SitRep: Flynn Wants Immunity; Three White House Officials Spoke with Nunes; Trump Opens New War Front

With Adam Rawnsley

BY PAUL MCLEARY-MARCH 31, 2017

Looking for a deal. Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, has offered to be interviewed by the FBI and House and Senate investigators examining the Trump campaign’s potential ties to Russia, in exchange for immunity from prosecution, “but has so far found no takers,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

In a statement on Thursday evening, Flynn’s lawyer Robert Kelner, said his client was willing to speak, and “General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should circumstances permit,” the statement said.

White House connection. At least two White House employees “helped provide Representative Devin Nunes of California, a Republican and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, with the intelligence reports that showed that President Trump and his associates were incidentally swept up in foreign surveillance by American spy agencies,” the New York Timesreports.

“The revelation on Thursday that White House officials disclosed the reports, which Mr. Nunes then discussed with Mr. Trump, is likely to fuel criticism that the intelligence chairman has been too eager to do the bidding of the Trump administration while his committee is supposed to be conducting an independent investigation of Russia’s meddling in the presidential election.” The Washington Post names three White House officials who may have been involved, including one high-ranking National Security Council intelligence official who national security advisor Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster recently tried unsuccessfully to remove, after CIA officials complained about him.

What’s he got? Harvard law prof Alex Whiting write on Just Security writes that “the fact that Flynn and his lawyer have made his offer publicly suggests that he has nothing good to give the prosecutors (either because he cannot incriminate others or is unwilling to do so). If he had something good, Flynn and his lawyer would approach the prosecutors quietly, go through the proffer process in confidence, and reach a deal.”

A new front. President Trump has signed off on a Pentagon proposal to allow the head of the U.S. Africa Command to launch an offensive campaign against the al-Shabab militant group in Somalia, U.S. officials said on Thursday, clearing the way for more airstrikes, and potentially a more active presence of U.S. Special Operations Forces on the ground.

“It remains to be seen how active American forces will be in Somalia, where dozens of U.S. commandos already operate,” FP’s Paul McLeary reports. But the order gels with an increasingly forward-leaning posture in Yemen, where Trump also recently signed an order allowing for more U.S. military action. Last week, Africa Command head Gen. Thomas Waldhauser said that “I think the combatant commanders, myself included, are more than capable of making judgments and determinations on some of these targets,” he said. Giving his commanders the ability to launch offensive strikes would allow his “to prosecute targets in a more rapid fashion.”

Mosul. No one can say for certain how ISIS fighters have been killed in Mosul, but the spokesman for the U.S. military effort in Iraq and Syria, Col. Joseph Scrocca said there were about 2,000 fighters in western Mosul before the recent Iraqi offensive, and that the number has been reduced by at least half. He also said that the military is looking to release videos showing how ISIS uses human shields, packing civilians into buildings before luring the coalition to bomb them.

“What was see now is not the use of civilians as human shields…for the first time we caught this on video yesterday as armed ISIS fighters forced civilians into a building, killing one who resisted and then used that building as a fighting position.” The Washington Post also points out the ways in which the U.S. air campaign in Mosul has been influenced by the the Russian campaign in Chechnya in the 1990s that killed as many as 30,000 people.

Assad can do Assad. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations on Thursday said Washington is no longer focused on ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, from power — something that the Obama administration considered essential to bring peace the Syria, even if it took no steps to make it happen.
“You pick and choose your battles,” Nikki Haley told reporters in New York. “Our priority is no longer to sit and focus on getting Assad out.” Haley spoke just after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, traveling in Ankara, Turkey, said Assad’s long-term status “will be decided by the Syrian people.”

Not happy about all this. The remarks by Trump cabinet officials might mark a public break with the former administration’s policy on Assad, but the Obama administration had mostly focused on fighting the Islamic State and al Qaeda in Syria, to the frustration of some lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Two of those Senators, John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) issued strongly worded statements in response to the remarks.

“I hope President Trump will make clear that America will not follow this self-destructive and self-defeating path,” McCain said, adding that he was wary of any possible deal between the Trump administration, Assad, and Moscow.  Graham said it would be a “grave mistake” to drop the removal of Assad as an objective, and would be crushing news to the Syrian opposition and U.S. allies in the region.
A mouthful. At a press conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Tillerson listened as the Turkish official ticked off conspiracy theories about U.S. law enforcement officials being pawns of anti-Turkish actors, and how some in the U.S. government supported the July 2016 coup attempt in Turkey. In return, Tillerson remained vague when discussing a major rift between the two nations: U.S. support for Kurds fighting ISIS in northern Syria, saying only that there were “difficult choices that have to be made.”

Ankara accuses the U.S. of arming the Kurds, and doesn’t want Kurdish fighters to be involved in the push on the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa. But U.S. officials say the Kurds are the most effective fighting force in the region, and insist that some Kurds will be part of the fight. Earlier this week, Turkish officials announced they had wrapped up their “Euphrates Shield” military operation in northern Syria, aimed at pushing both ISIS and the Kurds from their southern border.

