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Thursday 08th of May 2014 |
Morning Africa |
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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.
The Latest Daily PodCast can be found here on the Front Page of the site http://www.rich.co.ke |
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The 2nd Africa – Central Europe Economic Cooperation Forum Africa |
PANEL II (8 May 2014 r., godz. 12.00-14.00, Altus) · Central European and Polish investments – examples of business strategies pursued in Africa · Invest and create a market. The influence of selected investments on internal demand stimulation, economic growth and the development of related industries. A study of good practice · Assessment of the “Go Africa” programme after one year of its operation. The role of diplomacy and administration in supporting the expansion of European enterprises in Africa · Business security in Africa. Types of risks and risk-mitigating factors. Market knowledge · Education and HR – a challenge for Africa. In what way can European business influence the quality of the African labour & HR market? Guests taking part in the session include (in alphabetical order): Anna Burylo – Head of Operations Section, European Union Delegation to the African Union; Djiby Diagne* - Head of Research, Strategic National Plan, Senegal (Plan Sénégal Emergent); Józef Dulian – Chairman of the Board, Director-General, NITROERG Grupa Kapitałowa KGHM Polska Miedź SA; Filip Elżanowski – Partner, Kancelaria Elżanowski, Cherka & Wąsowski; Jacek Jankowski – Ambassador of the Republic of Poland to Ethiopia; Richard Kasesela – Chairman of the Board, Mining Advisory Board, Ministry of Energy and Minerals, Tanzania; Jarosław Kłapucki – Chairman of the Board, Consus Group; Joseph Macri – EMEA VP Public Sector, Microsoft Corporation; Killion Munyama – Member of the Polish Parliament (Sejm); Andrzej Polus – Department of European Union Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of International Studies, University of Wroclaw, President of the Polish Centre for African Studies; Aly-Khan Satchu – CEO, Rich Management Ltd., Kenya; Mountaga Sy* – General Director, APIX Moderation: Wojciech Tycholiz – Member of the Board, Polish Centre for African Studies
Macro Thoughts
Home Thoughts
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Hagia Sophia could be a mosque/church [I second that] Africa |
However, it is not just Muslims but also Orthodox Christians who yearn for a free Hagia Sophia in which they can worship their Lord. Both religions, after all, have a long history here: Hagia Sophia served Christians from 360 A.D., when it was built by the Byzantine Emperor Constantine II, to 1453, when Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II. The latter converted Hagia Sophia into a mosque, and it served Muslims for the next five centuries.
Therefore, I argue, today both religions should have Hagia Sophia back. The magnificent temple, in other words, should be shared by Christians and Muslims, both with regards to space and time.
Conclusions
Its a remarkable Place.
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China to Start Anti-Terror Operations After Third Station Attack Law & Politics |
China’s top security official said a special anti-terrorism operation will begin after a third violent attack this year at a railway station occurred in Guangzhou, near the border with Hong Kong.
China must “resolutely beat the terrorists’ arrogant brazenness,” Meng Jianzhu, head of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs and a member of the Communist Party Politburo, said at a meeting of cadres, the official Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday. The country is on high alert after a series of violent attacks that have shaken its domestic security apparatus, with more sophisticated acts of violence blamed on ethnic Uighur separatists from restive Xinjiang province in China’s northwest.
Yesterday, six people were wounded in the knife attack in the southern city of Guangzhou, a week after three were killed and 79 hurt when assailants slashed travelers at the train station in Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, on the same day that President Xi Jinping visited the city.
Tensions surge in South China Sea as China locks horns with Philippines, Vietnam http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/07/us-china-seas-fishermen-idUSBREA4603C20140507
MANILA/BEIJING (Reuters) - China has demanded the Philippines release a Chinese fishing boat and its crew seized in the disputed South China Sea on Wednesday, the latest flare-up in the oil and gas-rich waters that are claimed wholly or in part by six nations.
Tensions are also brewing in another part of the sea, where China has warned Vietnam not to disturb activities of Chinese companies operating near disputed islands. Earlier, Hanoi condemned the movement of a giant Chinese oil rig into what it said was its territorial waters.
