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It has been 60 days since @AbiyAhmedAli declared #WarOnTigray. 60 days on, the war still rages across Tigray & the region is still under almost full communication, banking and transport block out. From the limited info that comes out, millions of people are starving 1

 due to lack of access to power, cash to buy supplies as banks are still closed and bank accounts every Tigrayan suspended, & absence of trade activities. UNICEF reports that more than 2m children in Tigray are completely cut off from humanitarian assist https://t.co/ylWJQ0u0NF 2
Civilians killed and displaced: According to UN-OCHA, there are reportedly over a million internally displaced people with no humanitarian assistance. Families in their hundreds of 1000s are separated. We also hear that supplies of humanitarian assistance are deliberately
curtailed by the regime. Despite Eth-UN agreements to allow unfettered humanitarian access, areas outside Mekelle are inaccessible for humanitarian actors.

Ethnic profiling: travel restrictions have been placed on #Tigrayans across #Ethiopia.
Tigrayans across Ethiopia face #ethnicprofiling in their workplaces (many have been laid off or told to stay at home, mostly without pay), their homes are arbitrarily searched, are constantly harassed & arrested by security forces.

Impoverishing Tigray:
Factories and other vital civilian infrastructures have either been looted or destroyed by the Ethiopian army, #Amhara ethnic militia & the Eritrean army who've been invited by the Ethiopian regime to fight along. #Almeda Textile in Adwa (the biggest textile industry in Eth), 5
Almeda Factory in Adwa
https://t.co/tXioNiQ10u
Zenith Oil factory in Shire:
https://t.co/NQLIXQIJFm
Addis Pharmaceutical Factory in Adigrat (reportedly completely looted and destroyed) https://t.co/BsV3Vuq533
Addis Pharmactual factory in Adigrat, Adigrat & Axum Universities (lab and office equipment looted), Wolqait Sugar factory, Zenith oil factory in #Shire, #Saba Stones in Adwa, Semayata Stones in Wukro, Goda bottle factory in EdagaHamus, & many others are among the most notable 6
of the civilian properties looted and destroyed. Harvests in farms & homes of farmers across villages have been torched by soldiers & ethnic militias loyal to Abiy Ahmed. Homes across towns particularly in areas bordering Eritrea & #Amhara region are also emptied or destroyed. 7
Extrajudicial killings: Civilians and army personnel are executed without due process for allegedly supporting the Tigray regional government in its fight against @AbiyAhmedAli's regime and #Eritrea's invading army. https://t.co/itPs7mRP6n
Every day, we hear of the killings of children, women & people with disabilities who could not flee their villages which are now occupied by the invading forces.
Historical heritages targeted and looted: The #WarOnTigray also targets #Tigray’s historical heritage sites such as the Negash Mesjid near Wukro, which is believed to have been built on the 7th C AD. https://t.co/ngwL2rXzL6 9
Mr. Faki of the @_AfricanUnion in particularly believes the bombing, looting, & starving millions of Tigrayans is worth doing in order to maintain the "territorial integrity" of the country, a typical tyrant's mindset.
Mr. @AUC_MoussaFaki told us that wiping out the approx 10mln #Tigrayans is a commendable act by the Ethiopian government. https://t.co/aFXa1i9fCi 12

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1)
Newsweek — #Iran has sent deadly "Shahed-136 suicide/kamikaze drones" to the Houthis in #Yemen. These advanced UAVs are deployed to the Houthi-controlled northern Yemeni province of Al-Jawf.

More reason why the West should not appease Tehran.
https://t.co/gtNDCGbtQs


2)
#Iran has long provided drones to the Houthis

March 22, 2017
“… seven Houthi Qasef-1 drones and one drone engine recovered by forces from the UAE. Six of the drones were captured in October on a known Iranian smuggling route that runs through

3)
US to designate #Iran-backed Houthis in #Yemen as a foreign terrorist org (FTO)
https://t.co/ILBCg3Pfvs

Iran’s IRGC long funded/armed/trained/provided for the Houthis.

Dec 30—Missile attack on Aden airport. Yemen gov holds Houthis


4)
#Iran provides at least $360 million, ballistic missiles, other ordnance, technology and training to the Houthis in

5)
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Xi Jinping's speech at Davos boiled down to: The world has no choice but to do business with China, and if you want to do business with China, you need to stop criticizing our tyranny and questioning our lies about the

Xi's address to the World Economic Forum will serve as well as any other moment for historians to mark the beginning of the Authoritarian Era. He said nothing new, but he restated the narratives and demands of Chinese fascism from a post-pandemic position of aggressive strength.

