This is some audacious spin. What actually happened: Pompeo endorsed the results of a rigged election in DRC after a private security company working for a Congolese autocrat back channelled with Giuliani and other Trump allies. Our investigation: https://t.co/WjO7hPmfZv

Did the Prophet Muḥammad follow an Arabian religion or religiosity before Islam, that is, before what Muslim accounts label the "Call to Prophecy"? A short thread based on notes for an article preparation 1/

Biographical information about the life of Muḥammad before the Call to Prophecy is seriously lacking - even in the literary imaginations of later Muslim sources. But there are useful and relevant starting points which, if read critically, can add to our existing knowledge 2/

The best clue is found in the famous accounts recorded in the Sīrat Rasūl Allāh (Biography of the Messenger of God ) by the famous biographer Ibn Isḥāq (d. 767) - translated with additional notes (from Ibn Hishām; died 883) by Alfred Guillaume 3/

Ibn Isḥāq (in Ibn Hishām's recension) informs the reader that before the Call to Prophecy, Muḥammad used to sojourn (يُجَاوِرُ) on Mount Ḥirāʾ for a period of 30 days every year. During his meditative seclusion, Muḥammad would feed the poor & needy when they called on him 4/

The operative word in Ibn Hishām's biography is taḥannuth (تحنث). The term remains contentious both among medieval Muslim authorities and Western Islamicists. I decided to prepare an article on the term and its links to Late Antique religiosities largely because...5/

Could Turkish drones be the silver bullet in Nigeria's decade long war against insurgency. Turkey has in recent years become a major player when it comes to the world of drones. Weve seen what Turkish drones did in Syria.

In Libya, in what can be described as the largest drone war in the world we saw how the LNA's goal of seizing the capital Tripoli abruptly ended after Turkeys intervention with its Bayraktar drones. There is no doubt these drones will be of immense value to the Nigerian military

The relatively flat featureless terrain of the northeast means that ground units are easily spotted, with few natural barriers to hide. The Alpha jets and L-30ZA are valuable yet limited by numbers. Besides they antiquated platforms.

While manned fighter aircraft have been used for most part of the war the NAF needs to start considering the employment of unmanned aerial vehicles on a strategic level. UAVs are useful for several reasons. Not only do they provide valuable information about the enemy

..that can be spotted from standoff distances, they are able to attack targets immediately with a far higher rate of success. In the event a drone is shot down...BIG DEAL !..the pilot is safe, back at base and able to pilot the next drone that takes off.

Today in pulp I look back at the world of Soviet women's fashion!

It's not all berets, but it mostly is...

Now you may think that fashion and the Soviet Union go together like Groucho Marx and Friedrich Engels. However that is to misunderstand the nature of the Commad Economy: if she commands it, you'd better buy it for her!

So there is a rich history of fashion and fun (along with the tractor factories and endless ballet performances) in the old USSR. Let's take a sashay along it...

At the start of the Soviet years women's fashion, let's face it, tended towards the functional. Red was popular, as were headscarves, hobnail boots and the ability to field strip a 3-line rifle.

But all that was about to change...

...because Russia had a new fashionista in charge: Stalin! He hated the peasant look of War Communism because it made socialism seem synonymous with poverty. He ordered Soviet Woman to spruce herself up.

Portugal is famous for its mild climate and sunny beaches, but each year hundreds of people freeze to death and millions struggle to survive frigid winter weather.

Here's a quick thread based on my @POLITICOEurope story on Portuguese energy poverty

When I lived in Lisbon my friends and I joked that although the Portuguese were famous for melancholia, uncharacteristic (and unrealistic) optimism defined their approach to thermal insulation: homes seemed to be built as if the weather was expected to be perfect year-round.

While the weather is, indeed, really great for most of the year, it can also be really awful sometimes. In the Summer temperatures can shoot up to truly unbearable levels for weeks on end, and in the Winter the icy humidity can easily make you feel like you're freezing 24/7.

This reality is a huge problem precisely because so many Portuguese people live in homes that don't have the capacity to shelter them from the heat when temperatures rise and the cold when they drop. And that means that every year that means people die because of the weather.

This issue can be traced back to the rural exodus that took place during the second half of the XX century, when millions fled the interior to seek better futures either outside the country — immigrating to France, Germany and Luxembourg — or in cities like Lisbon and Porto.