09:55 At the Lagos State #EndSARS Judicial Panel of Enquiry.

The #EndSARS conversation is back on #1 trend, following the police court case to invalidate state panels. https://t.co/SANuz62YMR

Franklin Templeton Update

1. Franklin Templeton (Trustees) - six schemes under winding up - have announced dates of voting to seek consent of Unitholders to wind up. Voting begins 26Dec20 at 9am

2. Supreme Court will continue to hear the case - Next hearing on 9th Dec

(1/n)

Q1: What is the voting about by FT
Ans: To validate/approve decision of Trustees to wind up 6 schemes - both Guj & Knataka Courts said Unitholder consent is mandatory

FT has now agreed to do this and this vote will take ur consent to either wind up the scheme or NOT.

(2/n)

Q2: What are the options in this Voting?

Ans: This will be the first voting. (There will be a second vote, I will explain in thread later)

In this Vote, you will have two options
YES - Wind up Schemes
No - Do not wind up, open them up

You have to choose one option

(3/n)

Q3: Should I vote YES or No?

Ans: There is fatigue in investors as their money is locked up for in these tough Covid times. It's been now over 7 months

Most investors take it as fait accompli to vote YES
FT is exhorting investors to vote YES as the best way ahead

(4/n)

Q4: But how should investors vote? YES or No?

Ans: YES will lead to wind up at a pace defined by winder (the person winds up the scheme). This will lead to best value realisation of underlying assets

NO- Will lead to immediate access to money but not best value for you

(5/n)

I’ve often said that nothing is normal about Julian Assange’s case. Here’s my list of the top 10 least normal aspects, strictly on the logistical side of monitoring the extradition proceedings (this is not to mention the many substantive issues that are also far from normal).

1. The judge’s stubbornly persistent refusal to acknowledge that NGO observers are professionals and have an important role to play (separate to that of the general public) in ensuring open justice, and refusal to grant us access to be able to do our jobs properly.

2. The constantly shifting goal posts in gaining access to the public gallery, and arbitrary restrictions on numbers in all 3 courts where proceedings have been held. On any given day, it’s impossible to predict how many will be let in and when, necessitating very early queuing.

3. Receiving conflicting information from the court about remote access, including being accredited to the Cloud Video Platform and then having that access revoked in September. The same thing seems to have happened to us again for 4th January.

4. After unbelievable difficulty getting in, what we actually observed was a small screen on the other side of a large room. It was often impossible to tell who was who, and I could only follow properly as I had the lawyers’ voices memorised from February (when I could see them).

Of all the things that confuse me (there are easily 3k this morning) this stumps me most: When did we decide that saving an 80-year-old's life is worth sacrificing a child's? Or that the value of their lives are exactly comparable? I could've sworn we'd agreed to something else.

We have special provisions for children. In court, they're treated differently. We've agreed they shouldn't have to work. They need public school (or so I thought). They cannot consent to sex. We have a set of laws that protects them.

I thought this was understood, and enacted by the thousands of examples we can gin up of adults running into traffic to save a child - not necessarily their own - or stopping a bullet. Remember those heroic teachers in Newtown in Parkland who shielded their students? That.

And we derided adults who USED children as shields, or failed to protect them. The mother who lets her husband beat her child because otherwise he'd turn on her. Society abjures such a person. The guard who hid instead of rushing the shooter in Parkland? Hated.

But now, with Covid is is simply disallowed to claim that we should prioritize, say, a 10-year-old school child over an 84-year-old in assisted living. Where the hell did this attitude come from and why does half of my social circle seem to believe it's right?

Back in the mists of time, we suggested that the proposed Scottish Hate Crime bill might be used as a stick to beat women who wanted to discuss the GRA, sex-based rights, & welfare of gender confused children.

We were told we were being silly: no one would do that.

Thread/

Today, we saw two proposed amendments to the hate crime bill with regard to #FreeSpeech in relation to transgender identity.

A general one from @humzayousaf & one from @liamkerrmsp which covers many of the topics women feared might result in prosecution - thank you!

If anyone had doubts that the extremists of gender ideology did not intend to use this legislation as a means to silence and intimidate, the frothing indignation of anti-woman activists who might be prevented from filing hourly hate crime reports, surely laid this to rest.

Naturally, Scottish Green Party were quick to charge into the fray. Emz Cuthbertson, co-convener of SGP women & Rainbow Greens, was in no way hyperbolic in referring to it as a "transphobes charter", with Dr Kevin finding the idea of not being able to shut women up "terrifying".

Also up were activist James (who once promoted a lurid fantasy about lesbians beating up a NB child at Edinburgh Pride) & serial party hopper, Tristan who was horrified that "misgendering" was not about to be a crime & thinks advocating child counselling is "conversion therapy".