Yemen. The Yemeni embassy in Washington “has written to Senate staffers blasting a planned event on Capitol Hill featuring two Yemeni civil society activists, an unusual step betraying Sanaa’s acute sensitivity to criticism as it seeks more U.S. assistance for the Saudi-led military campaign in the country,” writes FP’s Dan De Luce. “The extraordinary email to lawmakers’ offices, obtained by Foreign Policy, appeared aimed at discouraging congressional aides from attending the briefing at the Dirksen Senate office building on Thursday afternoon with two established local advocates. The note warned Senate aides that participants in the event had a political “agenda” tied to Iran-backed Houthi rebels battling the government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi.”

Welcome to SitRep. Send any tips, thoughts or national security events to paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com or via Twitter: @paulmcleary or @arawnsley.
Mar-a-Lago meetup. President Trump will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in early April for talks at Trump’s private, for-profit Mar-a-Lago club in early April. Trump and Xi have never met and spoken only once by phone, but Trump has gone on something of a tirade against Xi and Beijing, making the meetup a hotly anticipated one. Trump has hammered China for allegedly exploiting global trade rules and its more lenient attitude towards North Korean provocations, but backed off from abandoning the longstanding U.S. “One China” policy in his phone call with Xi. Both trade and North Korea are expected to be high on the list of subjects discussed at Mar-a-Lago.

How soon is now? Vladimir Putin is notorious for keeping world leaders waiting but the Russian president is getting impatient that he hasn’t had a meeting with President Trump yet. The Washington Post reports that Putin is annoyed that Trump has been “barred from implementing his agenda by unspecified Washington denizens allegedly keen to scuttle a rapprochement between the U.S. and Russia.” Putin told reporters that Moscow is ready for a meeting and a reset in relations but will likely have to wait until “squabbles” in American politics over Russia die down.

Confirmation. Senate Democrats tried to grill the Trump administration’s nominee for Air Force Secretary on her past as a contractor but Heather Wilson, a former congresswoman from New Mexico, managed to evade answering directly during her hearing on Thursday. The Hill reports that Democrats on the Armed Services Committee pressed Wilson on her work for Sandia National Laboratories, which a Department of Energy Inspector General’s report concluded earned her $464,000 despite no evidence she carried out any work. Wilson didn’t offer direct answers about why she was unable to prove she carried out the work. Despite the questions, Wilson appears set to glide through confirmation with bipartisan approval.

Pew pew pew. The Air Force and Marine Corps could one day strap lasers to the V-22 Osprey in order to give special operators more firepower so they could shoot their way out of a jam if need be. DOD Buzz was on hand as Boeing’s business development chief John “Bones” Parker told reporters that the services are pressing to add offensive weapons to the tiltrotor aircraft and are open to creative solutions. Boeing has already tested out arming the Osprey with rockets and missiles but says the services say they’d also be ok trying out non-lethal weapons like sound waves.

Response. The U.S. is convinced that Russia has violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty Experts with its deployment of a new nuclear-capable cruise missile. What’s less clear is what the U.S. should do about it. USNI News reports that a handful of experts testified that the U.S. has a number of ways to respond to the violation. Among the options discussed were building a new conventional air-launched cruise missile, exporting American cruise missiles to European allies, and deploying missiles and artillery to Eastern Europe.

Valor. The armed services have handed out a number of awards for valor to troops since 9/11, the narratives for which have been shrouded in secrecy. But on Thursday USA Today published a summary of documents handed over by the Army containing the classified details of a dozen Silver Stars awarded to special operations soldiers for actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The narratives reveal stories of soldiers risking their lives to save comrades, braving gunfire from Afghan Taliban and Iraqi insurgents, fighting while injured, and refusing medical treatment until fellow soldiers were attended to.

Photo Credit: Saul Loeb – Pool/Getty Images

Michael Flynn: new evidence spy chiefs had concerns about Russian ties

US and UK officials were troubled by Moscow contacts and encounter with woman linked to Russian spy agency records

Michael Flynn and Vladimir Putin at a 2015 dinner for the RT news channel in Moscow. Photograph: Michael Klimentyev/ Sputnik/Kremlin/EPA--- Donald Trump with Flynn in December 2016. Photograph: Carlos Barria/Reuters

Flynn in the Oval Office with Trump and aide Steve Bannon in January 2017. Photograph: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Luke Harding, Stephanie Kirchgaessner and Nick Hopkins-Friday 31 March 2017

US intelligence officials had serious concerns about Michael Flynn’s appointment as the White House national security adviser because of his history of contacts with Moscow and his encounter with a woman who had trusted access to Russian spy agency records, the Guardian has learned.

US and British intelligence officers discussed Flynn’s “worrisome” behaviour well before his appointment last year by Donald Trump, multiple sources have said.

They raised concerns about Flynn’s ties to Russia and his perceived obsession with Iran. They were also anxious about his capacity for “linear thought” and some actions that were regarded as highly unusual for a three-star general.

