I am glad that PM Muhyiddin Yassin explained himself promptly on the viral letter of a RM35 million allocation in his constituency yesterday. However, I would like to advise the PM to spend the amount, which is at his disposal, wisely to portray a better image of himself. 1/10

More importantly, the amount should be spent to create a larger impact on our economy or public health institution. 2/10

It was reported that China government finished building a 1,500-room hospital in 5 days for COVID-19 patients to fight a surge in of infections in that country. At the same time, we in M’sia were told that 3 community halls will be built in the PM’s constituency asap. 3/10

In Johor, the Hospital Enche’ Besar Hajjah Khalsom (HEBHK) in Kluang has serve as a COVID-19 hospital since last year. The hospital is new compared to many other hospitals in the country. However, the 10th floor of the block is vacant and is not equipped with hospital beds. 4/10

I was informed by the hospital previously that it is possible to install 38 beds with full equipment at the cost of RM 38 million. 5/10

@ChefGov_ma @morocco_usa Maati Monjib, is a human rights defender who was arrested December 29, 2020. Security agents in civilian clothes took him by force—and without prior notification— from a restaurant in the capital Rabat to the court of First Instance,

THREAD 1/

where he was brought before the prosecutor. The latter referred him to the investigating judge, who, after interrogating him without a lawyer, ordered his pretrial detention.

On October 7, 2020, the prosecutor’s office at the Rabat Court of First Instance, opened an investigation against Maati Monjib for alleged embezzlement & money laundering apparently stemming from the receipt of foreign funds to conduct training workshops for citizen journalists.

Maati Monjib told Amnesty International that this harassment and intimidation are due to a recent radio interview where he criticized the General Directorate of Territorial Surveillance for their repression of political opponents as well as his open support of detained

journalists Omar Radi and Suleiman Raissouni. The Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation has summoned Maati Monjib more than seven times for interrogation in Casablanca and in Rabat. Four members of his family, with no relation to political activism, were also summoned,

Last October, Israelis were rightly horrified to hear that ~400 acres of forest burned down as a direct result of an IDF training exercise carried out in a nature reserve,despite warnings.
Now look at what happened when the IDF insisted on training in a Palestinian village today:

This is Jinba, a village in Firing Zone 918. Large-scale artillery forces arrived there this AM w/ armored vehicles. In response to @acri_online who reminded them of the damage caused last time, the IDF promised to avoid damaging residents' property. But somehow, this happened:

And this is what some of the agricultural lands looked like this morning, after the heavy armored vehicles flattened them. The residents depend on this land for their livelihood. Several months of hard work can be destroyed in a matter of minutes. (Video: Guy Botavia)

Destroying agricultural fields isn't new. Here's what a Nahal Brig soldier saw in 2004-05: "There was wheat that overflowed beyond the fields, so the instruction [...] that the platoon commander got, or at least what he said to us, [was] to trample."

Here's another picture from this morning, this time from fields belonging to residents of the neighboring Bir al-Eid:

Syria:

Just how unusual is last night's Israeli attack in the Al Zabadani area, close to the Syrian-Lebanese border?

The rural town of Al Zabadani is located close by to the Syrian-Lebanese border (approximately 8km from the border) (1/10)

is in the center of green valley surrounded by relatively tall mountains. Authorities did not bother updated the population number, as of 2004 the town had a population of some 26k residents, most are Sunni Muslims and the rest are Christian. (2/10)

Ever since the very beginning of the last decade the town (which is roughly 70km from the Israeli border) is used as a very important and comfortable weapons and munitions smuggling point. (3/10)

Those weapons and munitions are transfered from Iran to Syria which is used as the entry point to Lebanon. When the Syrian civil war broke in 2011 Hezbollah stood by Assad and fought alongside the Syrian army against the rebels. (4/10)

In 2015 Hezbollah successful took over Al Zabadani Hezbollah is still very active and present in the area to this day (5/10)

I look at young Nigerians from not-so-privileged homes despising those with privilege. You’re short changing & limiting yourself. In life, there will always be those born with privilege, those who grow into it, and those who get it from relationships. Let me explain. Thread

Those born with privilege don’t start from ground zero-they attend good schools(quality education), they don’t struggle with physiological needs for their family, they have resources to fund their passion w/o having to labor or save, & ultimately they have strong social currency.

Those without privilege have little - no legacy funds or elite education, at times even no decent shelter & living conditions for their families. So your journey is longer, laced with struggle to improve the lives of your parents & yourself. You have to first work to survive.

So as someone without privilege, your fastest way to privilege is competence/value/talent and a painstaking attempt at building your social currency by yourself. Top on the list of those you need to build networks with are the privileged. They already have larger networks.