Dozens of patrol boats and other navy and coastguard vessels from both countries are in the area, Vietnamese officials say. Some collisions have taken place, said a navy official, but he did not give details and they appeared to be minor.
"No shots have been fired yet," said the official, who could not be identified because he was not authorized to speak to media. "Vietnam won't fire unless China fires first." Chief Superintendent Noel Vargas of the Philippine National Police Maritime Group said a maritime police patrol apprehended a Chinese fishing boat around 7 a.m. on Tuesday off Half Moon Shoal in the Spratly Islands on the South China Sea.
The boat has 11 crew and police found about 350 turtles in the vessel, some of which were already dead, a police report said, adding that a Philippine boat with crew was also seized, and found to have 70 turtles on board. Several species of sea turtles are protected under Philippine law.
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02-DEC-2013 ::The Pivot to Asia bares its Fangs Law & Politics |
Predicting that the US will continue to send flights through the area, Francois Godement, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign relations, said, “What they are doing is dropping their business card.”
I see the pivot to Asia as the encirclement of China, then the shrinking of its operating theatre and then lighting the tinderbox that is the periphery.
The US probably feels it holds a decisive hard power advantage at this moment and given that the trajectory is one of gradual erosion of that decisive advantage leads me to the view that this pivot to Asia has a logic and momentum of its own. Therefore, I see the US being increasingly determined to press its advantage
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Alibaba Files for US Public Offering of E-Commerce Giant International Trade |
The company’s market value is estimated at $168 billion, bigger than 95 percent of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index -- and the most valuable Internet company after Google Inc., according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The company is looking to sell about a 12 percent stake, people familiar with the matter have said, which would make the offering around $20 billion based on the estimated value.
The value of transactions on Alibaba’s platforms was $248 billion last year. The number of annual active buyers rose 14 percent to 231 million, each placing an average of 49 orders over that period, according to the filing.
“Alibaba has a huge amount of scale,” said Jeff Papp, senior analyst at Oberweis Asset Management Inc., which oversees $1 billion in Lisle, Illinois. “The gross market value of the stuff that they’re selling is massive, and what that’s allowing them to do is create a model in a way that’s uniquely profitable.”
The IPO will be a boon for Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO), which plans to sell part of its 22.6 percent stake in Alibaba. Other shareholders include SoftBank (9984) Corp., which will continue to own more than 30 percent of Alibaba after the offering.
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Currency Markets at a Glance WSJ World Currencies |
Euro 1.3914 The euro edged up 0.1 percent to $1.3917, but remained below a near two-month peak of $1.3952 reached on Tuesday. Dollar Index 79.21 The dollar held steady versus a basket of major currencies at 79.208 .DXY, up slightly from a six-month low of 79.06 on Tuesday. Japan Yen 101.82 Swiss Franc 0.8760 Pound 1.6954 touched $1.6996 yesterday, the strongest since Aug. 6, 2009 Aussie 0.9371 The Aussie dollar rose 0.5 percent to $0.9373, having added to its gains after data showed that Chinese exports and imports both rose slightly in April from a year ago India Rupee 60.04 South Korea Won 1022.31 strongest level since August 2008 Brazil Real 2.2170 Egypt Pound 7.0301 South Africa Rand 10.4568
Sterling has jumped 9.5 percent in the past 12 months, the best performer among 10 developed-nation currencies tracked by Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Indexes. The euro gained 6 percent, while the dollar weakened 1.1 percent
Dollar Index 3 Month Chart INO 79.21 [trades very poorly] http://quotes.ino.com/charting/index.html?s=NYBOT_DX&v=d3&t=c&a=50&w=1
Euro versus the Dollar 3 Month Chart 1.3914 [if there are no surprises from the ECB then it will head towards 1.4000] http://quotes.ino.com/charting/index.html?s=FOREX_EURUSD&v=d3&t=c&a=50&w=1
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South Africa All Share Bloomberg +7.3%% 2014 Africa |
Polling stations will close at 9pm local time. The IEC have seven days to declare the results. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2014/05/south-africans-vote-general-election-2014575511319369.html
ANC Takes Early Lead as South African Election Results Roll In http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-08/anc-set-for-fifth-victory-as-south-african-vote-count-begins.html
With ballots counted in about a quarter of the 22,263 voting districts so far, the ANC’s support stood at 56.9 percent, according to provisional figures released by the Independent Electoral Commission. The main opposition Democratic Alliance won 29.8 percent, while the Economic Freedom Fighters, a party that was formed in October last year by expelled ANC youth leader Julius Malema, was in third place with 4 percent.
