Register and its all Free.

If you are tracking the NSE Do it via RICHLIVE and use Mozilla Firefox
as your Browser.
0930-1500 KENYA TIME
Normal Board - The Whole shebang
Prompt Board Next day settlement
Expert Board All you need re an Individual stock.

My Weekly Piece for the Star

The past week, a lady called Angel Jones came by my office. She has set up
a web site for the diaspora called the ‘Homecoming Revolution’ and she
asked me;

“So Aly-Khan why did you come back home?” And I said, “You know Angel,
people often ask me that

question. And the question is sometimes constructed this way.”

“Aly-Khan, If you had such a good job in London, Why did you come back?” I
said I probably find that the most annoying question of any question I am
ever asked.

I then quoted Nasim Taleb to Angel.

They are born, then put in a box; they go home to live in a box; they study
by ticking boxes; they go to what is called “work” in a box, where they sit
in their cubicle box; they drive to the grocery store in a box to buy food
in a box;

And as I waited for My Taxi in La Rustique I came across

“The more languages I read and the more books I read, my world became
bigger.”

“Men ought to be liberated from themselves because unless men are free,
women can't be free. If one of them is in chains, the other one will be
taken into chains as well.”

Macro Thoughts

Home Thoughts

We had Hannah's Birthday Party Saturday.

I was surrounded with even more Girls than I normally am. We had a lovely
Time.

In the midst of the Second World War, Joseph Stalin, seized by one of his
historic fits of paranoia and cruelty, declared the Chechen people disloyal
to the U.S.S.R. and banished them from their homeland in the northern
Caucasus to Central Asia and the Siberian wastes. Tens of thousands of
Chechens, along with members of other small ethnic groups from the Caucasus
and the Crimean Peninsula, died in the mass deportation or soon after—some
from cold, some from starvation. The Tsarnaev family eventually settled in
a town called Tokmok, in Kyrgyzstan, not far from the capital, Bishkek.

Anzor Tsarnaev, an ethnic Chechen who lived much of his life in Kyrgyzstan,
emigrated a decade ago to the Boston area with his wife, two daughters, and
two sons.

Anzor’s elder son, Tamerlan, appeared never to connect fully with American
life. “I don’t have a single American friend,” Tamerlan told a photographer
named Johannes Hirn, who asked to take pictures of him training as a boxer.
“I don’t understand them.” He studied, indifferently, at Bunker Hill
Community College, for an engineering degree. He described himself as “very
religious”; he didn’t smoke or drink. Twenty-six and around two hundred
pounds, he boxed regularly at Wai Kru Mixed Martial Arts. He loved “Borat”
(“even though some of the jokes are a bit too much”). He had a daughter,
but scant stability. Three years ago, he was arrested for domestic assault
and battery. (“In America, you can’t touch a woman,” Anzor told the Times.)

 When I think about this, I have to ask, was he forced to do this? Was he
brainwashed? It’s so out of character. And you have to remember—he was a
stoner. He was really into marijuana. And generally guys like that are very
calm, cool.”

Essah Chisholm, a fellow-wrestler, said, “He was a cool dude.” But when
Chisholm and a couple of his friends saw photographs of the Tsarnaev
brothers on television Thursday night, they called the F.B.I. tip line.
Late that night, the armed confrontation began—a shoot-out, a furious
chase, hurled bombs. “It’s mind-boggling,” Chisholm said on Friday
afternoon. “Every time I see his name on TV, it’s just unbelievable. To see
Dzhokhar’s name, to see his face. I think this had to do with his older
brother. Unless he was some sort of sleeper agent, I think his brother had
a pretty strong influence. Tamerlan maybe felt like he didn’t belong, and
he might have brainwashed Dzhokhar into some radical view that twisted
things in the Koran.”

Dzhokhar’s Twitter feed—@J_tsar—is a bewildering combination of banality
and disaffection. (He seems to have been tweeting even after the explosions
at the finish line last Monday.) As you scan it, you encounter a young
man’s thoughts: his jokes, his resentments, his prejudices, his faith, his
desires.

March 14, 2012—a decade in america already, I want out
August 16, 2012—The value of human life ain’t shit nowadays that’s #tragic
August 22, 2012—I am the best beer pong player in Cambridge. I am the #truth
September 1, 2012—Idk why it’s hard for many of you to accept that 9/11 was
an inside job. I mean I guess fuck the facts y’all are some real #patriots
#gethip
December 24, 2012—Brothers at the mosque either think I’m a convert or that
I’m from Algeria or Syria, just the other day a guy asked me how I came to
Islam
January 15, 2013—I don’t argue with fools who say islam is terrorism it’s
not worth a thing, let an idiot remain an idiot
March 13, 2013—Never try to fork a mini tomato while wearing a white shirt,
it will explode
April 10, 2013—Gain knowledge, get women, acquire currency #livestrong
April 15, 2013—Ain’t no love in the heart of the city, stay safe people
April 15, 2013—There are people that know the truth but stay silent & there
are people that speak the truth but we don’t hear them cuz they’re the
minority
April 16, 2013—I’m a stress free kind of guy

 But, as the day was coming to an end, you could not help but feel
something, too, for the parents of the perpetrators, neither of whom could
fathom the possibility of their sons’ guilt, much less their cruelty and
evil. Interviewed at their apartment in Makhachkala, the capital city of
Dagestan, they spoke of a “setup,” an F.B.I. plot. The mother, Zubeidat
Tsarnaeva, told the television station Russia Today, “Every single day, my
son used to call me and ask me, ‘How are you, Mama?’ Both of them. ‘Mama,
we love you.’ . . . My son never would keep a secret.” The father described
Dzhokhar as an “angel.” By the end of Friday (Saturday morning in Dagestan)
their sons were gone—one dead, the other wounded, hospitalized, and under
arrest.