Flynn was forced to quit in February, after 24 days in the job. He resigned when it emerged he had lied to the vice-president, Mike Pence. Flynn said he had not discussed lifting US sanctions on Russia with Sergei Kislyak, Moscow’s US ambassador, but later admitted this was untrue.

On Thursday, Flynn indicated he was willing to testify before the FBI and congressional committees about potential links between the Trump campaign and Russia in exchange for immunity. In a statement released by his lawyer, Flynn said he had a story to tell but was seeking “assurances against unfair prosecution”.

The house oversight committee is examining the general’s activities before he joined Trump’s White House. It is likely to focus on Flynn’s contacts with foreign nationals and will also look at fees he may have received from foreign governments, including Russia and Turkey, and linked entities.

The committee will further consider what security vetting Flynn received before he took up the job. It is seeking information from five senior officials including the FBI director, James Comey. Earlier this month, Comey confirmed his agency was investigating possible collusion between Trump and Russia to influence the outcome of the US election.

Flynn’s erratic conduct had troubled US intelligence officials for some time, multiple sources have told the Guardian.

One concern involved an encounter with a Russian-British graduate student, Svetlana Lokhova, whom Flynn met on a trip to Cambridge in February 2014.

At the time, Flynn was one of the top US spies and the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which provides information to the Pentagon about the military strengths and intentions of other states and terrorist groups.

A historian and a leading expert on Soviet espionage, Lokhova has claimed to have unique access to previously classified Soviet-era material in Moscow. She says her forthcoming book makes groundbreaking revelations about Soviet military intelligence operations run by the GRU – Russia’s military spy agency.

Western historians say access to intelligence agency records in Moscow has been severely restricted under Vladimir Putin. One Russian historian who has written extensively on Russian intelligence said the situation with the GRU was “a complete disaster”.

“At least with the FSB and SVR [domestic and foreign spy agencies] there are places you can apply to view the archives, but with the GRU there’s not even a place to apply,” the historian said.

“Maybe two or three military historians have been allowed in. Sometimes there are duplicates in other archives, but getting into the actual GRU archive is basically impossible.”

Flynn and Lokhova were introduced to each other at the end of a dinner attended by 20 guests who included Sir Richard Dearlove – the former head of MI6 – and Prof Christopher Andrew, the official MI5 historian. 

Flynn says the meeting with Lokhova was “incidental” and lasted just 20 minutes. However, Andrew has said Flynn invited Lokhova to accompany him on his next official visit to Moscow to help with simultaneous translation. The trip fell through soon afterwards because of Putin’s annexation of Crimea, Andrew wrote in the Sunday Times.

The Guardian understands Flynn and Lokhova remained in email contact, conducted through an unclassified channel. In one email exchange described by Andrew, Flynn signed himself as “General Misha”, Russian for Mike.

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Lokhova also listed Flynn as one of four referees who would provide selective endorsements for her book, which is expected to detail how Russian spies penetrated the US atomic weapons programme.

Though there is no suggestion of impropriety, Flynn would have been expected to “self report” any conversation with an unknown person, especially with links to an “adversary” country, such as Russia.

Flynn did not disclose his conversation with Lokhova, the Wall Street Journal reported. Whatever concerns the US intelligence agencies had over Flynn, he retained his top-level security clearance.

Price Floyd, a spokesman for Flynn, said: “This is a false story. The inference that the contact between Gen Flynn and a Russian [dual] national described in this story should be seen in any light other than incidental contact is simply untrue.”

Floyd refused to comment on questions about the alleged email correspondence, or the potential citation for Lokhova’s book.

Lokhova’s partner, David North, also declined to comment in detail. In comments to the Wall Street Journal he said Lokhova and Flynn “had a 20-minute public conversation” and have not “met or spoken since”. North also disputed Andrew’s account of the dinner in Cambridge and did not answer questions about the emails.

Multiple sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the CIA and FBI were discussing this episode, along with many others, as they assessed Flynn’s suitability to serve as national security adviser.

The Cambridge meeting was part of a wider pattern of “maverick” behaviour which included repeated contacts with Russia, the sources said.

After he resigned from the DIA in 2014, Flynn became a contributor to RT, formerly known as Russia Today, the Kremlin’s English-language news channel.

In summer 2015, Flynn met Trump for the first time after being invited to do so by his team. That year he received about $45,000 (£36,000) for attending RT’s gala dinner in Moscow, where he sat next to Putin. Flynn also accepted $11,250 from two Russian firms for speaking engagements in Washington. One of them was Kaspersky Lab, a cybersecurity company with ties to the Kremlin.

The US army is investigating the RT transaction and whether it was properly disclosed, according to a source close to US intelligence. The US constitution’s emoluments clause forbids military officers from accepting foreign government payments without the permission of Congress.

The sources pointed to a reported remark by Sally Yates, the former acting attorney general, who had told the White House in January that Flynn was vulnerable to blackmail by Russian intelligence.

