💥🇸🇪The Sweden “Problem” SOLVED!🇸🇪💥

Or, how does a biased world rid itself of the best example of a non-lockdown control for its horrible lockdown experiment?

Simple! CHANGE THE DATA.

Chinese president Xi Jinping is the lead speaker at this week's Davos Agenda, the World Economic Forum's online summit.

Xi lays out four priorities for world:

1) Step up "macroeconomic policy coordination" and promote "strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth of the world economy";

2) Abandon ideological prejudice and "jointly follow a path of peaceful coexistence." Says no country is superior to another. "There would be no human civilization without diversity," he adds, taking aim at "arrogance, prejudice and hatred";

3) Close the divide between developed and developing countries. "With the growth of developing countries, global prosperity and security will be put on a more (solid) footing"; and,

4) "Come together against global challenges and jointly create a better future for humanity." "No global problem can be solved by any one country alone. There must be global action, global response, and global cooperation."

1 So, today we turn to early Islamic Beirut. what do we know of the earliest times of #Beirut under early Islamic rule, starting with the #conquest. How and when did Beirut enter the emerging Muslim empire? -rm

2 Let’s start with traditional sources for the early Islamic period. Of those, only al-Balādhurī (d. ca. 892), the Abbasid scholar, is informative. Other Muslim and non-Muslim sources including al-Ṭabarī's Tārīkh are silent on the matter.-rm

3 In his small tome, Futūḥ al-Buldān, al-Balādhurī tells his readers: “After the conquest of Damascus, Yazīd came to Sidon, ʿArqa, Byblos, and Beirut which lie on the sea coast with his brother Muʿāwiya leading the van of the army.”-rm

4 Hence, the men who conquered Beirut were Yazīd b. Abī Sufyān (d. 639) and his half-brother and future caliph Mu‘āwiya (r. 661-680). The date of the conquest of the coast falls between 636 and 639 at the latest, the date of the death of Yazīd in the plague of Emmaus. -rm

5 Yazīd and the Muslim army likely took the coastal road to Beirut, a path taken by numerous armies before. They would have either swung from Damascus to Baalbek through the Hims gap to ‘Arqa, then Byblos, crossed the Dog River, and arrived at the eastern side of Beirut.

Thread on Invisible China: Scott Rozelle and Natalie Hell's illuminating and scary deep dive into rural China's ills and stark inequality. No matter how bad you think it is, it's worse there---more like a developing country than a global superpower. 1/n

2/Rozelle rolled up his sleeves to understand the CN most only see from plane or train windows. Issues in health and education, bringing down human capital of 300m rural Chinese, could trap it in middle income status.

Think future like Mexico/Turkey now, not Korea/Taiwan

3/Most focus on impressive elite universities and high schools topping int'l rankings, but CN average education levels are abysmal.

Only 30% of China's working age pop completed high school--last place for all middle income countries, worse than many poor countries!

4/TIL a startling fact: school in CN through grade 9 became free & mandatory only in 2006! Even today high school is not free in CN! Want to go through grade 12? Pay fees of 10-15x incomes for poor rural areas. Instead they drop out to work unskilled jobs. Xi has promised to fix

5/No country has escaped middle income trap below 50% HS grad rates, and avg for successful countries (now high income) is 76%. Why? HS skills not important for repetitive assembly jobs, but w/o ability to learn & basic skills in math and reading, can't do more productive jobs

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.