The Tsarnaev family had been battered by history before—by empire and the
strife of displacement, by exile and emigration. Asylum in a bright new
land proved little comfort. When Anzor fell sick, a few years ago, he
resolved to return to the Caucasus; he could not imagine dying in America.
He had travelled halfway around the world from the harrowed land of his
ancestors, but something had drawn him back. The American dream wasn’t for
everyone. What they could not anticipate was the abysmal fate of their
sons, lives destroyed in a terror of their own making. The digital era
allows no asylum from extremism, let alone from the toxic combination of
high-minded zealotry and the curdled disappointments of young men. A decade
in America already, I want out. ♦

BLOOD AND TRAGEDY: THE CAUCASUS IN THE LITERARY IMAGINATION New yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/04/blood-and-tragedy-the-caucuses-in-the-literary-imagination.html

At the beginning of “The Cossacks,” Leo Tolstoy’s early novel about
imperial Russia’s military campaign in the Caucasus, the protagonist Olenin
muses about the battles to come: “All his dreams about the future were
connected with… Circassian maids, mountains, precipices, fearsome torrents
and dangers.” He imagines, with predictable vigor, “killing and subduing a
countless number of mountaineers.” Much less predictably, he identifies
himself with the Central Asian people he is being sent to subjugate: “He
was himself one of the mountaineers, helping them to defend their
independence against the Russians.”

That subjugation of the Caucasus would continue for another two centuries,
culminating in the two successive wars waged by Yeltsin and Putin. From
somewhere within that region—it is not clear where, exactly—emerged the
Tsarnaev family, immigrating (apparently) to the Boston area about a decade
ago. On Monday, the two Tsarnaev brothers—Dzhokhar and Tamerlan—allegedly
committed the first act of terror on American soil since 9/11.

For Russian writers of the nineteenth century, being banished to the
Caucasus was usually a sign that one was on the path to glory. Pushkin’s
democratic poem “Ode to Liberty” earned him banishment to “the south” for
the next three years, where he wrote “A Prisoner in the Caucasus.” Removed
from his beloved Petersburg, he nevertheless found inspiration in this
foreign land where, as the work’s dedication has it, “warlike raiders roam
the hills / and a wild imagination / lies in ambush in the empty silence.”

Of nighttime passage through the mountains, Lermontov writes, “To the right
and left of us were gloomy, mysterious chasms, into which the mists crept
down, billowing and writhing like serpents…. All was quiet in the heavens
and on the earth, as it is in the human heart at morning prayer.” Reading
the book today, I am reminded, oddly enough, of “Apocalypse Now,” of
journeys that are as perilous within as they are without.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union gave rise to the tumult that the
Tsarnaev family apparently fled in hopes of a calmer life in the United
States. The story of the Tsarnaev brothers—if they are indeed responsible
for the bombing in Boston—spills well out of the boundaries of the
Caucasian region. But it is tied to the stories of blood, lust, and tragedy
that Russians have been writing about for a good two centuries.

*Alexander Nazaryan is on the editorial board of the New York Daily News,
where he edits the Page Views book blog.

L'etranger Albert Camus
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/64/Camus23.jpg/250px-Camus23.jpg

“I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world.” ― Albert Camus,
L'etranger
http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/3324344-l-tranger

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible
summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the
world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something
better, pushing right back.”

“It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of
hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for
the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference
of the universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me
realize that I'd been happy, and that I was happy still. For all to be
accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was
that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators
and that they should greet me with howls of execration.”

*“Since we're all going to die, it's obvious that when and how don't
matter.”*

“Mostly, I could tell, I made him feel uncomfortable. He didn't understand
me, and he was sort of holding it against me. I felt the urge to reassure
him that I was like everybody else, just like everybody else. But really
there wasn't much point, and I gave up the idea out of laziness.”

“*I knew that I had shattered the harmony of the day, the exceptional
silence of a beach where I'd been happy*. Then I fired four more times at
the motionless body where the bullets lodged without leaving a trace. And
it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness. ”

“I was assailed by memories of a life that wasn't mine anymore, but one in
which I'd found the simplest and most lasting joys: the smells of summer,
the part of town I loved, a certain evening sky, Marie's dresses and the
way she laughed.”

“*The Byronic hero, incapable of love, or capable only of an impossible
love, suffers endlessly. He is solitary, languid, his condition exhausts
him. If he wants to feel alive, it must be in the terrible exaltation of a
brief and destructive action*.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

The Tsarnaev brothers were double agents who decoyed US into terror trap
Debka
http://www.debka.com/article/22914/The-Tsarnaev-brothers-were-double-agents-who-decoyed-US-into-terror-trap

The conclusion reached by DEBKAfile’s counterterrorism and intelligence
sources is that the brothers were double agents, hired by US and Saudi
intelligence to penetrate the Wahhabi jihadist networks which, helped by
Saudi financial institutions, had spread across the restive Russian
Caucasian.

