Amid the hail of accusations that the EU wanted to put a hard border on the island of Ireland last Friday, it's worth pointing out what the ill-fated resort to Article 16 was about:

Here are some observations from the EU side on the touring issue facing musicians

2/ The European Commission offered the UK a standard mobility clause in its draft legal text back in March last year that would cover musicians, sportspersons etc... It's on page 354 of the EU's opening text ahead of the negotiations

3/ Under a standard mobility clause, acc to one official, EU member states can ask for visas for certain people coming to carry out paid activity. However, there's a list of exemptions for people who don't need visas:

4/ This list includes those "travelling for the purpose of business deliberations..., sportspersons or artists [including musicians] performing an activity on an ad-hoc basis, journalists sent by the media of their country of residence, and intra-corporate trainees."

5/ In other words, under a standard mobility provision, musicians, journalists, sports people and business people who travel to discuss contracts etc do not need visas. Officials say this is the standard EU arrangement for third countries, eg the US.

BREAKING: The EU’s chief negotiator has told MEPs that negotiations on a post-Brexit deal could continue until Wednesday but no further.

2/ According to sources present, Michel Barnier also warned the UK that a deal would not be approved by member states if it pressed ahead with passing the Internal Market and the Finance Bills into law.

3/ He told the European Parliament’s Brexit coordination committee this morning that US President Elect Joe Biden was also “sensitive” to any impact of UK law on the Good Friday Agreement.

4/ Mr Barnier told MEPs the talks were in the “endgame” and that there would have to be a decision on whether or not there was to be an agreement by Thursday.

5/ He said if there was no deal then the European Commission would be ready “to react immediately” with contingency plans, according to sources present.

The DUP's Ian Paisley MP tells the NI Affaris Committee that the NI Protocol shd be "removed" and that Article 16 of the Protocol should be invoked. Describes it as an "unmitigated disaster... Those who advocated for the Protocol have some responsibility for that.

"The protocol is now an impediment to trade. We told you so."

Article 16 of the NI Protocol: "If the application of this Protocol leads to serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist, or to diversion of trade, the EU or the UK may unilaterally take appropriate safeguard measures.

"Such safeguard measures shall be restricted with regard to their scope and duration to what is strictly necessary in order to remedy the situation. Priority shall be given to such measures as will least disturb the
functioning of this Protocol."

Mr Paisley then berates @Freight_NI for not demanding that Article 16 be invoked. Mr Leheny asks him what the alternative is. Mr Paisley says removing the Protocol is the alternative.

Where are we at as of 1450 CET?

Talks continuing, could go on for a while longer. One informed source is suggesting that because the fish deal was agreed at the high political level (btn @vonderleyen and @BorisJohnson) it was left to officials to translate it into real numbers

2/ Some reflections from an EU diplomat briefed on the rest of the deal, which appears to be in place:

3/ "There is nothing particularly surprising. It is consistent with what we've been hearing all along. The UK red lines are respected. Our concerns are also respected. Of course we have to see the fine print, but in general there is a robust level playing field."

4/ The LPF mechanism is said to be a "complicated structure" which works both ways.

5/ "It doesn't mean that because you have these structures you necessarily have to use them. The mood at the moment is, do you want to diverge [from EU standards] for the sake of diverging? In reality, most likely, pragmatism will prevail."

New: the European Parliament's announcement that it will not ratify any treaty before the end of December unless the deal is concluded by midnight on Sunday comes amid signals that, despite progress, a deal won't be concluded until early next week.

2/ This is because there are still some formidable hurdles in the way of closure on the level playing field issue, and they haven't even got into fisheries in a big way yet. And both sides say things there are "extremely difficult".

3/ Yesterday there were some signals that a deal could be done by the weekend, but the mood seems to have dipped somewhat.

4/ The EP is saying it wants a "provisional" text from the European Commission "as soon as possible" - not clear if that means even before the midnight deadline

5/ If a deal is not concluded by Sunday night then we are in uncharted waters

Can anyone fathom out how weapons like this make their way into the hands of terrorists in Nigeria?

These weapons are in boxes marked with serial numbers. Where there are serial numbers there are invoices or receipts. Which means it was imported. This is worrisome and raise questions about where the terror groups are sourcing their heavy weapons.

Weapons proliferation was once linked to the fall of Gadaffi. Libya was at one point the main source of arms to terror groups on the continent. For those unaware of the dynamics ill give a brief explanation:

When NATO bombed the crap out of the Gadaffi regime in 2011, Libya lost control of a large part of the stockpile it had amassed in over 40 years. The CIA made several calls for ground troops to be deployed to secure Gadaffi's amoury from falling into the hand of rebel groups.

