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As @laurnorman reports & Iranian officials attest, Iran has notified the IAEA of its intention to start an assembly line at Esfahan to produce uranium metal as part of advanced fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR).

It’s worth exploring Iran’s experience with u-metal, a key material that can also be used to produce nuclear weapon cores. We know that Tehran has quite a bit of experience thanks to the Nuclear Archive documents, seized by Israel in 2018. 2/

The Nuclear Archive contained info about Iran’s plans to build a pilot uranium metal production facility, called Shahid Mahallati. There, Iran would become adept at u-metal and nuke weapon component fabrication:
https://t.co/kAA334GW54 3/

In 2002, Iran was also building a production-scale uranium metal & nuclear weapon components facility, Shahid Boroujerdi, in an underground tunnel complex at Parchin, the military site famous for Iran's early nuclear weapon-related high explosive work: https://t.co/0ffAKmQEAV 4/

In late-2003, under increasing international pressure, Iran halted its crash nuclear weapons program, the Amad Plan, and stopped construction on Shahid Boroujerdi & likely halted work at Shahid Mahallati. Current statuses are unknown because the IAEA has never visited. 5/
Most 🌍 comparisons for C19 go wrong as they don't considering demographics.

For countries I've managed to src detailed death data for, here's total d/1m numbers.

Sure,🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 look similar to 🇧🇷🇵🇪, but just look at the differences <60, 🇵🇪 4x larger.

So what does this mean?

1/9


Basically, fewer >80, means they've had⏫spread, and ⏫younger deaths, but👀equal.

Here ranking⏫2⏬by age are:
▶️20 countries
▶️NY city
▶️The World
That I've 👀at so far.

50% marks the median age, e.g.
🇮🇹 47
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿41
🌍30
🇳🇬18

So expecting similar deaths overall is silly.

2/9


So how have deaths actually played out?

Here are the props. by age to late Dec for places with detailed data.

Looks like NYC, 🇧🇷 & 🇵🇪 have seen far more in the young.

Now these all have younger pops. so is spread the same? Are diff just down to demographics?

3/9


No, many factors, the biggest age, and the likelihood of death in each age band.

🌍serology studies have sampled a similar risk in each 10yr band, with this going up 3 fold with each band.

Here is a plot of what🌍avgs are.

So what else do we need to worry about?

4/9


Factors like:
▶️healthcare: beds nos, better care, etc
▶️comorbidity rates: e.g. obesity, OECD 4x India, but only effects 15%
▶️lifestyle impacts: carehomes VS elderly@home
etc

But, many cancel out.
e.g. 1st🌍better healthcare, but fatter.

What about a lack of treatment?

5/9
Long-thread: A Sunday morning well-spent exploring Lahore’s Orange-line Light-rail metro train with @gulraizkhan.

One thing I can tell about the experience is that it was in nowhere any less than the best Metros in the developed West.


This project will remain divisive, and in no way I intend on converting anyone. Skip.

Neither will its utility increase nor decrease by this Twitter cost-benefits blabbering.

What I am truly happy about is that Orangeline is owned and being used by those who need it the most.

The cars we use have a Heater & AC. The new ones also have a cabin filter against pollution. They harm everyone outside but user is safe inside. Then cars also cause congestion and accidents.

We don’t realise it while driving, but navigating spaces is important for everyone.


We know that cars, which serve less than 20% of all trips, are bad for our cities. Yet they have been getting disproportionately higher share in budgets in the form of allocations for Road in Transport spending.

A mass transit project flips this equation.

There is also very real loss that construction works of the project caused, which, we, as bystanders, cannot fully understand.

We need to move to inclusive infrastructural planning, rather cold-hearted bureaucratic logic which dictates that who
It's lovely to see Tove Ditlevsen gaining her deserved recognition in the world! But it is not true that she is unanimously celebrated in Denmark. She has always been at the center of a almost century long discussion of taste and literary quality. Thread
@PenguinUKBooks @fsgbooks


Just this Saturday, in an article in major Danish newspaper Politiken about Ditlevsens' emerging international succes, the journalist wrote that she "had never reached modernism".