Instead, the two former Chechens betrayed their mission and went secretly
over to the radical Islamist networks.

The Saudis feared that their convoluted involvement in the Caucasus would
come embarrassingly to light when a Saudi student was questioned about his
involvement in the bombng attacks while in a Boston hospital with badly
burned hands.

They were concerned to enough to send Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saudi
al-Faisal to Washington Wednesday, April 17, in the middle of the Boston
Marathon bombing crisis, for a private conversation with President Barack
Obama and his national security adviser Tom Donilon on how to handle the
Saudi angle of the bombing attack.

Grozny, Chechnya, August, 1995. Chechens celebrating the peace. Photograph
by Thomas Dworzak.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/photobooth/2012/11/photographs-from-magnum-revolution-65-years-of-fighting-for-freedom.html#slide_ss_0=5

EXECUTIONS: Prospekt Pobedy in Grozny, November 1995, Chechen Republic,
Russia, November 1995. Stanley Greene/NOOR
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/photobooth/2012/09/war-photography-museum-of-fine-arts-houston.html#slide_ss_0=16

Tiananmen Square, China, 1989. Photograph by Stuart Franklin
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/photobooth/2012/11/photographs-from-magnum-revolution-65-years-of-fighting-for-freedom.html#slide_ss_0=9

For several hours each year on the third Monday of April, the 600 block of
Boylston Street in Boston is the most surveilled place on Earth Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-19/boston-s-surreal-crowdsourced-manhunt.html

For several hours each year on the third Monday of April, the 600 block of
Boylston Street inBoston is the most surveilled place on Earth. Television
crews, news and commercial photographers, Web videographers, friends,
family, tourists -- and, not incidentally, law enforcement -- all have
their electronic eyes trained on the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

This partly explains the whiplash speed of the investigation into this
week’s bombings. With so much information, a break in the case was
inevitable. So were missteps. That’s what happens when you crowdsource a
manhunt.

As much as it may seem otherwise, technology isn’t a disembodied force over
which we have no control, like the weather. Digital technology may be
binary, but the issues it raises are not. Closed-circuit televisions and
webcams, for example, may enable both better law enforcement and more
criminal behavior. They will probably enhance security as well as violate
privacy. The question is whether the benefits outweigh the costs.

The answers to such questions are almost entirely situational. No one can
plausibly argue that CCTVs weren’t useful this week in Boston; one from a
department store provided the FBI with crucial video of a man dropping a
suspicious backpack on Monday.

The more general question, about the role of surveillance in an open
society, is harder. New York City has 82 cameras in Times Square alone. Who
is permitted to view that video, and when? For what purpose?

Our guess is that Americans will soon engage in a similar debate. But
remember that surveillance is no longer simply a government or corporate
enterprise: The cameras are us. Armed with our phones, we are the lens, a
nation of eyewitnesses aided by technology and connected by an electronic
web.

“Everyone is watching.” This is what made the Boston Marathon such a
tempting target in the first place. It’s also what may bring the
perpetrators to justice.

"The bottom line is that Iran is a threat, a real threat," Hagel
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/21/us-israel-usa-hagel-idUSBRE93K03K20130421

The first stop on Hagel's week-long Middle East trip came two days after
the Pentagon said it was finalizing a deal to strengthen the militaries of
Israel and two of Iran's key rivals - Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates.

The deal includes the sale of KC-135 aerial refueling tankers, anti-air
defense missiles and tilt-rotor V-22 Osprey troop transport planes to
Israel as well as the sale of 25 F-16 Fighting Falcon jets to the UAE.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia would also be allowed to purchase weapons with
so-called "stand-off" capabilities enabling them to engage an enemy with
precision at a distance.

Asked if the arms deal sent a message that the military option was on the
table if Tehran moved to build a nuclear weapon, Hagel said: "I don't think
there's any question that that's another very clear signal to Iran."

Asked about renewed debate in the Israeli media that Israel might have to
strike Iran by itself, Hagel said "every sovereign nation has the right to
defend itself and protect itself".

"Iran presents a threat in its nuclear program and Israel will make the
decisions that Israel must make to protect itself and defend itself," he
said.

Police Terrorize Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei on U.K. Stage Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-21/police-terrorize-chinese-artist-ai-weiwei-on-u-k-stage.html

Ai Weiwei’s nightmare started at Beijing airport. He planned to fly to Hong
Kong. Instead he was held by officials and told not to demean himself by
making a fuss in front of his fellow passengers.

The scandal of how one of the world’s most famous artists was thrown in
jail, handcuffed, blindfolded and brutalized is the subject of a new play
at London’s Hampstead Theatre.

The hashtag in Howard Brenton’s title “#aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei”
refers to Ai’s use of Twitter, which infuriated the authorities. Brenton
painstakingly unpicks the April 2011 Chinese inquisition.

For the first time we know what really happened, according to Ai anyway,
because the script leans on conversations he had with journalist Barnaby
Martin for the book “Hanging Man.”