The French kicked against sending ground troops, saying it will give the impression Libya was under a NATO occupation, Its just not worth the political capital to do so. The CIA made this call TWICE and TWICE it was shut down. The logic was securing those sites

How PM Imran Khan was humiliated during OIC conference.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has condemned the construction of the Ayodhya Ram Temple in India at the Conference of Islamic Countries (OIC).

UAE,which chaired the confernce asked Imran,What is the problem for the Islamic world with India building a temple in their country?
What is the problem for the Muslims of the world with the AyodhyaRama Temple? We hv no interest in interfering in the intrnal affairs of India.

In addition, we have provided 13 acres of land in our country for temple construction and 13.5 acres of land for parking and other facilities for Hindus.

Nowhere in the world have Hindus, who live and study attempt or incite riots or carry out suicide attacks in the name of

religion. They are peaceful and live according to the laws of the land.

Temple construction in India is an internal matter of India.  That is not the issue to be discussed here now.  India will look after India.

When will Pakistan repay the money it

borrowed from OlC? All Islamic countries except Pakistan contributed to this fund. Pakistan only borrows but failed to pay up.

Then the President of the Maldives stood up and began to say "The separatist and coup attempts instigated by Pakistan have created many internal

BJP is planning to undertake 'Rath Yatra' in Delhi's riot-affected areas to seek donations for Ram Temple on Feb 1. In 1990, L.K. Advani had launched Rath Yatra from Somnath to Ayodhya.

This thread covers the large scale killing which took place during the Yatra and it's impact.

Between April 1989 and April 1990, 262 people died in Gujarat, mostly were Muslims. In October 1990, days after Advani’s yatra began, 41 were killed in Ahmedabad. The same month, 52 were killed in Jaipur, 20 in Jodhpur, 33 in Lucknow, over 100 in Delhi, 37 in Assam,

[1]

18 in Patna and 165 in Hyderabad. Also in October, a pogrom against Muslims in Bhagalpur, Bihar, saw 960 killed in which 900 were Muslims. In November, 31 were killed in Agra, again mostly Muslim and 13 in Indore. In Dec, 60 were killed in Karnataka and 134 in Hyderabad.

[2]

Many parts of India remained tense for long periods of time. Between April and May 1990, three riots in Kanpur killed 30; between May and November 1991 more than 50 were killed in Varanasi. In May 1991, 26 including 24 Muslims were killed in Vadodara.

[3]

In October 1992, 44 were killed in Sitamarhi. On 6 December 1992, immediately after the Babri Masjid was destroyed, pogroms against Muslims broke out in Surat where 200 died, of whom some 95 per cent were Muslims. In Bhopal in December, 143 were killed.

[4]

TEXT OF THE PRESS CONFERENCE ADDRESSED BY THE HON. MINISTER OF INFORMATION AND CULTURE, ALHAJI LAI MOHAMMED,ON THE ONGOING APC MEMBERSHIP REGISTRATION EXERCISE ...IN ORO, KWARA STATE, ON MONDAY, FEB. 15TH 2021

#Thread 👇

Good morning gentlemen of the press.

2. As you are aware, the All Progressives Congress (@OfficialAPCNg ) membership registration started in Kwara State on Feb. 9th 2021.

Ahead of my registration this morning at my polling unit, PU 006, Oro Ward 2, we had sent out our people to monitor the process to ensure compliance with the guidelines stipulated by the party.

The reports from our monitoring teams are out, and I wish to inform you, gentlemen, that sadly, the whole exercise did not comply with the stipulated guidelines.

3. The guidelines stipulate consultation with all stakeholders by the Registration Officials from Abuja. After the botched attempt to have a meeting of stakeholders, due to orchestrated violence...

NS2 a response to Mr Wolfgang Munchau. Although I agree on a number of points with WM in his recent @spectator piece-I disagree with his central contention that NS2 is about more gas for Germany. There is no more gas & what gas there is not for Germany. Lengthy thread to follow.

1.WMs @EuroBriefing article has swallowed a huge dose of Russian (and indeed German) propaganda. Throughout the article WM refers to Nord Stream 2 as being vital to Germany because of the need for more Russian gas. This is

2.The key point about NS2 is that it is a diversionary pipeline. There is no new gas. This huge political effort by Russia and Germany to deliver NS2 will not bring a single extra molecule of gas to Germany.

3.What is more the gas destined to land on the German Baltic coast at Greifswald (in AM's constituency) will substantially go not to Germany. The connecting pipeline for NS2, called EUGAL has the same capacity as NS2 (55bcm) and heads eastward to the Czech Republic.

4.Our friendly gas propagandists may well say that in December 2019 Gazprom signed a gas transit contract with the Ukrainian state owned energy company Naftogaz for 40bcm a year from 2021-2024. So with NS2 there will be more gas. NS2 plus the gas transited via Ukraine.