For the first time, Xi spoke to a world that is beginning to accept the tenets of authoritarianism, thanks to the incredible political and economic damage from China's coronavirus. China's ideals have become as viral as Covid-19.

Thanks to the pandemic, the political elites of the world now universally see their citizens as dangerous mobs that must be tightly controlled for their own good. Most of them always thought that way, but now they can say it openly and act aggressively on their prejudices.

Xi clearly stated that China will not be contained, censured, or judged for its actions. He denounced Western ideals of human rights as "arrogance" and imperialism. After Covid and Biden's inauguration, he sees no nation with the strength or will to thwart China's ambitions.
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Elijah J. Magnier
Elijah J. Magnier
@ejmalrai
13 years ago, Imad Mughnieh was unlawfully assassinated in #Damascus. Both the CIA and the Mossad claimed credit. Haj Imad managed to survive for 25 years away from his killers (incl some Arab States) and transformed #Hezbollah to another level of deterrence against #Israel.+


He introduced changes within #Hezbollah structure and was known to be fair with all militants. He has created an innovation sector within Hezbollah and handsomely paid for any qualified person to materialise new ideas related to science, health and military fields.+

During the last year, around 2006-2007, Haj Imad became more visible domestically and regionally. He was the one meeting political and military leaders, including allies and his name became more known as the "assistant of the Jihadi council Leader (Sayyed Nasrallah) +

#Hezbollah has lost an important leader and a very close friend and companion to Sayyed Nasrallah. However, Hezbollah moved from domestic to regional power, operating in #Lebanon to defend the country from #Israel's intentions and imposed deterrence that Israel has lost. +

#Hezbollah moved to #Syria to the request of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad & to #Iraq when Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki asked the help of Hezbollah against #ISIS and to #Yemen to the request of Sanaa' government to stand against a very large coalition led by US and Saudi.
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Zarina Zabrisky
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@ZarinaZabrisky
🧵 ⚡️ #Navalny, in handcuffs, expects his second verdict in one day NOW, about to be ready any minute now. He’s joking about cucumbers he pickles in his cell. I will translate his SECOND last address in one day but here is the previous trial coverage


Extracts from #Navalny last address #2 today: “Putin’s party is akin a swine devouring oil and gas dollars from a trough, & when poked & reminded that $ are for everyone, growls, “What about the WWII? What about veterans?!” The verdict is due any minute now. #FreeNavalny 👇🏼☝🏼

The judge is back and reads the verdict now.

“The politician criticized the participants in the [RT] video in support of the amendments to the Constitution, calling the presenters "corrupt lackeys", "traitors" and "people without conscience."

The judge says Navalny pleaded not guilty and called the persecution politicized.
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This is a pretty valiant attempt to defend the "Feminist Glaciology" article, which says conventional wisdom is wrong, and this is a solid piece of scholarship. I'll beg to differ, because I think Jeffery, here, is confusing scholarship with "saying things that seem right".


The article is, at heart, deeply weird, even essentialist. Here, for example, is the claim that proposing climate engineering is a "man" thing. Also a "man" thing: attempting to get distance from a topic, approaching it in a disinterested fashion.


Also a "man" thing—physical courage. (I guess, not quite: physical courage "co-constitutes" masculinist glaciology along with nationalism and colonialism.)


There's criticism of a New York Times article that talks about glaciology adventures, which makes a similar point.


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Important paper from Google on large batch optimization. They do impressively careful experiments measuring # iterations needed to achieve target validation error at various batch sizes. The main "surprise" is the lack of surprises. [thread]

https://t.co/7QIx5CFdfJ


The paper is a good example of lots of elements of good experimental design. They validate their metric by showing lots of variants give consistent results. They tune hyperparamters separately for each condition, check that optimum isn't at the endpoints, and measure sensitivity.

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My new theory: A lot of it is guilt.

2/It's true that in some circles - the media, universities, many big corporations - liberal norms *are* enforced to some degree, and the enforcement has probably gotten stronger in recent years.

But I don't think this explains all of the Right's obsession.

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But I don't think that's all of it either.

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DEVI KARUMARIAMMAN, THIRUVERKADU (TN)

Devi is worshipped here as both Swayambhu (self-manifested) and as Parashakti (with 4 arms holding skull,sword,trishul,udukkai/damru).

Here, Muruga got Vel from Devi to fight Suran. So the place was called Vel kadu which became Verkadu.


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