Dollar versus Rand 3 Month Chart INO 10.4577 [headed to 10.00, in my opinion] http://quotes.ino.com/charting/index.html?s=FOREX_USDZAR&t=c&a=50&w=1&v=d3
Egypt Pound versus The Dollar 3 Month Chart INO 7.0301 http://quotes.ino.com/charting/index.html?s=FOREX_USDEGP&v=d3&t=c&a=50&w=1
Egypt EGX30 Bloomberg +24.63% 2014 [Africa's best in 2014] http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/CASE:IND
8,333.10 -37.47 -0.45%
Nigeria All Share Bloomberg -3.64% 2014 http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/NGSEINDX:IND
More than 200 killed in northern Nigeria Boko Haram attack http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/1.589336
Islamist extremist group Boko Haram has killed more than 200 people in a raid on a village in north-eastern Nigeria, local newspaper Daily Trust reported.
Gunmen in armoured vehicles, pick-up trucks and on motorcycles attacked the village of Gamboru in Borno State on Monday night, but details about the attack only became public on Wednesday.
"People are still counting the dead bodies. They have counted over 200 and they have not finished yet," said Abdulrahman Terab, a federal lawmaker from Gamboru.
Nigeria faces a serious domestic test of its stability which also threatens regional peace and security Amnesty http://livewire.amnesty.org/2014/05/07/nigerias-serious-test-of-stability/
There are vast distances between the cities. The terrain is varied. Forest gives way to savanna with scattered trees (shea, locust bean), and then to drier Sahel landscape. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2014/05/captivity.html
On these journeys one forgets city life, enters into something more delicate and more fragile.
Where are they now? The shock of a sudden captivity will have given way to other fears. There are more than two hundred of them, Muslim and Christian. Nigeria’s northeastern border is massive, porous. They don’t know when they crossed the border, or if they crossed the border. They could be in Niger, or Chad, or Cameroon (these three neighboring countries are impoverished states with weak security). The girls know only what their captors say. They have lost track of time. But they feel, in their bodies, the distances covered by the rumbling trucks. They cannot imagine what the world is thinking about them, or if it is.
Ghana Stock Exchange Composite Index Bloomberg +5.1% 2014 http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/GGSECI:IND
Zimbabwe Plans to Secure Chinese Financing With Gold, Diamonds http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-07/zimbabwe-plans-to-secure-chinese-financing-with-gold-diamonds.html
Zimbabwe owes China about $1.5 billion in loans taken out since 2011, said Samuel Undenge, the southern African nation’s deputy economic planning minister.
Zimbabwe’s government, facing deflation and a liquidity crunch, is trying to revive an economy that has shrunk by 49 percent since 2000, according to ZimTrade, a government organization that promotes trade and investment.
Zimbabwe has the world’s biggest platinum and chrome reserves after South Africa and it also has deposits of gold, coal and iron, all of which provide the country’s largest source of foreign exchange.
The world's most wanted woman, Samantha Lewthwaite, dubbed the White Widow, is being protected in Somalia by al-Qaeda fighters. http://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ani/white-widow-samantha-lewthwaite-being-protected-by-15-al-qaeda-suicide-fighters-114050700866_1.html
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Economy faces bad weather and terrorism shocks @BD_Africa Kenyan Economy |
“If the risks are sustained at the current levels or intensify in frequency we will have entered a new normal and this six per cent-plus forecast will be a hard attain,” said Aly-Khan Satchu, who runs an investment advisory and data vending firm Rich Management.
Kenya is also facing the prospect of increased capital flight as the European and American economies recover from the crisis that has dogged them since the onset of the global financial meltdown in 2008.
Mr Satchu said tourism was so beholden to “news flow” that its earnings would probably remain under downward pressure this year, putting a damper on economy-wide growth.