Ditlevsen has been taught in Danish schools as the harper's article says, but 15 years ago in 2006 (she died in the 1970ies!) the omission of her poems on a list for mandatory poems for schoolchildren sparked a fierce debate.

Head of the committee selecting the poems stated that Ditlevsen simply did not meet their standard for quality. No other female writers (or writers of color) had poems on the list. It contained 24 poems from the Middle ages - today. You can see it here:

This list was issued by the Ministry of culture in a dare I say right wing attempt by the prime minister at the time Anders Fogh Rasmussen to dominate the cultural debate and make way for a shift in values. In this he was succesful.
A few half-baked thoughts on Laschet and Syria and some such.

First off, it's revolting to see any mainstream politician spread what appear to be conspiracy theories about atrocities committed by the Assad regime in the Syrian war. In fact, to *volunteer* them. Unprompted. /1


I stopped counting the dozens of friends, colleagues, officials from around the world, but in particular, the Middle East, who have sent me his tweets over the past week. The common response from Berlin appears to be an uncomfortable "well, he's not a foreign policy guy..." /2

But he is! I think it's easy to underestimate the man and his jovial, slightly pudgy and self-deprecating persona. There's also a tendency in Berlin and outside to confuse regional politics (and accents!) for provincialism. But Laschet is from Aachen - in the heart of Europe. /3

His first job in politics was with Hans Stercken, then-chairman of the Bundestag's foreign affairs committee, in the tumultuous mid-late 80s. As a new member of Bundestag in 1994, he joined the committees for int development, EU affairs, and foreign affairs (as an alternate). /4

Some headlines refer to him as a "Merkel-loyalist". At least when I flipped thru his record from the 90s, I got a sense of a man with profound convictions: A passionate European. But also an early proponent of CDU-Greens rapprochement based on a shared moralistic worldview. /5
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Last day for Irish Republic Christmas Delivery

My ink drawings are about joy, hope, love & empathy. When you buy one you can choose a second free*.

Please order ASAP so I have time to pack & ship by 3PM today!


To check availability of drawings go to my Etsy shop:
https://t.co/h1QOPiFZDK

Please note that you can buy a drawing even if Etsy says it’s in someone’s basket.

Vermillion Flycatcher (2020) https://t.co/lkAOU2xvod


*For areas outside Ireland the 2 for 1 offer still applies (delivery is dependant on location - just ask) but will NOT arrive in time for Christmas Day

Spirit of Hope (2020) https://t.co/0EYjjV7gpd


Here’s a link to my Etsy shop. Click to see the full group of artwork in the special offer: https://t.co/ESVlK51Bhf

Balance (2020) https://t.co/oynPvIH3Q5


These works are just €149 ($181/£135) each. And because it’s Christmas, when you buy an artwork, you can choose a second free! Outside Ireland I can advise on approximate delivery time.

Dóchas (2020) https://t.co/Q4JE5mFmjt
It has been 60 days since @AbiyAhmedAli declared #WarOnTigray. 60 days on, the war still rages across Tigray & the region is still under almost full communication, banking and transport block out. From the limited info that comes out, millions of people are starving 1


due to lack of access to power, cash to buy supplies as banks are still closed and bank accounts every Tigrayan suspended, & absence of trade activities. UNICEF reports that more than 2m children in Tigray are completely cut off from humanitarian assist https://t.co/ylWJQ0u0NF 2

Civilians killed and displaced: According to UN-OCHA, there are reportedly over a million internally displaced people with no humanitarian assistance. Families in their hundreds of 1000s are separated. We also hear that supplies of humanitarian assistance are deliberately

curtailed by the regime. Despite Eth-UN agreements to allow unfettered humanitarian access, areas outside Mekelle are inaccessible for humanitarian actors.

Ethnic profiling: travel restrictions have been placed on #Tigrayans across #Ethiopia.

Tigrayans across Ethiopia face #ethnicprofiling in their workplaces (many have been laid off or told to stay at home, mostly without pay), their homes are arbitrarily searched, are constantly harassed & arrested by security forces.

Impoverishing Tigray: