Thanks to everyone who supported me and contributed ideas over the past nine months! Here’s where I think we are and where we’re going:

South African science was crucial in helping UK discover its new variants; but then the UK govt claimed (wrongly) that the SA variant is more transmissible. No evidence to support this, according to @krisp_news

From the Times article: SA scientists "were the first to recognize the importance of a genetic change in the spike protein, something that allows the virus to attach more easily to human cells, making it more infectious than the original version."

The SA discovery was shared on Dec 4 over the WHO’s Covid-19 Evolution Working Group. “Our British colleagues were able to go back to their own databases and interrogate them as a result of the work we shared,” Richard Lessells, an infectious diseases specialist at Krisp, said.

More from the Times article by @janeflan: "While working on a much smaller budget than their British colleagues, the South African team, experienced with work on HIV, have the skills to decode the genome of viruses."

"They started work on samples of the Covid-19 virus soon after the first cases reached South Africa in March. In October they identified the first example that had changed significantly."

UK Energy White Paper is here.

I'll tweet the key points here👇

1/

Link to press

UK commits to an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) from 1 January 2021.

Seems like a win for @beisgovuk, as @hmtreasury was known to be keen on a carbon tax

2/

Exploring the RAB model for new nuclear, as per @emilygosden article in @thetimes this

From press release, doesn't look like that many big new measures. Not surprising, as next year we're expecting:
▶️ Heat & Buildings Strat
▶️ Industrial Decarb Strat
▶️ Hydrogen Strat
▶️ Net Zero Strat
▶️ Transport Decarb Plan

And

A couple of hours later, and the White Paper is now here.

Powering Out Net Zero Future.

Details to follow

(1 of 2) Paul Manafort—a longtime associate of Howard Liebengood Sr.—is an exec at Event Strategies, which planned the 1/6 rally that ended with a breach of security at the Capitol, where Howard Liebengood Jr. worked security (USCP). 2 days later Liebengood Jr. committed suicide.

(2 of 2) I believe this is a coincidence. That said, because I don't think Manafort aiding and abetting a rally that ended in insurrection is coincidence, I have to assume that—out of an abundance of caution—law enforcement will investigate any possible Manafort-Liebengood link.

(PS) It is vital that no one presume connections where there may be none. My point is that as a criminal investigative matter, Manafort will be investigated for any role he had in the Save America March, and Liebengood's suicide would naturally be investigated due to its context.

(PS2) I'm sure there'll be those who say that a Donald Trump event giving tons of money to a company that enriches Paul Manafort at a time when Trump continues to need Manafort to stay quiet and Manafort is having money problems is a mere coincidence.

*That* I do not agree with.

(PS3) By the same token, as a federal criminal investigative matter, when you are about to have numerous investigations into whether security at a government building had been pre-compromised and someone who worked security at that building commits suicide, it gets investigated.

Macron on tensions with Russia: “We continue sometimes to fight against an ideology or an organisation that no longer exists with a geopolitical logic that no longer exists and that has continued to fracture Europe.”

And on Nato: “Nobody can tell me that today’s Nato is a structure that, in its foundations, is still pertinent. It was founded to face down the Warsaw Pact. There is no more a Warsaw Pact.”

In other words, the partly confrontational policy of the West towards Russia is anachronistic.

Yet the "geopolitical logic" of today's more confrontational policy towards Russia has nothing to do with the Warsaw Pact or the Cold War. It's not true that the West is caught in anachronistic thinking.

Sanctions and the renewed focus of Nato on territorial defense was a response towards Russian aggression against Ukraine: Putin started a war of aggression against Ukraine and has annexed parts of the country, with over 13.000 people killed.