It’s worthy of Orwell, Pinter or Kafka. The bureaucratic bungling is
surreal, comical and disturbing.

“They are going to beat me to a pulp,” says Ai, who pretty quickly fears
the worst.

So did many in the West, when news of the arrest hit the airwaves. Ai had
simply vanished and was apparently being held for political reasons. As
governments protested, Chinafinally said he was being investigated for tax
evasion.

In the play, Ai’s first interrogator is from the murder squad, and he says:
“All that matters is, who did you kill?”

When Ai replies that he is an artist, he is accused of arrogance and told
he’s no more than an “art worker.”“You think this is some kind of theater,”
the policeman says. “You may be quite well known but I don’t know you at
all.”

It takes a long time for the ill-informed detectives to realize that they
are holding the designer of the Bird’s Nest Olympic stadium in Beijing and
the creator of the sunflower seed installation at Tate Modern in London.

“Your art costs sod-all to make and you flog it for a fortune,” they say,
accusing him of being a conman, liar, swindler, hooligan, pornographer and
bigamist. Ai is urged to admit a choice of crimes such as theft, subversion
of state power or plotting with “hostile forces.”

James Macdonald’s minimalist direction on a bare stage resembling a
box-shaped cell doesn’t convey the claustrophobic terror of events. The
guards gradually turn too nice. They share noodle recipes with him, tell
jokes, and by the end of his 81- day detention, admit their admiration for
Ai.

Not that the awfulness of what Ai lived through is understated: The
character of Ai is constantly told that he could be jailed forever unless
he cooperates.

This play matters to everyone who cares about freedom -- and about art.
Rating: ****.

Euro 1.3072
Dollar Index 82.75
Japan Yen 99.82 touched 99.89 just below a four-year high of 99.95 reached
on April 11
Swiss Franc 0.9323
Pound 1.5226 djfxtrader: *DJ Fitch Cuts U.K. 1 Notch to 'AA+' from 'AAA'
Aussie 1.0295
India Rupee 54.035
South Korea Won 1120.74 South Korean Finance Minister Hyun Oh Seok said in
Washington there is a “lot of impact from the falling yen”
Brazil Real 2.0083
Egypt Pound 6.9114
South Africa Rand 9.2057

In a communique after a two-day meeting on Friday, the G20 simply said it
would be "mindful" of possible side-effects from extended periods of
monetary stimulus, without singling out Japan as some had feared.

The yen has dropped 5.7 percent in the past month, the worst performer
among 10 developed nation currencies tracked by Bloomberg Correlation
Weighted Indexes. The euro has risen 1 percent and the dollar has gained
0.2 percent.

Dollar Yen 3 Month Chart INO 99.82 Last
http://quotes.ino.com/charting/index.html?s=FOREX_USDJPY&v=d3&t=c&a=50&w=1

BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, who oversees his second policy meeting this
week, said he was emboldened to press ahead with a campaign to defeat
deflation.

“Winning international understanding gives me more confidence to conduct
monetary policy appropriately,” Kuroda told reporters after the G-20
meeting that concluded April 19. “We will continue our qualitative and
quantitative easing for the next two years.”

It has dropped 5.6 percent since March, when it completed a sixth-straight
monthly drop in its longest losing stretch since 2001.

“The 2009 high comes in near 101.45 yen and is the next immediate target,”
Marc Chandler.

Nikkei ^N225 5 Year Chart Yahoo Finance 13,583.29 + 266.81(+2.00%) [Close
to 5 Year Highs]
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=%5EN225&t=5y&l=on&z=l&q=c&c=

Conclusions

There is a strong Inverse Correlation with the Yen.

The Nikkei 225, FTSE and Dow Jones compared 6 Month Chart Yahoo Finance
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=6m&s=%5EN225&l=on&z=l&q=c&c=%5EFTSE%2C+&ql=1&c=%5EGSPC

Euro versus the Dollar 3 Month Chart 1.3072 Last
http://quotes.ino.com/charting/index.html?s=FOREX_EURUSD&v=d3&t=c&a=50&w=1

Dollar Index 3 Month Chart INO 82.75 Last
http://quotes.ino.com/charting/index.html?s=NYBOT_DX&v=d3&t=c&a=50&w=1

Crude Oil 3 Month Chart INO 88.76 Last
http://quotes.ino.com/charting/index.html?s=NYMEX_CL.M13.E&v=d3&t=c&a=50&w=1

Gold 3 Month Chart INO 1421.89 Last
http://quotes.ino.com/charting/index.html?s=FOREX_XAUUSDO&v=d3&t=c&a=50&w=1

Gold rose more than 1 percent, pushing cash gold up as high as $1,421 an
ounce, well above its lowest in more than two years of $1,321.35 touched
last week.

SWISS BLISS | Artichoke stuffed with fresh vegetables at Mesa, in Zurich,
one of many fine-dining restaurants in Switzerland's business capital that
feature vegetarian menus. WSJ
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324030704578424554061970888.html

The top recipients of officially recorded remittances for 2012 are India
($69 billion), China ($60 billion), the Philippines ($24 billion), Mexico
($23 billion) and Nigeria and Egypt ($21 billion each). Other large
recipients include Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Lebanon.