So as you’re growing in your capabilities, you focus on creating value - value you can offer to those with privilege- you build sufficient wealth from that value. You can’t afford to stay hating those with privilege, when you should be sweating to build privilege for your kids.

Last month marked 4 years since the Battle of Aleppo was concluded.

Since then, over 500 projects have been implemented in the city, and 2500 projects in the governorate.

An extensive thread of the progress that has been made over the past four years:

4.2 million m2 of rubble and debris has been removed, and the removal of circa 6070 destroyed or burnt vehicles.

117 water sanitation projects have been implemented, in addition to the implementation of asphaltation projects amounting to 1.2 million m2 of asphalt.

Circa 4650 lamp-posts have been rehabilitated or installed to relight the city. Many of these run on solar lightning.

47 green spaces and parks have been rehabilitated, including the Central Park of Aleppo. This year (January 2021), Aleppo City Council has already begun rehabilitating three more parks - Seif Al Dawla Park, Al-Ansari Park, and Al-Sukari Park.

POLICE ARREST ABDUCTOR/KILLER OF A SIX-YEAR OLD IN KOGI
•       AS 25 CRIMINAL SUSPECTS MEET THEIR WATERLOO, 5 AK47 RIFLES RECOVERED

Operatives of the Nigeria Police Force have arrested one Friday Domozu, 23years native of Jarkama Village, Bassa LGA of Kogi State, the leader of the kidnap gang responsible for the abduction and killing of a six year old, ...

Farida Yahaya ‘m’ at the Gabije Area of Kogi State on 2nd November, 2020. The victim was abducted alongside one Abdulraheem, ‘m’ 14years old who narrowly escaped from the kidnappers den.

Investigations by the Police team revealed that the kidnappers demanded a huge sum as ransom from the family of the little girl before she could be released, but eventually killed her owing to the inability of the family to meet up with their demands.

Efforts by the Police team to rescue the little girl led to the arrest of the principal suspect, Friday Domozu who led the Police Team to a deep forest at Gabije area of Kogi State where the remains of the little girl were recovered.

THREAD
What is overlooked in analysis of #RussiaProtest after @navalny's arrest? It's sophistication that the Kremlin has developed in addressing such threats, and lack of realistic strategy by Putin's opponents. Let's put together some unpleasant facts 👇

2/ Of course, it's hard not to be impressed by @navalny's and his family's courage, as well as by energy and scale of protests on January 23. Good summary by @yaffaesque for @NewYorker here:

3/ @navalny's investigation about Putin's palace (>96 million views now!) and street protests are seen as a serious challenge by the Kremlin, which is visible in heavy-handed crackdown on Navalny's team&family, as @HenryJFoy & @maxseddon document here:

4/ Jan 23 protest had the widest geographic coverage (>120 cities all across Russia), and the crowd numbers were significant, particularly in Moscow and St. Petersburg. It's important to note that the price tag for unsanctioned rallies is now higher than before...

5/... and protesters risk much more than 100k people who came to Bolotnaya Square in Moscow back in 2011. Add COVID, and 40k crowd (@Reuters estimate) in the capital will look like a success. But here comes the tricky part.

1)
So, I stumbled upon this movement one day by chance.
Do my surprise, I was amazed there were other people that had the same beliefs as I.

I suddenly didn't feel quite so unstable anymore and within a few days I dove in full force and have stayed that way daily...

PMF PERSONNEL SUCCESSFULLY REPEL AMBUSH ATTACK ON THEIR CONVOY IN BIRNIN-GWARI

​· Inflict heavy casualties on Tens of the Bandits as IGP Commends Officers for gallantry in repelling the attack

The Inspector General of Police, IGP M.A Adamu, NPM, mni has commended the Police officers attached to Police Mobile Force - 9 PMF Squadron, Kano for displaying uncommon gallantry and repelling the attack on their convoy by bandits numbering about hundred

along the Birnin Gwari - Funtua Highway on Friday, 15th January, 2021, on their way back to their base in Kano after the completion of their special duty.

The officers are personnel attached to Operation Puff Adder and deployed to Niger State in the sustained operation to reclaim the public space and tackle incidents of banditry, kidnapping and other violent crimes in the area.

Contrary to unconfirmed reports in some sections of the media stating that eighteen (18) officers were kidnapped, only sixteen (16) officers were attacked in the ambush. The officers successfully repelled the attack accordingly and neutralized the bandits in their tens

#WWG1WGAWORLDWIDE #QAnons #USA #Germany #Europe #NesaraGesara @realDonaldTrump @John_F_Kennnedy @JFKjrQ
Gentlemen, I added you to it above because I hope many people will read this. Comparisons (memes) and statistics lose their meaningfulness when parameters change.
1) According

1/ This 10 year old Buhari-branded Tee must be my oldest piece of cloth (bar a couple of agbada inherited from our patriarch).