Flynn’s spokesman said Flynn had signed on with a speakers’ bureau after his 2014 resignation, as other former senior government officials have done. He said Flynn had alerted the DIA about the RT speech before he travelled and had briefed the DIA upon his return. The spokesman said Flynn had “nothing to hide”.

As DIA chief, Flynn visited the GRU in Moscow in 2013. He was the first US officer ever allowed inside its headquarters, where he gave a lecture on leadership. “It was a great trip,” he told the Washington Post, adding that it was fully approved. Flynn was keen to make a second GRU visit but permission was denied, it is understood.

In January, the Obama administration said the GRU was behind the operation to hack the US election. Putin has described claims of Russian interference as “fictional, illusory, provocations and lies”.

Why does Trump keep making promises he can’t keep? The secret lies in his past.

 At a rally in Louisville, March 20, President Trump pledged to deliver on his campaign promises but didn’t address comments by FBI Director James B. Comey that “no information” supports Trump’s claim that former president Barack Obama ordered a wiretap on him in 2016. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

By Paul Waldman March 21

On Monday, while he was suffering an unusually bad news day in Washington, President Trump went to Kentucky to hold a rally with his loyal supporters. As he always does, he spent some time regaling the crowd with how fantastic his election victory was, making one wonder at what point he’ll stop talking about that.

But the location provided a vivid case study in the dangers Trump will face as time goes on. This early in his presidency, he can still talk about the glittering future he’ll deliver. But at some point, he’ll have to reckon with what his policies have actually done and failed to do.

Trump is applying to governing the same theory that worked quite well for him in his business career. But the rules have already changed for him.

Naturally, Trump promised that the Republican health-care bill will save Americans from the catastrophe of the Affordable Care Act. But it’s an odd thing to say in Kentucky, which may have fared better than any other state under the ACA. The state accepted the law’s expansion of Medicaid and saw an additional 443,000 of its citizens — a full 10 percent of the state’s population — get health coverage at no cost. The state also launched its own ACA exchange, Kynect, which was one of the most successful in the country. According to Gallup, the uninsured rate fell from 20.4 percent in 2013 before the law took effect down to 7.8 percent in 2016, a dramatic drop of more than 12 percentage points.

Which means that if the Republicans succeed in repealing the ACA, no state will suffer more than Kentucky. But hey, who needs Medicaid or subsidized health coverage if you’ve got a great job mining coal, where salaries are high and benefits are comprehensive? Trump repeated that promise, too — that once we get rid of some environmental regulations, all those coal jobs will come back:

“We are going to put our coal miners back to work. They have not been treated well, but they’re going to be treated well now. Clean coal, right? Clean coal. I have already eliminated a devastating anti-coal regulation. And that is just the beginning. You saw that, got a lot thank yous from a lot of great people that work very hard and want to keep working. Lot of people are going to be put back to work, lot of coal miners are going back to work. As we speak, we are preparing new executive actions to save our coal industry and to save our wonderful coal miners from continuing to be put out of work. The miners are coming back.”

I can’t say how many people in Kentucky actually believe that, but no one who knows anything about the coal industry does. The fact is that coal jobs have been declining for decades, and while environmental regulations have some effect, the two big drivers of the reduction in mining jobs are automation (which means fewer miners are needed to produce the same amount of coal) and competition from other forms of energy. Coal is being steadily replaced by renewables such as solar and wind, but more immediately by natural gas, which because of the fracking boom has become plentiful and cheap. Trump has also vowed to promote fracking, though he hasn’t explained how that jibes with his pledge to bring back all the coal jobs. There are now only about 50,000 coal-mining jobs left in the country, and no serious person thinks that number is going to go anywhere but down, no matter what policy changes come out of Washington.

The administration hasn’t yet said what executive orders Trump is going to sign, but unless he plans to ban fracking, chances are they’ll have something to do with relaxing environmental regulations, and will do little if anything to restore any coal jobs. So why is it that Trump feels comfortable repeatedly making this promise that no serious person, Republican or Democrat, thinks he’ll be able to keep?

I’d argue that the answer lies in Trump’s unique experience as a businessman. In his particular corner of the business world, you really can create wealth just by managing public perception — or at least he could. This was the theory of his entire career, that by fashioning a public persona that was as much of a caricature of wealth and success as Scrooge McDuck, he could turn himself into the picture he was painting. The more people saw Donald Trump as the embodiment of wealth, the more they would want to invest in his projects and buy his products, which would in turn make him wealthier. Making ridiculous promises and outright lying were all part of creating the image; one of my favorite examples is how Trump Tower is 58 stories high, but he numbered the floors up to 68 so that everyone would think it was taller than it is.

And it worked, even if not to quite the extent he claims. Over time, the Trump Organization became less about actual real estate development and more about brand licensing, where he would give someone rights to use the Trump name and its association with garish conspicuous consumption, take little or no risk and just collect the fees. It’s a good business, but it’s not the same as politics. Brand management is certainly important to political success, but if you’re the president, you have to deliver for people, and deliver on things such as health care, which are complex and require difficult trade-offs.