As a percentage of GDP, the top recipients of remittances, in 2011, were
Tajikistan (47 percent), Liberia (31 percent), Kyrgyz Republic (29
percent), Lesotho (27 percent), Moldova (23 percent), Nepal (22 percent),
and Samoa (21 percent).

Frontier Markets

Mozambique's Renamo opposition movement rejected an offer of talks with the
government on Friday, keeping political tensions high after shootings this
month by suspected Renamo gunmen, the deadliest attacks in more than a
decade.

Renamo, originally an anti-communist guerrilla group that waged a 1975-1992
civil war in the mineral-rich southern African nation, said the proposed
location of the talks in a luxury hotel in the capital was "not dignified
enough for the importance of the meeting".

It also objected to the suggested start date for the talks on April 22.

The negotiations proposed by the ruling Frelimo party, Renamo's enemy in
the post-independence war, followed the killing of four policemen and three
civilians in ambushes by suspected Renamo gunmen this month.

Renamo has denied any involvement in the killings of the civilians, which
happened after gunmen ambushed a truck and two buses on the main
north-south highway through the nation.

The opposition group's anger stems from its desire to counter Frelimo's
almost total political dominance, including its de facto control of the
Election Commission, which next month starts voter registration for
elections due in the second half of 2014.

Analysts say Renamo is in no shape to launch a widespread guerrilla
campaign but many Mozambicans are worried that even the slightest unrest
could derail an unprecedented economic boom based on huge foreign
investment in coal mining and natural gas exploration.

The off-shore Rovuma field is believed to hold enough gas to supply
Germany, Britain, Franceand Italy for 15 years, and mining giants Vale and
Rio Tinto have invested nearly $10 billion in mines in Tete province, home
to some of the world's largest untapped coal deposits.

04-JUN-2012 Maputo, Boom Town
http://www.rich.co.ke/media/docs/040NSX0406.pdf

GREETINGS from the Serena Polana, Maputo. I can confirm that Maputo is the
land of wonderful and flavoursome tiger prawns.

The Architecture is also deliciously retro. By the way, the Polana was
built in 1922 and the flavour is fabulously Riviera and very swanky. It is
less than 4 hours by plane from Nairobi and surely set to be the most of in
things and places to visit.

Of course, Mozambique has popped large onto the global radar because of gas
reserves that have been discovered offshore and in the deep sea.

I have said before, that I believe the eastern seaboard of Africa is
clearly the last great energy prize in the c21st and I believe this lake of
hydrocarbons stretches from Mozambique
up through Tanzania, Kenya and Somalia. We remain in the early stage of
this discovery process but Mozambique is further along the curve.

MY memories of the Serena start in Mombasa years back when the manag- ing
director Mahmoud Jan Mohamed was the manager. I was then a teenager and
remember losing my heart to a girl, who would beat me at table tennis, in a
bikini. That table tennis is still there.

The Serena brand has always been sprinkled with a fairy dust and reminds me
of happy; joyful; carefree: halcyon days of youth. That brand equity was
appre- ciated last Thursday at the Grosvenor House where The Serena Hotels
won the “ Best Hospitality, Travel and Tourism in Africa” award at the
African Business Awards.

Zambia plans to follow last year’s sale of $750 million of overseas
securities with a $500 million to $1 billion offering in 2013 Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-18/zambia-1-billion-bonds-no-threat-to-debt-level-as-yields-climb.html

Zambia plans to follow last year’s sale of $750 million of overseas
securities with a $500 million to $1 billion offering in 2013 to help
finance infrastructure projects, Deputy Finance Minister Miles Sampa said
in a telephone interview from the capital, Lusaka. The country’s debt to
gross domestic product will remain under 40 percent, he said, compared with
South African debt forecast to peak at 40.3 percent of GDP in 2016 and more
than 100 percent for Italy, Portugaland Cyprus.

Yields on Zambia’s dollar-denominated bonds due September 2022 have jumped
27 basis points since being issued in September and reached 5.50 percent at
4:29 p.m. in Lusaka. The increase is more than double the advance in rates
on Senegal’s debt due in May 2021, also rated B+ by Standard & Poor’s. The
average yield on African dollar bonds has dropped nine basis points over
the period to 4.57 percent, while developing-nation debt on average yields
4.9 percent, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. indexes.

Zambia is seeking to fund road, rail and power projects to help lift its 13
million citizens out of poverty. The kwacha currency weakened 0.6 percent
to 5.355 per dollar by 4:00 p.m. in Lusaka, extending its decline this year
to 3.1 percent.

Higher relative yields helped Zambia draw 24 times more demand than it
sought when marketing notes in September to investors in London and the
U.S., spurring other African countries including Kenya, Angola and Tanzania
to consider international bond sales. Rwanda, which started roadshows this
week for its debut Eurobond, may boost the size of its $400 million
offering to meet demand, according to London-based Exotix Ltd. Tanzania’s
private sale of $600 million of bonds in March was four times
oversubscribed.

“The international liquidity window is open and ripe and may not be there
forever,” Sampa said in the April 16 interview. “It’s a question of
striking while the iron is still hot.”

State-owned companies, including power utility Zesco Ltd., the Roads
Development Agency and Zambia Railways Ltd. have said they plan to sell
their own bonds totaling as much as $4.5 billion. The finance ministry
would rather raise the money on behalf of the companies and then distribute
it, Sampa said. “We do not want a free for all.”

