and turning that into something that is so reliable people can put their lives in its hands.

So the researchers next want to test how the patches work in the long-term.

Follow James on Twitter.

SRI LANKA:: CAN THE LANDS OF THE SOUTHERN CIVILIAN’S BE HELD BY THE ARMED FORCES? WILL IT BE TOLERATED?

protest by Puthukudiyiruppu families asking to return their land went on nearly a month in February 2017-ontinued occupation of civilian land: is there any justification?

Image:  Keppapulavu families continue protest for get back their land. photos @shalin.

R.Sampanthan.-10/03/2017

Thanking  the people from outside the Northern Province, the Sinhalese people and the Muslim people who have also been staging protests in support of this very legitimate demand TNA leader R.Sampanthan has  posed a question as to “whether such a situation can prevail in the Southern part of this country. Can the lands of the civilian population be held by the armed forces or by the Government in this way? Will it be tolerated? Will the other political forces permit that to happen? Will they not intervene and ensure that the lands are returned to the people if such lands were held by the armed forces or the Government in the South?”

SRI LANKA CAN THE LANDS OF THE SOUTHERN CIVILIAN S BE HELD BY THE ARMED FORCES WILL IT BE TOLERATED.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

Trincomalee disappearances protest on fifth day.

10 Mar  2017

Families of the disappeared have been protesting, demanding information about their loved ones, in Bharathipuram, Trincomalee.

Similar to continuous protests around the North-East, the protest is now on its fifth day.

Related Articles: 

06 March 2017 : Today is day 15: Kilinochchi disappearances protest continues

24 February 2017 : Families of missing resume Vavuniya hunger strike

08 March 2017 : Families of disappeared protest outside Mullaitivu DS