There’s another key difference between Trump’s business experience and politics. When he conned someone, like the attendees of Trump University, no matter how unhappy they were he could move on to other marks (even if he might have to pay his victims off if the courts caught up with him). It was a big world, and there were always other people who might be taken in by the next scam. But in politics, you have to go back to the people you made promises to the first time around, and ask them to put their faith in you again.

For now, it’s obvious that Trump looks at his first legislative priority much like one of his buildings: 

What matters is that people think it’s the tallest one around, even if it isn’t. He doesn’t seem to know or care much about what’s in the GOP’s bill to repeal the ACA or what the effects would be. It’s just about getting a win one way or the other. Today he met with congressional Republicans not to discuss the content of the bill, but to cajole and threaten them into voting for it. He told Mark Meadows, head of the far-right Freedom Caucus, to stand up while he told him, “I’m gonna come after you, but I know I won’t have to, because I know you’ll vote ‘yes.’ ” (Meadows says he’s still voting no.)

And, in a telling moment, Trump referred to his audience Monday night in Kentucky, and said, “We won’t have these crowds if we don’t get this done.”

So what happens when Trump goes back to Kentucky in three years, and he has taken away voters’ health coverage but didn’t manage to bring back the coal jobs of yesteryear? We’ve seen so many profiles of loyal Trump supporters that it’s easy to believe that everyone who voted for him in 2016 will do so again no matter what he does or fails to do. But that’s not true.

There were a lot of people who voted for Trump even though they knew he was a blowhard and utterly lacking in anything resembling common human decency, but were dissatisfied enough with their personal situation and the state of their communities that they said, “What the hell, let’s give him a shot.” 

Their support is not guaranteed. Trump will have to win it all over again if they’re going to vote for him in 2020, or vote to keep his party in control in Congress. And if he can’t come through for them in real ways, they won’t come through for him at the ballot box.

Your Article 50 questions answered

By PATRICK WORRALL-29 MAR 2017

What’s happening today?

Theresa May is sending a letter to Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council, informing him of Britain’s intention to pull out of the European Union.

Under Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon, this means that the EU treaties and the laws that flow from them will no longer apply to Britain two years from now.

The process can be extended if the 28 member states of the European Council unanimously agree.

If there is no extension, we have two years to negotiate arrangements for Britain’s withdrawal, “taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union”. If no agreement can be reached, 

Britain leaves anyway.

The five brief paragraphs that make up article 50 offer little detailed guidance about what will actually be decided in the talks.

What is up for negotiation?

Theresa May set out an ambitious plan in January that went beyond what many expected the two-year talks to cover.

She said she wanted an agreement allowing for the “freest possible trade in goods and services” between Britain and EU states.

It’s not clear whether the EU is willing or able to negotiate a trade deal that meets Mrs May’s aspirations within two years.

There’s still a lot we don’t know about the talks – but the Prime Minister’s speech did bring some clarity about what Britain will and will not be asking for.

The UK will not seek to stay in the EU’s single market. Laws that were made in Brussels will not be scrapped overnight – they will be converted into British law.

Could another member state veto a deal?

A tricky question.

On the face of it, the Article 50 withdrawal agreement cannot be scuppered by a single country, because it only needs a qualified majority vote in the European Council (20 out of 27 member states, representing at least 65 per cent of the remaining EU population) and a simple majority vote in the European Parliament.

But the more ambitious the deal, the more complicated things get.

If Britain wants a full Free Trade Agreement, recent legal opinionsuggests such a deal would be classed as a “mixed agreement” – something that would need agreement from EU bodies and individual member states, who would then have to ask their parliaments and in some cases regional assemblies to ratify the final deal.

The danger here is a repeat of what happened last year, when the tiny Belgian region of Wallonia threatened to derail a massive EU-Canada trade deal.

The EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier has made it clear that he believes a full UK-EU Free Trade Agreement would “undoubtedly” be classed as a mixed agreement, meaning any member state could effectively veto it.

And if Britain wanted to push for an extension of the two-year negotiating deadline, any member state could veto that too.

What happens if there is no deal?

Britain would still leave the EU, but there would be enormous uncertainty about a huge range of issues.

The legal status of EU citizens who live in the UK, and of Britons who live in Europe, would be left undecided.

In terms of trade, the EU would have to slap tariffs on imports from the UK, and we would have to follow suit. This wouldn’t be out of spite – both sides would have to follow World Trade Organisation rules that specify tariffs.

Will EU citizens be deported?

Before the referendum, Leave campaigners made blanket assurances about EU citizens in Britain automatically retaining their citizenship rights.

Legal experts told us at the time that this was nonsense, and it has indeed proved to be the case that the right to live and work in Britain remains a key negotiating point.

The government voted down a Lords amendment on this, leading to anger from some EU migrants living in Britain, but reporting of the amendment may have been slightly overcooked.

The Lords didn’t actually call for Theresa May to guarantee EU citizens’ rights. The amendment would simply have committed the government to bring forward proposals on the issue within three months of triggering Article 50.