Investors may be under-estimating political risks, Eurasia Group Ltd., a
Washington-based consultancy, said in an April 11 report. President Michael
Sata’s “mercurial and autocratic governing style may present heightened
policy risk in an economic downturn or political crisis,” Eurasia analysts
including Clare Allenson said in the note.

“Swift changes in monetary policy and mining rules have been rushed,” she
said in an e-mailed reply to questions April 17. Zambia will probably pay a
higher yield at its next sale, Allenson said.

Sata fired the governor of the central bank and its board, reversed a
foreign takeover of a lender and halted mineral exports within two weeks of
taking office in September 2011.

Copper reached the lowest level in almost 18 months in London yesterday on
concern slowing growth from China to the U.S. will curb demand. Zambia,
which the International Monetary Fundsaid April 16 will expand its economy
by 7.8 percent in 2013, relies on copper exports for nearly 80 percent of
its foreign-currency earnings.

The government will probably implement a law allowing the central bank to
monitor and regulate foreign currency flows over “the next few days,” Sampa
said. The rules, which would require exporters to bank foreign currency
with Zambian lenders, will cause the kwacha to strengthen to below 5 per
dollar, he said in an interview on March 20. .

The finance ministry will consider hedging contracts for “a fraction” of
future foreign-currency bonds, Sampa said. It’s not planning hedges for
existing debt and will start putting dollars into a sinking fund once the
nation’s Eurobonds are in their third year, he said.

“Scenarios at the moment don’t warrant a currency swap,” Sampa said. “These
concerns on the kwacha and copper are only in the short-term, the prognosis
looks good for copper and the kwacha in medium- and long-term.”

Any new international debt sales would have to be approved by cabinet and
parliament, he said.

Putting in place a currency hedge on foreign-denominated debt would be a
“prudent strategy,” given fluctuations in the kwacha and copper prices,
said Standard Bank’s Babb.

Ghana Stock Exchange Composite Index Year To Date +48.67% Record Highs
http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/GGSECI:IND

Nigerian Stock Exchange All Share Index Year To Date:+18.85%
http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/NGSEINDX:IND

Dollar versus Rand 1 Year Chart INO 9.24310 Last
http://quotes.ino.com/charting/index.html?s=FOREX_USDZAR&v=d12&t=c&a=50&w=1

South Africa All Share Year To Date Year To Date -0.79%
http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/JALSH:IND

Egypt Pound versus The Dollar 3 Month Chart INO 6.9188 Last [Record Low]
http://quotes.ino.com/charting/index.html?s=FOREX_USDEGP&v=d3&t=c&a=50&w=1

Egypt EGX 30 Price Return Index Bloomberg Year To Date -1.81%
http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/CASE:IND

Egypt’s growing black market a sign of economic woes Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/egypts-growing-black-market-a-sign-of-economic-woes/2013/04/21/f4de876c-a37e-11e2-82bc-511538ae90a4_print.html

CAIRO — The yellow horse-drawn gasoline tank is out in the open, on a busy
highway that snakes along a poor slum in eastern Cairo. Trucks and cars
stop to fill up. Pedestrians come by, too, with plastic containers to fill.

The yellow tank isn’t alone. Mini-tankers and canisters of illegal diesel
fuel have become ubiquitous in Egypt. Vendors hawk the fuel in crowded
neighborhoods, next to shops and idle police officers who do little to stop
the sales.

Egypt’s rapidly expanding black market for fuel — and for foodstuffs, other
commodities and U.S. dollars — may be the most tangible illustration of
just how badly the economy of this vast Arab nation is failing, two years
after the fall of Hosni Mubarak.

“I just withdrew all my Egyptian money, and I’m spending it because I know
its value next month will be half its value,” said Amirah el-Haddad, an
associate professor of economics at Cairo University. “I’m trying to get
rid of those pounds as much as possible. I’m sure every rational person
will do that. They’ll buy gold, they’ll buy other currencies.”

On the street, it seems as if almost everyone is an amateur dollar dealer
these days: convenience-store clerks, cellphone retailers, construction
contractors, cigarette vendors — even employees at foreign embassies.

But the gold souk in eastern Cairo is where the business gets serious.

“I know what you want,” one shopkeeper, Amin Wassef, quickly greeted a
visitor this month. “You want to know how much.”

The Egyptian Central Bank has frantically tried to limit the fluctuation of
the pound, officially valued at 6.90 to the dollar. But in the souk — where
the black-market dollar exchanges happen daily in front of swarms of police
officers — the rate has climbed over the past few months to more than eight
pounds to the dollar.

“I just withdrew all my Egyptian money, and I’m spending it because I know
its value next month will be half its value,” said Amirah el-Haddad, an
associate professor of economics at Cairo University. “I’m trying to get
rid of those pounds as much as possible. I’m sure every rational person
will do that. They’ll buy gold, they’ll buy other currencies.”

On the street, it seems as if almost everyone is an amateur dollar dealer
these days: convenience-store clerks, cellphone retailers, construction
contractors, cigarette vendors — even employees at foreign embassies.

But the gold souk in eastern Cairo is where the business gets serious.

“I know what you want,” one shopkeeper, Amin Wassef, quickly greeted a
visitor this month. “You want to know how much.”

