COVID latches onto weaknesses and vulnerabilities: denialism, arrogance, exceptionalism, wishful thinking, incompetence, indecisiveness, assumptions, inflexibility, demonization, self-deception, selfishness, gullibility, rigidity, nonadaptiveness, antagonism, social fragmentation

The Events that took place on Friday at the truce village of Panmunjom and during the Inter-Korean Summit were breathtaking for the Hollywood Optics. The Opening Shot of Kim Jong Un surrounded by a Phalanx of North Korean Officials [later replayed as Chairman Kim sat in his Presidential Vehicle surrounded by his Ninja bodyguards] was almost as good as the opening Sequence in PT Anderson's Boogie Nights [Steadicam operator Andy Shuttleworth]. This was Cinema of the highest level which is no surprise when You consider that Kim Jong-Il the Father was obsessed with Cinema and amassed arguably the world’s largest personal film collection: over 20,000 bootlegged 35mm screening copies. Kim Jong-Il also had a penchant for Hennessy Paradis cognac and for two years in the mid-1990s, he was the world's largest buyer of Hennessy Paradis cognac, importing up to $800,000 of the stuff a year.  Kim Jong-Il began his career as the head of the state’s propaganda and agitation department and its clear that Kim Jong-Un's sister Kim Yo Jong who holds the same role and evidently handles all the optics, is a chip off the old Block. Friday was tip-top Geopolitical Optics. Mike Pompeo, the newly minted US Secretary of State [His predecessor was fired via Twitter] had visited Pyongyang the previous week and pronounced; that the young North Korean leader was "a smart guy who's doing his homework"

They all have had tiny little hands like the Elves in the Elves and the Shoemaker. And this country has nuclear weapons and on its border with its neighbour South Korea sit 25,000 American soldiers.

"SARS-CoV-2 was passaged two times on VeroE6 and FeCoV was passaged five times on FeA cells [...] No evolution in the consensus sequence was identified, suggesting previous adaptation to cell culture for both strains."

It is impossible to ignore the introduction of a PRRA insert between S1 and S2: it sticks out like a splinter. This insert creates the furin cleavage site

It is a new virus that has been classified in the Family: Coronaviridae, Subfamily: Orthocoronaviridae, Genus: Beta Coronavirus, Subgenus: Sarbecovirus.Protein S on the surface of coronaviruses is responsible for its binding to the cellular receptor and the fusion process with its membrane, making it a determining factor in tropism and transmission capacity in a new host. The caves where the viruses with the most similarity to SARS-VOC-2 were found were collected in the Yunnan caves almost 1500 km from Wuhan. In no natural way could these bats have reached the place where the pandemic originated [31].Like many other viruses with the RNA genome, the mutation rate of coronaviruses is 10-nucleotide substitutions (x position and year), occurring basically in the first replicative cycles. It is therefore surprising that the study of the genome of 104 SARS-Cov-2 viruses, isolated from Wuhan patients between December 2019 and February 2020, showed a homology of 99.9% in their sequences. This data suggests that this new coronavirus originated from a single source in a very short period and was detected very early in the first days of its human spread SARS-CoV-2 binds with a high affinity for human ACE2, which would imply that a new optimal joining solution.” They also comment that “the second notable feature of SARS-CoV-2 is a predictive polybasic cleavage site (RRAR) at the leading protein at the junction of S1 and S2, the two subunits of the S protein.It is important to note that although very similar, the BatCoV-RaTG1 differs from the SARS-CoV-2 by at least 1,100 bases [40]. This volume is a “genetic abyss” to be explained by a simple viral mutation. Remarkably, this approach surprisingly revealed that the binding energy between SARS-CoV-2 protein S and human ACE2 was higher than for all tested species, including the bat, the postulated source of the virus.In contrast, SARS-CoV-2 expresses in its protein S, 12 extra letters (ccu cgg cgg gca) that constitute a cut-off point for a third scissors: furin. This makes a great evolutionary difference, since furin is present in almost all human cells. Indeed, the numerous pathways to the cell for SARS-CoV-2 have made it known to some researchers as the supervirus

Lockdowns, flight cancellations, and border closures are interfering with vacation plans. Costa Rica, Greece, Morocco, Portugal, and Thailand could be among the hardest hit with losses in tourism proceeds exceeding 3% of GDP

What’s clear is that a very young, very informed and very connected African youth demographic [many characterise this as a ‘demographic dividend’] – which for Beautiful Blaise turned into a demographic terminator – is set to alter the existing equilibrium between the rulers and the subjects, and a re-balancing has begun.

The State case against  @DougColtart & several other Zimbabwean patriots - on charges in essence that reading Paulo Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" amounts to fomenting violent civil disobedience - is in disarray today with State witnesses unable to justify the offence.

Meroe’s pyramids, lined neatly in rows, rise as high as 100 feet toward the sky. “It’s like opening a fairytale book,” a friend once said to me.“Western archaeologists, including Reisner, were trying to find Egypt in Sudan, not Sudan in Sudan,” Bonnet told me.

A strong resemblance to Luxor Temple has led some scholars to suggest that both complexes were built by the same architect. (Matt Stirn)

Inside the tomb of King Tantamani, circa 650 B.C, in El-Kurru, the site of royal burials during Egypt’s 25th Dynasty, when Kush conquered Egypt and initiated the reign of the “Black Pharaohs.”  (Matt Stirn)

For years, Kushite sites throughout Sudan remained little visited, but the overthrow of authoritarian President Omar al-Bashir energized a nascent tourism industry. (Matt Stirn)

The style of the burials, adorned with white pebbles and marked by black stones, can be traced to the pre-Islamic city of Kerma, from the third millennium B.C., indicating the continuity of Nubian ritual traditions. (Matt Stirn)