It could be that the citizenship issue is dealt with swiftly anyway, since both Mrs May and Michel Barnier say it will be a top priority in the talks.

Could Britain still change its mind about Brexit?

There’s a spectrum of legal opinion this but no definitive answer, since no one has ever tried to pull out of the EU before, let alone change their mind halfway through the process.

Two eminent lawyers, Sir David Edward and Professor Derrick Wyatt,  told the House of Lords EU Committee that there was nothing in Article 50 that ruled out a country changing its mind, perhaps after a change of government.

Other academics disagree, seeing the Article 50 process as irreversible when triggered.

Apart from the law, there is politics to consider: MPs from all sides have said it is unthinkable that a UK government would try to ignore the result of the EU referendum.

Does Britain really owe the EU £50bn?

Experts have told us how they think EU negotiators have apparently arrived at a figure of tens of billions.

They are counting the money Britain previously promised to spend on EU budgets until 2020, as well as commitments to fund projects that might happen years in the future, pension commitments and more.

Both the principles and the numbers used to calculate the “exit bill” are open to argument, but Monsieur Barnier has indicated that he sees a settlement of outstanding financial commitments as central to the withdrawal agreement.

Theresa May has said: “The days of Britain making vast contributions to the European Union every year will end”.

As with so much else in these negotiations, we will simply have to wait to see what kind of deal is thrashed out.

Afghans deported from Europe arrive home, to war and unemployment

Afghans, whose asylum applications have been rejected, arrive from Germany in Kabul airport, Afghanistan March 28, 2017.REUTERS/Omar Sobhani--Afghans, whose asylum applications have been rejected, arrive from Germany in Kabul airport, Afghanistan March 28, 2017.REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

Afghans, whose asylum applications have been rejected, arrive from Germany in Kabul airport, Afghanistan March 28, 2017.REUTERS/Omar Sobhani--The Friday Mosque of Herat is one of the oldest mosques in Afghanistan. (March 1962 photo)

By Tommy Wilkes | KABUL- Fri Mar 31, 2017

Two more planes carrying Afghans deported from Europe landed in Kabul this week, failed asylum seekers sent back under an agreement between the European Union and Afghan government.

    The arrivals mean 248 people have been deported from Europe to Afghanistan this year, compared with 580 throughout 2016, said Hafiz Ahmad Miakhel, spokesman for the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriations.

The number of Afghans deported from Europe is small compared to the thousands returning voluntarily, but deportations are rising and some migration experts say expelling people to a country where the government controls less than two thirds of territory amid a Taliban insurgency is wrong.

Fifteen deportees arrived by chartered flight from Germany on Tuesday, while 19 landed on Wednesday from Austria and 10 from Sweden. Another flight, from Finland, is scheduled to arrive on Tuesday.

European governments say those deported back have failed rigorous asylum tests, and that major cities like Kabul are sufficiently safe.

Afghans were the second largest group of asylum seekers in Europe in 2015, and concerns about security and their integration have encouraged politicians to take a tougher line.

"We are committed to the agreements but we need more assistance from the international community to help these people," Miakhel told Reuters, referring to an October agreement between the EU and the Afghan government.

"There is a war against the Taliban, against Daesh (Islamic State), against Al Qaeda and this year we will have more forced deportees than last year," he said.

FAILED APPLICATIONS

    Shams Ahmadi, a 24-year old ex-policeman, said he landed in Kabul on Jan. 24 after his asylum application, pending in Germany since 2011, failed a second time and police arrested him.

He said he had left Afghanistan after the Taliban blew up his house in the province of Ghazni, killing his father, and that his family had fled to Iran.

He plans to go to Europe again.

"I cannot live in Afghanistan. If I leave Kabul I will be shot by the Taliban," he told Reuters at a non-governmental organisation office in western Kabul helping him with cash for lodgings and medicine to deal with mental health problems.

Another recent returnee, Reza Alizada, said he had lived in Norway for about 18 months before police raided his hostel and detained him. He said he was 17 years old but Norwegian authorities had found him to be in his early twenties.

"I have nobody here to help me, and I have no networks to help me find a job," he said, reflecting broader worries among returnees in a country with an unemployment rate of 40 percent.

Reuters could not verify their stories. The German and Norwegian embassies in Kabul did not respond to requests for comment.

Afghanistan will welcome more returning migrants than any other country in 2017, including up to one million from neighbouring Pakistan, said Masood Ahmadi at the International Organization for Migration in Afghanistan.

"If you are coming to Afghanistan against your will, you are not ready to return. Re-integration back into society will be very difficult and forced deportations have the stigma of failure," he said. "It will encourage re-migration."

(Writing by Tommy Wilkes; editing by Ralph Boulton)

The Dalai Lama is Darling of India – Let It Be Told to China

China is already guilty of blocking the flow of Brahmaputra river to India and Bangladesh by constructing dams across Brahmaputra river in Tibet.

by N.S.Venkataraman-Mar 31, 2017

(March 31, 2017, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) With characteristic arrogance, China has warned India that it should not permit the Dalai Lama to undertake an eight day teaching trip to Arunachal Pradesh , beginning 4th April, 2017.