The Egyptian Central Bank has frantically tried to limit the fluctuation of
the pound, officially valued at 6.90 to the dollar. But in the souk — where
the black-market dollar exchanges happen daily in front of swarms of police
officers — the rate has climbed over the past few months to more than eight
pounds to the dollar.

Conclusions

“We have two to six months before the whole thing collapses. It’s going to
happen. There is no way out of it.”

In 2012, SSA is estimated to have received about $31 billion in
remittances, only about a 1 percent increase over 2011 World Bank
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2013/04/19/world-bank-launches-initiative-on-migration-releases-new-projections-on-remittance-flows
Remittance flows to Sub-Saharan Africa have been recovering from the
contraction associated with the global financial crisis, but growth has
been modest. In 2012, the region is estimated to have received about $31
billion in remittances, only about a 1 percent increase over 2011. Nigeria
is by far the largest recipient of remittances in the region, accounting
for about 67 percent of the inflows to the region in 2012, followed by
Senegal and Kenya. Zero growth in flows to Nigeria in 2012 is partly
attributable to the feeble labor market recovery of its major remittance
source countries in Europe, the UK in particular. Remittance flows to
Nigeria and the rest of the region are expected to grow significantly in
the coming years to reach about $39 billion in 2015.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - A group of Sudanese policemen have staged a mutiny in
Darfur, according to state news agency SUNA on Sunday Yahoo
http://news.yahoo.com/sudanese-police-mutiny-security-deteriorates-darfur-200124217.html

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - A group of Sudanese policemen have staged a mutiny in
Darfur, according to state news agency SUNA on Sunday, in a fresh sign of
the deteriorating security situation in the vast western region.

A "limited" number of officers broke away from their Central Reserve Police
unit in El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state, after stealing four
Land Cruisers, weapons and provisions, SUNA said, quoting the interior
ministry.

The renegade policemen then fired into the air before leaving the city,
SUNA said, adding that there were no casualties and that the army was
chasing the men.

It gave no more details of the incident, which will come as an
embarrassment to the government, which has been trying to convince donors
that conflict in Darfur is largely over and wants help to rebuild the
region.

Violence in Darfur has subsided from its peak in 2003 and 2004, but a surge
in fighting has forced more than 130,000 people to flee their homes since
the start of this year, according to the United Nations.

"I am still a full-time employee of Kenya Airways. Any information to the
contrary is untrue and should be ignored,” he said.

Conclusions

I am fond of Titus and believe that during this Period of Transition for
the Airline Kenya Airways needs his Leadership and deep understanding of
the Airline Business.

Customs revenue dipped 13.4 per cent in March compared to a similar period
last year Business Daily
http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Election-fever-costs-KRA-billions-in-tax-revenues/-/539552/1754546/-/kr7gf9/-/index.html

Despite the poor performance in March, actual collections for the first
nine months of the current financial year stood at Sh560.4 billion or 12.4
per cent higher than the Sh498.6 billion collected in a similar period the
previous year.

Conclusions

The Cause and Effect around the Election can be seen very clearly but
thankfully this Time it has been relatively short-lived and has not spilled
over.

Safaricom accounted for 93.7 per cent of the 3.6 billion texts sent in
three months to December Business Daily
http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Corporate-News/Safaricom-SMS-sales-overtake-rival-voice-units/-/539550/1754440/-/dvai4kz/-/index.html

‘‘Unfortunately we are in a close period until May 14 so I can’t comment,
but don’t forget that during the period (September to December) we had the
unlimited bundle,” said Bob Collymore, the CEO of Safaricom in reference to
the Sh3.4 billion sales from the SMS service.

The closed period is tied to the release of full year results mid next
month for the period ended March and the unlimited bundle allowed
subscribers to send unrestricted text messages for a daily charge of Sh8.

The Communication Commission of Kenya (CCK) said that each subscriber sent
40.1 SMS per month during the period, which places the daily average at 1.3.

Safaricom share price data here +31.683% 2013 [57 Month High]
http://www.rich.co.ke/rcdata/company.php?i=NTU%3D

Par Value:                  0.05/-
Closing Price:           6.60
Total Shares Issued:          40000000000.00
Market Capitalization:        264,000,000,000
EPS:             0.32
PE:                 20.625
*  *
H1 2013 versus H1 2012
Total Revenue 59.118b versus 46.09b +21.72%
Voice Revenue 37.422b versus 31.49b +18.84%
Messaging Revenue 4.269b versus 3.65b +16.96%
Mobile Data Revenue 2.972b versus 2.44b +21.8%
Fixed Data Revenue 1.011b versus 0.63b +60.48%
M-Pesa Revenue 10.427b versus 7.88b +32.32%
HandSet Revenue 2.428b -21.93%
Direct Costs 22.399b versus 21.97b +1.95%
Operating Costs 14.427b versus 12.898b +11.85%
EBITDA 22.292b versus 14.76b +51.03%
Net Income 7.775b versus 4.013b
EPS 0.19 versus 0.10

Conclusions

The Markets as am I are expecting muscular FY Earnings.

Kenya leads Africa in private equity firms’ investments Business Daily
http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Kenya-leads-Africa-in-private-equity-firms-investments/-/539552/1754414/-/13bxeybz/-/index.html

Data from Emerging Markets Private Equity Association (EMPEA) shows that PE
firms raised Sh123 billion last year for investments in sub-Saharan Africa.

