THREAD: Research Fellow @hu_rdman writes about the attack on Aden airport on Dec 30, 2020, when he and other colleagues narrowly escaped death at what should have been a celebratory occasion welcoming the arrival of the newly formed Yemeni government.

At the #Aden airport, "the crowd was divided in two: to the right were #STC supporters... and to the left were supporters of the #GoY. However, the groups soon mingled and exchanged greetings... I whispered to a colleague: “It seems Santa Claus has been generous this year."
But around 2:00 pm, the airport was hit by three explosions, & it took @hu_rdman awhile to realize what had happened. "Five minutes & just 20 meters saved us from certain death. A loud explosion rocked the airport lounge, where we were supposed to go to carry out live coverage."
The attack caused a frenzied chaos and people ran either toward the ICRC aircraft or ditch in the dirt. "I thought to myself that perhaps it was better to stop than run blindly with no direction, but with my family in mind I decided to keep on running."
Ten minutes passed without hearing any further explosions, and everyone began checking on friends via phone. We then returned to the scene of the explosions to help the injured and examine the damage.
The first missile had hit the passengers lounge; the second targeted a grassy area in front of the lounge; and the third struck Square 1 of the runway, where the aircraft was supposed to land... A fourth missile was supposed to target the airplane but had failed to launch.
The next day, PM @DrMaeenSaeed met with the rest of the cabinet ministers at Ma’ashiq Palace, where they announced that the government held the #Houthis and experts from the #Iran-ian Revolutionary Guard Corps responsible for the terrorist attack.
The #GoY's placement of blame was initially denied by the #Houthi authorities in Sana’a, but later on, there were remarks by hawkish Houthi figures closer to #Iran hinting otherwise... The Houthis’ “deterrence” formula took the lives of more than 20 people and injured dozens.
News reports confirmed the martyrdom of my colleague, fellow journalist Adib Al-Janani, a correspondent at Belqees TV, and provided a final count of the dead and injured, which was much higher than my initial expectations.

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Canada is failing to act on Climate Change. @wef @WorldBank @IMFNews @IPCC_CH @UNDPGAIN @AntiCorruptIntl @Pontifex @JustinWelby @OCCRP @StopCorpAbuse @TaxJusticeNet @FairTaxCanada @ecojustice_ca @WCELaw @CanEnvLawAssn @envirodefence @IBA_Canada #cdnpoli


Covid recovery money is going to the oligarchy.

Ottawa and the provinces have put very little on the table to help clean-tech companies directly during Covid 19 while targeting fossil-fuel producers with more than $16 billion in aid.

Coast to coast people have demanded treaties be honored. We demanded climate action, divestment and land back but Canada is not listening. This video shows 10 years of rallies in Waterloo Ontario. City & regional council declared a climate emergency. 🚨

The Bank of China (BOC), SNC-Lavalin and WE Charity were recipients of taxpayer-funded the Covid 19 Canadian Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS)
Caveat: This article is sourced from @Daily_Express !!!

"End of Sturgeon?"

Frankly, an appropriate response from @NicolaSturgeon might be to quote the infamous Mark Twain response to an erroneous 'obituary' known to all...

"The reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated."

https://t.co/Ce1xVVISR2

More accurately, the media have quoted:

"Ms Sturgeon said she had a “real job to do” and was focused on guiding Scotland through the Covid-19 pandemic."

It's very reassuring to hear that @scotgov and @ScotGovFM have prioritised safeguarding lives and Scotland, above all else.

"I’ll leave others to play games or politics. I have got a real job to do and people can decide themselves whether I am doing it well or not, but I am absolutely 100 per cent focused on leading this country through a pandemic."

💯% 😀👍

Making her priorities crystal clear!

“That’s what I’ve done since this time last year and it’s what I’m going to continue to do for absolutely as long as necessary.”

And again, making it absolutely crystal clear!

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The entire discussion around Facebook’s disclosures of what happened in 2016 is very frustrating. No exec stopped any investigations, but there were a lot of heated discussions about what to publish and when.


In the spring and summer of 2016, as reported by the Times, activity we traced to GRU was reported to the FBI. This was the standard model of interaction companies used for nation-state attacks against likely US targeted.

In the Spring of 2017, after a deep dive into the Fake News phenomena, the security team wanted to publish an update that covered what we had learned. At this point, we didn’t have any advertising content or the big IRA cluster, but we did know about the GRU model.

This report when through dozens of edits as different equities were represented. I did not have any meetings with Sheryl on the paper, but I can’t speak to whether she was in the loop with my higher-ups.

In the end, the difficult question of attribution was settled by us pointing to the DNI report instead of saying Russia or GRU directly. In my pre-briefs with members of Congress, I made it clear that we believed this action was GRU.