A five day festival is being organized by India in Arunachal Pradesh on 31st March, which will be inaugurated by President of India. The festival would take place on the banks of river Brahmaputra. The Dalai Lama would participate in the festival during his visit to Arunachal Pradesh.

When the news was flashed that China objected to the visit of the Dalai Lama to Arunachal Pradesh , the cross section of Indians immediately asked as to what right China has to make this unjustified demand .

China, which already occupies large area of Indian territory which was forcefully annexed after the India Pakistan war in 1962, claims that Arunachal Pradesh belong to it. This stand of China has already been rejected by India in outright manner . Such claim on Arunachal Pradesh only clearly shows the expansionist policy of China. It is in the same pattern of it’s behavior towards other nearby countries such as Japan, Philippines and others , creating conflicts and turbulence in relationships.

China is already guilty of blocking the flow of Brahmaputra river to India and Bangladesh by constructing dams across Brahmaputra river in Tibet.

China had built the Zangmu dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra) south of Lhasa in Tibet in 2014. Four more dams are being built on the river. However, China has told India and Bangladesh , who are the two other users of Brahmaputra river , that the dams will have no downstream impact . This means that India and Bangladesh will not receive water from Brahmaputra river, which they have been getting all along. The Tsangpo river , which runs through the Tibetan heart land from west to east becomes the Brahmaputra river within India and Jamuna river in Bangladesh before draining into Bay of Bengal.

Obviously, China is objecting to the visit of the Dalai Lama to Arunachal Pradesh, since China is concerned that the very presence of the Dalai Lama will expose the bluff of China about it’s claim on Tibet which it has already occupied and now unjustifiable claim on Arunachal Pradesh ,which is a province of India.

China protesting against the presence of the Dalai Lama in India and the Dalai Lama being invited to various conferences and meetings in India, some of which are with the participation of Government of India, is not anything new. China has been making such atrocious protests against the presence of the Dalai Lama in India at regular intervals and India has ignored such protests. On many occasions , India has not even cared to respond to China’s protests, which obviously indicate that India is treating the protests from China with the contempt that it deserves.

The Dalai Lama is widely respected in India and is recognized as a spiritual leader with great quality of mind and vision. Wherever he goes in India, he is received with warmth and respect. Many Indians think that the Dalai Lama is one of them even though he is a Tibetan by birth.
Indians will never deny the rights and privileges to the Dalai Lama and any attempt by China with it’s dubious tactics to make India disown the Dalai Lama will not only be a wasteful exercise but also would become counter productive.

The world has not reconciled to the China’s occupation of Tibet even after several decades. The wrong that China has done to Tibet will haunt China for all time to come.

The Dalai Lama represents peace and harmony and the present Chinese government represents violence and greed.
The difference are clearly obvious and China will be the loser by continuing it’s efforts to make India and the world forget the Dalai Lama.

This will never happen.

New Research Delivers Hope For More Accurate PTSD Diagnosis And Treatment

Researchers are working at brain banks around the country to see what is going on inside the heads of veterans.

Jacob Fadley, a U.S. veteran featured in “War on the Brain” on PBS News Hour


Soledad O’Brien, Contributor-03/29/2017 03

Jacob Fadley served four years and 12 tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, repeatedly exposed to heart-thumping blasts. “It’s just like an entire force is being pushed through you, something powerful too,” he described. “Your body just kind of stops and goes, ‘What, what is going on?’ And kind of, for me, it felt like it was rebooting itself.”

At the end of it, he was left with no apparent physical injuries. But something was very wrong inside his head. “I came back home from my third deployment. I cried, like, all the time,” he recalls. “I would get drunk, and the night would end with me yelling at somebody … I think, no I knew, I had PTSD, but I never wanted to say that. Because when you say it, then you have to deal with it.”

That was the last thing he wanted to do. So he evaded a diagnosis. It wasn’t hard. Right now there is no objective, concrete test – no X-ray or blood test – to diagnose PTSD. Instead, U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs psychologists do a subjective evaluation of patients based on criteria set by the American Psychiatric Association. With that type of an evaluation, it is difficult to account for veterans like Fadley who are in denial or worried that a diagnosis might stigmatize them or cause them to be reassigned.

To some vets, the current method for diagnosing PTSD feels like a game of 20 questions, which is literally the number asked on the VA’s questionnaire. The exam includes questions like, “In the past month, how much were you bothered by repeated, disturbing, and unwanted memories of the stressful experience?”

The answers can be “not at all,” “a little bit,” “moderately,” “quite a bit” or “extremely.” Doctors rely on their experience and the honesty of the subjects to make their diagnosis. They have no way of telling if they’re getting at the truth.

To some vets, the current method for diagnosing PTSD feels like a game of 20 questions, which is literally the number asked on the VA’s questionnaire.