Some of the latest entrants in the Kenyan market are Amethis Finance with a
Sh890 million ($10.5 million) in Chase Bank last month and last year’s 90
per cent sale of coffee house Java to Emerging Capital Partners (ECP).

Research firm, Africa Assets, reported that the number of exits executed
last year by private equity funds went up, underlining Kenya’s maturity as
an investment destination.

Some of the exits last year include that by JP Morgan linked Pearl Capital
Partners (PCP), when it sold its 36 per cent stake in agricultural firm
Africert. Their investment had grown over threefold since their entry in
the firm in 2006.

Many exit sales are alsos completed privately making it difficult to
collate complete data on PE firms activity in the market. She noted that
the number of exits in the country were expected to go up as the industry
matures with sale to strategic investors being the dominant exit route.

Eline Blaauboer a partner at TBL Mirror Fund pointed out that they intend
to exit two firms this year and they were considering listing one of them
in the capital markets through the growth enterprise market segment (GEMS)
which is being set up.

Kenya Shilling versus The Dollar Live ForexPros
http://j.mp/5jDOot

Nairobi All Share Bloomberg  +27.17%
http://www.BLOOMBERG.COM/quote/NSEASI:IND

Nairobi ^NSE20 Bloomberg  Year To Date:+21.16%
http://j.mp/ajuMHJ

Every Listed Share can be interrogated here
http://www.rich.co.ke/rcdata/nsestocks.php

The Equity Market was unable to snap a 6 Session Losing Streak.
The Nairobi All Share retreated 0.73 points to close at 118.26.
The Nairobi All Share is +24.667% this Year and has corrected 3.1766%
since closing at a Multi Year High on the 11th of this Month.
The Nairobi NSE20 retreated 28.80 points to close at 4839.49.
The Nairobi NSE20 is +17.082% in 2013.
The Nairobi NSE20 closed above the Key 5,000 level on 4 Occasions this
Month something it had not previously done since the 22nd of July
2008.
We are self evidently in a Bout of orderly profit Taking in part
because a Number of Counters have been turning ex dividend and Prices
have been compensating lower because of the Dividend Payments.
Furthermore, I feel Investors have turned a little defensive ahead of
the Announcement around the Composition and Configuration of the New
Cabinet.
Turnover dropped to 203.566m from 272.562m confirming that Sell Side
Pressure is light and this is a Bullish Signal.

Sasini Tea and Coffee firmed 2.671% to close at 13.45 and traded 31,500 shares.

Safaricom was the most actively traded share at the Securities
Exchange and closed unchanged at a 57 Month High of 6.60 and traded
15.178m shares worth 100.18m, which represented 49.212% of the Total
Turnover transacted at the Exchange today. Safaricom has rallied
+30.693% this Year and was last at this Level on a closing Basis on
the 17th of July 2008. Investors are anticipating muscular FY Results
and those Results will be released in less than 3 weeks. Safaricom did
announce a 90% Acceleration in its Earnings Per Share at the H1
Earnings Release. The Business Daily carried a report Monday, where
the Newspaper said in the Quarter through December 2012, Safaricom
accounted for 93.7 per cent of the 3.6 billion texts sent. Safaricom
was running a Special Offer during that Period but the eye-popping
number speaks to robust underlying Growth. M-Pesa has evidently being
going great Guns and H2 will also give Investors Visibility around
M-Shwari. i expect the Price to hurdle 7.00.

Kenya Airways closed unchanged at 10.95 and traded 338,100 shares.
Social Media was abuzz Friday with Talk that the CEO Titus Naikuni
Esquire was set to take a Post in the New Government. The CEO scotched
those reports and said "I am still a full-time employee of Kenya
Airways. Any information to the contrary is untrue and should be
ignored.” This is a Moment of Transition for Kenya Airways as they
reconfigure the Airline for faster Growth and I feel that Kenya
Airways needs Titus' leadership and deep Experience at this Time.

Standard Media was the Top Gainer at the Exchange and firmed 3.79% to
close at 34.25 and traded 4,700 shares. Standard Group is +57.471% in
2013.
Nation Media retreated 3.135% to close at 278.00 and traded 2,400 shares.

Kenya Commercial Bank traded 2nd at the Exchange and eased 0.61% to
close at 40.50 and traded 355,500 shares worth 14.421m. KCB is +36.13%
in 2013 and has retreated 4.705% off an All Time High of 42.50 reached
on the 2nd and on the 4th of this Month. The Catalyst for the Next
Bull Extension higher will be the Release of Q1 Earnings, where I
expect a 20% increase versus Q1 2012.

Standard Chartered firmed 0.3344% to close at 300.00 and traded 14,900 shares.

Diamond Trust was low ticked 7.79% to close at 142.00 on just 1,000 shares.

BAT Kenya firmed 0.1805% to close at 555.00 and set a Fresh All Time
Closing High. BAT is +13.034% in 2013.

Mumias Sugar closed unchanged and traded 2.862m shares. A Lot of
shares have been absorbed of late.

EABL ticked 2 shillings lower to close at 297.00 and traded 14,600 shares.

--