Marks

A heart on two legs. Learning, growing and self-optimizing. #Kaizer Chiefs ✌🏾 #Arsenal

[Piers Morgan @piersmorgan]

Nobody less deserving of that than @biel_m04 . He’s been an absolute hero all season.
I love you, Gabriel. ❤��

[Piers Morgan @piersmorgan]

Humble pie?

[Mesut Özil @M10]

Congratulations, Champions! 🏆

[Guinness World Records @GWR]

Congratulations to Max Dowman, who has become the youngest person to win the Premier League 🏆

[Arsenal @Arsenal]

ONE. TO. GO.

🤝 Presented by @deel

[Leandro Trossard @LTrossard]

One step closer.

[AFC Bournemouth 🍒 @afcbournemouth]

We are ready 👊

[nyakego @NyakegoMaponya]

Discovered this place at Tzaneen mall today, it’s a study area and all their services are free. F2 is all the courses they offer for free also, you get a certificate and recommendation letter after completion.

[Peter Girnus 🦅 @gothburz]

I am a diplomatic aide in the Sultanate of Oman's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

My job is logistics. When two countries that cannot speak to each other need to speak to each other, I book the rooms. I prepare the briefing materials. I make sure the water glasses are the right distance apart. You would be surprised how much of diplomacy is water glasses. Too close and it feels informal. Too far and it feels like a tribunal. I have a chart.

We had a very good month.

Since January, Oman has been mediating indirect talks between the United States and Iran on Iran's nuclear program. The talks were held in Muscat and in Geneva. The Americans would sit in one room. The Iranians would sit in another room. I would walk between them. My Fitbit says I averaged fourteen thousand steps on negotiation days. The hallway between the two rooms at the Royal Opera House conference center is forty-seven meters. I walked it two hundred and twelve times in February. This is good for my cardiovascular health. It was less good for my knees. Both are in the service of peace.

By mid-February, we had something.

Iran agreed to zero stockpiling of enriched uranium. Not reduced stockpiling. Zero. They agreed to down-blend existing stockpiles to the lowest possible level. They agreed to convert them into irreversible fuel. They agreed to full IAEA verification with potential US inspector access. They agreed, in the Foreign Minister's phrase, to "never, ever" possess nuclear material for a bomb. I have worked in diplomacy for seven years. I have never seen a country agree to this many things this quickly. I made a spreadsheet of the concessions. It had fourteen rows. I color-coded it. Green for confirmed. Yellow for pending. By February 21 the spreadsheet was entirely green. I printed it. It is on my desk in Muscat. It is still green.

That phrase took eleven days. "Never, ever." The Iranians initially offered "not seek to." The Americans wanted "will not under any circumstances." We landed on "never, ever" at 2:14 AM on a Tuesday in Muscat. I typed the final version myself. I used Times New Roman because Geneva prefers it. The document was fourteen pages. I was proud of every comma.

Here is what they said, in the order they said it.

February 24: "We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity." — The Foreign Minister, private briefing to Gulf Cooperation Council ambassadors. I prepared the slide deck. Slide 14 was the implementation timeline. Slide 15 was the signing ceremony logistics. I had reserved the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Room XX. It seats four hundred. We discussed pen brands for the signing. The Iranians preferred Montblanc. The Americans had no preference. I ordered twelve Montblanc Meisterstucks at six hundred and thirty dollars each. They arrive on Tuesday.

February 27, 8:30 AM EST: "The deal is within our reach." — The Foreign Minister, CBS Face the Nation. He sat across from Margaret Brennan. He said broad political terms could be agreed "tomorrow" with ninety days for technical implementation in Vienna. He said, and I wrote this line for the briefing card he carried in his breast pocket: "If we just allow diplomacy the space it needs." He praised the American envoys by name. Steve Witkoff. Jared Kushner. He said both had been constructive.

I watched from the Four Seasons Georgetown. The minibar had cashews. I ate the cashews. They were nineteen dollars. The most expensive cashew I have ever eaten. But it was a good morning and we were within our reach.

February 27, 2:00 PM EST: Meeting with Vice President Vance, Washington. The Foreign Minister presented our progress. Zero stockpiling. Full verification. Irreversible conversion. "Never, ever." The Vice President used the word "encouraging." His aide took notes on an iPad. The aide did not make eye contact for the last nine minutes of the meeting. I noticed this. Noticing things is the only part of my job that is not water glasses.

February 27, 4:00 PM EST: "Not happy with the pace." — President Trump, to reporters.

Not happy with the pace.

We had achieved zero stockpiling. Full IAEA verification. Irreversible fuel conversion. Inspector access. And the phrase "never, ever," which took eleven days and cost me two hundred and twelve trips down a forty-seven-meter hallway.

Every American president since Carter has failed to get Iran to agree to this. Forty-five years.

Not happy with the pace.

February 27, 9:47 PM EST: The Foreign Minister's flight departs Dulles for Muscat. I am in the seat behind him. He is reviewing Slide 14 on his laptop. The implementation timeline. Vienna technical sessions. The signing ceremony. The pens.

I fall asleep over the Atlantic. I dream about water glasses.

February 28, 6:00 AM GST: I wake up to push notifications.

February 28: "The United States has begun major combat operations in Iran." — President Trump.

Operation Epic Fury. Coordinated airstrikes. The United States and Israel. Tehran. Isfahan. Qom. Karaj. Kermanshah. Nuclear facilities. IRGC bases. Sites near the Supreme Leader's office. Israel called their half Operation Roaring Lion. Someone in both governments spent time choosing these names. Epic Fury. Roaring Lion. I spent eleven days on "never, ever." They spent it on branding. The President said Iran had "rejected American calls to halt its nuclear weapons production."