The story?

In 2011, when Buhari was a hard sell in the South, before he joined forces with Tinubu et al, some of us volunteered to sell him

2/ So a group of us on Nairaland then came together, raised some funds among ourselves. I was the coordinator. I remember one Nairaland guy - from Kogi? - I didn’t know came to my then office and dropped N500k cash and 100 pieces of this Tee from the booth of his car.

3/ We raised about N800k in all and did jingles in radio stations in Lagos, Osun, Oyo and Rivers states. I think we called ourselves Buhari Online Support Group or something like that. We also did some publicity material and distributed those shirts.

4/ I churned out over 20 articles in newspapers making a case for Buhari candidacy. That was also where I got to be friends with people like Femi Adesina and Tope Fasua, through pages of newspapers.

5/ Well, with GEJ’s 2011 goodwill (recall the “I had no shoe” & “Breath of fresh air” campaign mantras?), +with absence of political xture (forget volunteering by small boys like us, you cannot make inroads into a region without xture), GMB only managed to get 200k votes in Lagos

Most 🌍 comparisons for C19 go wrong as they don't considering demographics.

For countries I've managed to src detailed death data for, here's total d/1m numbers.

Sure,🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 look similar to 🇧🇷🇵🇪, but just look at the differences <60, 🇵🇪 4x larger.

So what does this mean?

1/9

Basically, fewer >80, means they've had⏫spread, and ⏫younger deaths, but👀equal.

Here ranking⏫2⏬by age are:
▶️20 countries
▶️NY city
▶️The World
That I've 👀at so far.

50% marks the median age, e.g.
🇮🇹 47
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿41
🌍30
🇳🇬18

So expecting similar deaths overall is silly.

2/9

So how have deaths actually played out?

Here are the props. by age to late Dec for places with detailed data.

Looks like NYC, 🇧🇷 & 🇵🇪 have seen far more in the young.

Now these all have younger pops. so is spread the same? Are diff just down to demographics?

3/9

No, many factors, the biggest age, and the likelihood of death in each age band.

🌍serology studies have sampled a similar risk in each 10yr band, with this going up 3 fold with each band.

Here is a plot of what🌍avgs are.

So what else do we need to worry about?

4/9

Factors like:
▶️healthcare: beds nos, better care, etc
▶️comorbidity rates: e.g. obesity, OECD 4x India, but only effects 15%
▶️lifestyle impacts: carehomes VS elderly@home
etc

But, many cancel out.
e.g. 1st🌍better healthcare, but fatter.

What about a lack of treatment?

5/9

A "brief" recapitulation of monthly events/turmoil in 2020 :-

⚠ LONG THREAD

JANUARY
-US airstrike killed one of the most important leader of Iran, Gen.Qassem Soleimani
-Philippines Taal Volcano eruption
-Trump impeachment inquiry
-Iranian military by mistake downed a Ukraine plane killing all 176 on board

FEBRUARY
-Anti CAA riots in India
-Namaste trump event
-Coronavirus Spreading
-UK leaves Brexit
-US confirmed killing of Yemen AlQaeda Leader
-US-Taliban sign peace agreement (withdrawal of American Soldiers from Afghanistan, releasing prisoners)

MARCH
-India becomes observer of Indian Ocean Commission
-Finland topped the World Happiness Report
-Olympics Postponed
-Former CJI nominated in Rajya Sabha
-Syrian strikes kill Turkish soldiers
-Migrant exodus struck India

APRIL
-India supplies HCQ and paracetamol worldwide
-Hole opened up in Ozone layer in Arctic got closed
-Global surge in violence against women due to lockdowns
-Oil prices hit negative
-KimJongUn "dead or alive"

The subject of true and false prophesying has been raised recently. See @derekradney especially. It’s important because as @PLeithart notes in his fine commentary on 1&2 Kings, Israel’s history is not so much political as it is prophetic.

One example - Ahab. Not only does he despise & reject the three prophets God mercifully sends him, but he embraces the hundreds who falsely prophesy in God’s name. That latter fact is the issue. It’s not that the false prophets are invoking Baal but YHWH.

Ahab’s prophets are false for numerous reasons but let me cite just one. They aimed to reinforce an unholy alliance between Judah’s future king and Ahab’s daughter Athaliah, a disaster that resulted in the attempted destruction of the Messianic hope.

Prophetically backing unholy alliances - defending the union of what God has separated - nearly led to the disastrous destruction of Judah. They are false not simply because of false predictions but because of errant theology.

I’m going to put this as plainly as I can. The Church today is disturbed, divided, and misled because of false prophets. They aren’t false in an obvious sense (or only in a narrow ‘charismatic’ sense) because they operate within otherwise orthodox settings & use orthodox terms.