In 1980, a French engineer who was employed by the Nzoia Sugar Company at a factory in Kenya within sight of Mt. Elgon developed Marburg and died. He was an amateur naturalist who spent time camping and hiking around Mt. Elgon, and he had recently visited a cavern on the Kenyan side of the mountain which was known as Kitum Cave. It wasn’t clear where the Frenchman had picked up the virus, whether at the sugar factory or outdoors. Then, in the late summer of 1987, a Danish boy whose name will be given here as Peter Cardinal visited the Kenyan side of Mt. Elgon with his parents—the Cardinals were tourists—and the boy broke with Marburg and died. Epidemiologists at usamriid became interested in the cases, and they traced the movements of the French engineer and the Danish boy in the days before their illnesses and deaths. The result was weird. The paths of the French engineer and the Danish boy had crossed only once—in Kitum Cave. Peter Cardinal had gone inside Kitum Cave. As for the Ugandan trappers who had collected the original Marburg monkeys, they might have poached them from the Kenyan side of Mt. Elgon. Those monkeys might have lived near Kitum Cave, and might even have occasionally visited the cave. Mt. Elgon is a huge, eroded volcanic massif, fifty miles across—one of the largest volcanoes in East Africa. Kitum Cave is one of a number of caverns that penetrate Mt. Elgon at an altitude of around eight thousand feet and open their mouths in a deep forest of podo trees, African junipers, African olives, and camphors. Kitum Cave descends into tight passages and underground pools that extend an unknown distance back into Mt. Elgon. The volcanic rock within Kitum Cave is permeated with mineral salts. Elephants go inside the cave to root out chunks of salty rock with their tusks and chew on them. Water buffalo also visit the cave to lick the rocks, and they may be followed into the cave by leopards. Fruit bats and insect-eating bats roost in the cave, filling the air with a sour smell. The animals drop their dung in the cave—an enclosed airspace—and they attract biting flies and carry ticks and mites. The volcanic rock contains petrified logs, the remains of trees that were enveloped in lava, and the logs are filled with sharp crystals. Peter Cardinal may have handled crystals inside the cave and scratched his hands. Possibly the crystals were tainted with animal urine or the remains of an insect. The Army keeps some of Peter Cardinal’s tissues frozen in cryovials, and the Cardinal strain is viciously hot. It kills guinea pigs like flies. In February, 1988, a few months after Peter Cardinal died, the Army sent a team of epidemiologists to Kitum Cave. The team wore Racal suits inside the cave. A Racal is a lightweight pressurized suit with a filtered air supply, used for hot operations in the field. There is no vaccine for Marburg, and the Army people had come to believe that the virus could be spread through the air. Near and inside the cave they set out, in cages, guinea pigs and primates—baboons, green monkeys, and Sykes’ monkeys—and they surrounded the cages with electrified wire to discourage predators. The guinea pigs and monkeys were sentinel animals, like canaries in a coal mine: they were placed there in the theory or the hope that some of them would develop Marburg. With the help of Kenyan naturalists, the Army team trapped as many different kinds of wild mammals as they could find, including rodents, rock hyraxes, and bats, and drew blood from them. They collected insects. Some local people, the il-Kony, had lived in some of the caves. A Kenyan doctor from the Kenya Medical Research Institute, in Nairobi, drew blood from these people and took their medical histories. At the far end of Kitum Cave, where it disappears in pools of water, the Army team found a population of sand flies. They mashed some flies and tested them for Marburg. The expedition was a dry hole. The sentinel animals remained healthy, and the blood and tissue samples from the mammals, insects, arthropods, and local people showed no obvious signs of Marburg. To this day, the natural reservoir of Marburg is unknown. Marburg lives somewhere in the shadow of Mt. Elgon.

In just a few short months, the U.S.-Chinese relationship seems to have returned to an earlier, more primal age.

’Tit for Tat’’ went ‘’Rat a Tat Tat’’

#China & #Netherlands daily #COVID19 cases more than doubled past two weeks. #Japan now averaging >1k/day new cases/day. #Ethiopia & #Libya total cases growing by 4% per day.  #Philippines averaging 3.5k/day new cases/day. #Nepal, #Maldives, & #Poland growth rates accelerating.

He wants to build an all-seeing digital system of social control, patrolled by precog algorithms that identify potential dissenters in real time.

Xi’s model is one of technocratic authoritarianism and a recent addition to his book shelf include The Master Algorithm by Pedro Domingos. Xi is building an Algorithmic Society.

 “Not getting to the bottom of this crisis would be the height of absurdity. Too much is at stake. To ensure everyone’s safety, the WHO and outside investigators must be empowered to explore all relevant questions about the origins of the pandemic without limits. This comprehensive forensic investigation must include full access to all of the scientists, biological samples, laboratory records and other materials from the Wuhan virology institutes and other relevant Chinese organizations. Denying that access should be considered an admission of guilt by Beijing.”

There is also a non negligible possibility that #COVID19 was deliberately released – Wuhan is to the CCP as Idlib is to the Syrian Regime – and propagated world wide.

I marvel that if someone attacked the homeland with a biological weapon and killed 150,000 people, the Tom Cottons of the country would be like “let’s go to war on this enemy” instead of “hey, I’m not wearing that piece of fabric.”

But last week ended with a distinct variation of the theme. The 10-year real yield dropped below minus 1% for the first time since inflation-protected Treasury bonds have been on issue. 

Vanity[a] of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. 11 There is no remembrance of former things,[c] nor will there be any remembrance of later things[d] yet to be among those who come after.

Gold’s Like a ‘Freight Train’ and May Top $3,000, RBC Forecasts: should the global situation deteriorate materially, RBC Capital Markets said a note, with that outlook representing its bull-case scenario which has a 40% probability.

The 2nd was the weakness in USD w/Dollar Index DXY dropping most in a single mth since Sep2010.

Focus on the big picture. Don’t overact on short-term pullbacks.

The number of confirmed cases in Africa has been rising by about 30% a week over the past month, but is set to incline steeply now.

The country has entered full-on dictatorship.

Can’t think many countries on declining debt trajectory in 2020 #Egypt appears to be first 1/2. But wonder what Jul-Dec will look like. “Minister Finance said public debt expected to decline to 86.2% of GDP in Jun-20, was 90.4% in Jun-19, 108% in Jun-17”

''My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare. The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

This is a polite way of saying that years of negative per capita GDP growth and the prospect of more to come + an FX regime which at best is complicated, is hurting foreign investment in Nigeria. Given a C/A deficit and low savings, this is a problem for investment& GDP growth

Kenya's Benchmark Stock Market Index NSE 20 Hits 17 Year Low @TheAbojani