I look at young Nigerians from not-so-privileged homes despising those with privilege. You’re short changing & limiting yourself. In life, there will always be those born with privilege, those who grow into it, and those who get it from relationships. Let me explain. Thread

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#Iran's echo chamber at work

@JZarif describes Qassem Soleimani as a "national hero" who defeated ISIS

Iran apologists/lobbyists begin

The Next 20 Years

Just look around you in Nigeria, for example. 20 years ago, the ATM machine was a novelty. No bank issued debit cards- maybe just the foreign ones. There were no banking apps. You couldn't transfer funds the way we do now.

It took 7 days for your 'upcountry' cheques to clear- meaning that if someone pays you a cheque in Sokoto and you pay it in in Ibadan, you had to wait for 7 days to receive value. Later, it became 3 days.

I recall as a young banker, I used to go to the CBN Clearing House with a box that was locked by my supervisor and which could only be opened by the CBN Clearing Supervisor. I carried that box like it was my life.

I had cheques of other banks and a very huge calculator we called casting machine inside that 'portmanteau'.

Around this period 20 years ago, there was an influx of new generation banks that changed the landscape. Now, see how the banks have changed in 20 years. In just 20 years, the banking sector in Nigeria is the one of the most sophisticated in Africa. So much progress has been made

THREAD #Serbian #Orthodox #Church bishops start Conclave (#Sabor-Holy Assembly in #SPC parlance) to elect new #Patriarch, 3 months after previous died of #Covid. Election much more about politics than religion, mainly #Serbia #Kosovo relations but also #Russia Orthodox Church /2

2/ vs. #Ecumenical Patriarch of #Constantinople. Most of numerous traditional cleavages within SPC (Young Lions vs. Old Guards); Serbians vs. TransDrinians; ecumenicals vs. hardline Orthodox etc. will be irrelevant with only the split between Russian vs. Greek students, roughly/3

3/corresponding with main division: support for whatever "solution" President Vucic might propose to satisfy int'l demand to at least de facto recognize Kosovo vs. stubborn refusal to accept anything not in line with current Serbian constitution that says #KosovoJeSrbija. /4

4/Due to 3 decades of heavy politicking under 1 weak Patriarch (Pavle) & his insipid successor (Irinej), those who’d otherwise be God-obeying “good guys” are staunchly in Kosovo Status Quo camp, refusing any deal. Those bishops who were in bed with politicians & secret services/5

5/ now support “accommodation” with Kosovo. Voting system is peculiar: Conclave picks 3 eligible bishops (each needs to obtain simple majority of votes i.e. 23); names of top 3 are sealed & 1 is drawn. System was designed in Communist times to prevent manipulation. Both sides /6

💥🇸🇪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.

Of course we all know Sweden has been a battleground regarding its mild voluntary lockdown strategy versus the heavy lockdowns of most of the EU. Inconvenient graphs like this one are quite a thorn in Team Lockdown’s side. Sweden fewer deaths/M, much better quality of life.

When I did some analysis in the Spring and Fall, I looked at Oxford’s stringency index as a proxy for lockdown severity. And sure enough Sweden was significantly lower stringency than all other EU countries.

Here is a plot tracking stringency for the UK, Finland Norway and Sweden. I added Norway and Finland because Team Lockdown loves to reply to Sweden threads with “but Norway but Finland”! When I plotted this in October we see Sweden’s Spring stringency was comparatively low.

But then I just happened to plot this again yesterday. What the heck? Sweden is no longer a mild-response country! It is only slightly less stringent than the UK! And the “but Norway Finland” argument is now moot! Look how much less stringent they’ve been!