Rejected.

Iran had agreed to zero stockpiling. Iran had agreed to full verification. Iran had agreed to "never, ever." Iran had agreed to everything in a fourteen-page document that I typed in Times New Roman.

The President said they rejected it.

I do not know which document the President was reading. I know which one I typed.

February 28, 18:45 UTC: Iran internet connectivity: four percent. — NetBlocks, confirmed by Cloudflare. Ninety-six percent of a country went dark. You cannot negotiate with a country at four percent connectivity. You cannot negotiate with a country that is being struck. You cannot negotiate. This is not a political opinion. This is a logistics assessment.

February 28: The governor of Minab reported forty girls killed at an elementary school.

I do not have logistics for that. There is no slide for that. The water glass chart does not cover that.

February 28: Lockheed Martin: up. Northrop Grumman: up. RTX: up. Dow futures: down six hundred and twenty-two points. Gold: five thousand two hundred and ninety-six dollars. An analyst at AInvest published a note titled "Iran Strikes: Tactical Plays." The note recommended positions in oil, defense stocks, and gold.

The most expensive cashew I have ever eaten was nineteen dollars. The most expensive pen I have ever ordered was six hundred and thirty dollars. The math suggests I have been working in the wrong industry. Defense stocks do not require water glasses. Defense stocks do not require eleven days. Defense stocks require one morning.

February 28: Israel closed its airspace and its schools. Iran launched retaliatory missiles toward US bases in the Gulf. The Supreme Leader promised a "crushing response." Israel's defense minister declared a permanent state of emergency. Everyone is using words I recognize in an order I do not. I recognize "permanent." I recognize "emergency." I do not recognize them next to each other. In diplomacy, nothing is permanent and everything is an emergency. In war it is the reverse.

February 28: The Foreign Minister has not made a public statement.

The briefing card is still in his breast pocket. It still says "within our reach."

[Uri Kurlianchik @VerminusM]

Maduro has forgotten the #1 rule of geopolitics, recorded by Thucydides almost 2,500 years ago: " Rules exist between equals. The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."

[Black @LilithBlack25]

“I have seen the graves of those who didn’t fight fearing they will die.” - Ernesto Che Guevara

[Cathy Mohlahlana @CathyMohlahlana]

Some good news to share fam, we walked away with the Best News and Actuality Show, and Best Talk Show at the #RadioAwards this weekend. Thank you for believing in the #NationalRoundtable and being part of conversations that move us 🙏🏾 🙌🏾 ❤️ 💙 #TheTalkingPoint

[Marks @sa_ummeli]

@Xprofessorrr @sa_ummeli

[Marks @sa_ummeli]

@Joshwydd_ Game of Thrones

[Ebere @EbereEze10]

I swear imma make It and when I do, they're gunna show this tweet lol

[David Hundeyin @DavidHundeyin]

The British head of state is an unelected hereditary monarch called Charles Windsor, and he Britiah upper house of parliament (House of Lords) is made up of 800 unelected life members drawn from the UK elite who have the power to introduce legislation and delay bills from the (elected) House of Commons.

The more you step out of the mental cage that colonisers created for you, the more you realise that "democracy" is just a story they have told very successfully - the power structure at the core of their society is NOT democratic, and the core processes that define their societies are guided by elite consensus and NOT 1-man-1-vote.

If African countries have competent leadership that understands and aspires to sovereignty, Africans should learn to completely ignore these white people when they start using their loaded terms like "junta" and "regime" to narratively attack their legitimacy.

Ibrahim Traore has been in power in Burkina Faso since 2022. The House of Windsor has been in power in the UK since 1826, when it was still known by its original German name "House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha." Before having anything to say about Ibrahim Traore and Burkina Faso, the BBC should first explain to British people why they have spent 199 years under the control of one family and its 800 elite associates from finance, industry, arts & culture, and academia.

They should fix their "junta" at home in Westminster before rubbernecking their long oyibo necks 6,000 km across the Atlantic at a country on another continent. Nobody is buying this nonsense.

[Olúwashínà Òkélèjì @oluwashina]

“Is there ever a tournament more disrespected than the Africa Cup of Nations? There is no greater honour than representing your country. The coverage is completely tinged with racism.” - Ian Wright, December 2021.

[AKA @akaworldwide]

PROTECT SOUTH AFRICA AT ALL COSTS.

[Haz Al-Din 🇷🇺 @InfraHaz]

🇿🇦 The real reason South Africa is being targeted by the US regime is because global financial capitalists are afraid South Africa is going to nationalize the banks, precious minerals and resources.

It's got nothing to do with race. People need to stop falling for obvious psyops.

White Americans have NOTHING in common with Boers. Boers may look similar, but they are completely different. White Americans have much more in common with black Americans than boers.

The 'white genocide in South Africa' myth is part of the Zionist and capitalist agenda to undermine the sovereignty of nations and punish critics of 'Israel.'

Recall that South Africa has been a very vocal opponent of the Zionist genocide and the freedom movement has always had close ties with the Palestinians.

"Racialism" is not patriotism. Americans should not owe any group their support just because they have a similar skin color.

South Africa is not America's problem.

[Emerald van Zyl @interrec]

Standard Bank's overcharged of R 192 610.24 on the mortgage of a poor black women is going to be published internationally by Africa's largest newspaper
Daily Nation. This will show the world how black people in South Africa are treated by banks.