Fadley is not the only veteran hoping medicine will find more concrete ways of diagnosing PTSD. On March 29, 30, and 31 on on the PBS NewsHour, I profile several veterans, including Fadley, as part of a series on veterans, PTSD and the brain entitled “War on the Brain.” All of them have struggled with getting a PTSD diagnosis and are looking to medicine for answers. We also look at researchers exploring new ways to potentially diagnose PTSD like blood tests, MRIs, and other tools that might bring quick, inexpensive results. One brain researcher shows us a breakthrough discovery: indications that PTSD might be partly caused by the physical trauma of blasts. We also look at the limits of the current way of diagnosing the disorder.

“PTSD has biological markers, heart rate, certain levels of hormones, certain kinds of brain activity that we’re learning about. But none of those are strong enough to act as a diagnostic test,” said Dr. Harold Kudler, a psychiatrist who is the chief consultant for mental health for the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. “So to diagnose PTSD, we talk to people, we listen to people, and we see if in fact they’ve had those kind of events and have those kinds of symptoms, enough of them severe enough to make the full diagnosis. It is ultimately something you do with a clinician, sitting down with someone to talk about these things.”


That could change. Researchers are working at brain banks around the country to see what is going on inside the heads of veterans like Fadley. They are examining the brains of deceased veterans in hopes of knowing more accurately what effects trauma ― psychological or physical ― has had on the brain. That could someday lead to better diagnostic tests, treatments, clues into where PTSD originates and evolves.

But for the science around PTSD to progress, banks will need many more veterans like Fadley to pledge to give these vital organs to science. Right now brains of veterans for studies are so scarce that the largest brain bank in the U.S., the Harvard Brain Resource Center which houses 3,000 brains, has taken to making public appeals for donations. Most of their existing brains were donated by people with mental health issues, not vets who suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

“There are almost no brains of patients with PTSD and TBI (traumatic brain injuries) available for study in the U.S. ― or world for that matter,” said Dr. Kerry Ressler, McLean Hospital’s chief scientific officer. Dr. Ressler believes advancing brain research could lead to “better treatments, interventions, and maybe one day cures.”

Donating a brain is easy. Anyone over the age of 18 can register to give their brain. Brain banks suggest potential donors consult with family members because whoever is closest to the donor will be asked to sign a consent form after the donor’s death. People who are not veterans with PTSD can also help the cause by donating their brains. That gives researchers a baseline from which to compare.

Michael Rodriguez, a former special forces Green Beret, has decided to donate his brain to the Boston University Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center. He is also hoping research will someday lead to a test for PTSD.

“If there was a tangible test, I think it would make is easier on the patient, because it will validate it. And I think it will go more toward decreasing the stigma. You know, like if someone has leukemia, no one ever says, ‘You don’t have leukemia,’” Rodriguez said.

For the science around PTSD to progress, banks will need many more veterans like Fadley to pledge to give these vital organs to science.

One of the beneficiaries of donations like those is Dr. Daniel Perl, a neuropathologist at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. He is comparing the brains of people who have suffered concussions or traumatic brain injuries with those of veterans who were exposed to severe blasts and later developed PTSD. He has discovered that the PTSD brains have a distinct scarring that could be a sign that PTSD is caused, at least in part, by physical damage to the brain.

“I’ve been looking at brain slides for over 40 years, and I had never seen this pattern before,” said Perl, whose research is in its infancy. “We thought this must be something very unique and special to blast exposure.”

Kudler says Perl’s research is promising, but doesn’t yet change things for veterans and active duty military hoping medicine will provide more insights into the brain and PTSD. “There’s nothing written that gets in the way of Dr. Perl making an important and valuable discovery and I hope that he does,” he said. “At this point, the jury’s still out. But that’s science also.”

Rodriquez’s wife, Kelly, a platoon sergeant with the 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, is counting that science will someday provide more insights on her PTSD, which took years to diagnose.

STARFISH MEDIA GROUP

Greg Gadson, a U.S. veteran featured in “War on the Brain” on PBS News Hour

She had been deployed five times, bombarded with terrible images. One particular incident would haunt her. A female soldier had a husband who was also serving, just like Kelly. She volunteered for a convoy so she could see him before he shipped out. “The convoy was hit by an IED. She was alive when she got to us, and she died,” she remembered. “And her husband was there. I think the reason it was really hard is because if Michael was down range, I would have done the same thing. That could’ve been me.”

The feelings that enveloped her after she got home were painful, but doctors told her she would be fine. “It came down to (me) screaming, ‘Find out if it is PTSD, great. If it’s not, great. Don’t care. I don’t (care) one way or the other, I need something besides you have anxiety and you’re depressed.’ Well, you know, so is half of America,” she said. “I always felt like at the end of the day I didn’t want to hurt myself, I didn’t want to hurt anybody else, so that meant that I was okay.”

Because of that, Kelly Rodriguez is also considering donating her brain in light of the scientific research. It’s a donation that could advance research to the point where one day, there is a way to identify, better treat, and maybe, maybe even cure PTSD.