“Europe and the US are on the mend but tourism is beholden to news flow and it is difficult for tourism to raise its head in the current environment,'' said Mr Satchu.
American business information firm Teneo Intelligence – with representation in Kenya – told its clients a briefing Monday that the simultaneous attacks in Kenya’s capital Nairobi and port city of Mombasa pointed towards a new level of sophistication and boldness by terrorists that if not stopped could have serious ramifications on economic activity.
“By attacking bus stations and transport hubs the assailants understand that they can slowly cripple Kenya’s economy, which continues to be undermined by the challenging security outlook,” said the brief.
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Kenyan Court to Rule on Payments Needed to Begin Eurobond Sale Kenyan Economy |
Kenya’s High Court will today rule on a bid by the nation’s top legal body to temporarily halt two court-awarded payments that the government must make before it can proceed with a planned Eurobond offering.
The Law Society of Kenya asked the court to suspend the payments currently being considered for approval by lawmakers until a ruling on their petition to stop them completely is made on May 26, James Mwamu, a spokesman for the society, said in the capital, Nairobi. Justice David Majanja is expected to make a ruling on the requested suspension at 2 p.m.
The LSK, which represents all of Kenya’s lawyers, served a petition on Treasury Secretary Henry Rotich and Attorney-General Githu Muigai on May 5 seeking to stop the 1.4 billion-shilling ($16 million) payments ordered by courts in Geneva and London.
Rotich said April 29 the government is unable to sell as much as $2 billion of Eurobonds until the payments are made. The court awards, made in Geneva in 2012 and London in 2013, are linked to contracts that the Kenyan government awarded to Swiss and British companies to supply communication equipment between 1997 and 2004.
The agreements relate to a corruption scandal, known as Anglo-Leasing, in which contracts were secured by the Kenyan government through a “fake company,” Mwamu said, citing an investigation by the government’s anti-graft agency. The investigation then found that the companies had no directors or offices, he said.
Transparency International, the Berlin-based anti-graft watchdog, said April 30 that parliament approving the awards to “faceless entities” would be rewarding corruption. Procurement processes weren’t followed in signing the contracts with companies, and transactions were concluded outside the budget process, Transparency said.
Kenya is selling Eurobonds to help fund infrastructure projects aimed at helping the economy become a middle-income economy by 2030 and to help repay a $600 million syndicated loan due this month. The Treasury said in February it was considering talks with lenders to extend repayment of the facility for three years, the Nairobi-based Business Daily newspaper reported in February.
The sale of Eurobonds “cannot take place unless all obligations related to the court awards are paid,” Rotich said in a statement on April 29. Payment will “protect Kenya’s hard-won international reputation as a country which meets its lawful obligations.”
Kenya’s government wants to make the payment to avoid a default situation that may reduce its credit ratings, Robert Bunyi, managing director of Nairobi-based Mavuno Capital said by phone. Kenya’s long-term, foreign currency debt has been assigned a B+ rating by Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings, four levels below investment grade and on par with Mongolia. It has the equivalent B1 rating from Moody’s Investors Service.
“They may be fictitious contracts, but they exist and can’t be wished away,” Bunyi said. “They have a bearing on the country’s credit assessment.”
Parliamentary budget committee Chairman Mutava Musyimi April 30 withdrew a motion he tabled in the house to approve the payments, citing the need for further consultation on the issue.
The Treasury is seeking parliamentary approval to make the payments after the attorney general advised the awards be paid. There is no room to further appeal the Swiss and London court rulings, and the awards are accruing penalty interest of 96.6 million shillings per year, according to Rotich’s statement.
‘Everyone Is Corrupt in Kenya, Even Grandmothers’ MICHELA WRONG http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/05/06/everyone_is_corrupt_in_kenya_even_grandmothers
Kenya Allocates Seven Oil Blocks to Nigerian Companies http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/kenya-allocates-seven-oil-blocks-to-nigerian-companies/177982/
Nigerian businessmen have been awarded seven oil blocks for exploration from the 46 newly discovered oil blocks in Kenya.
The Chairman of the Nigeria-Kenya Chamber, Dr. Kiprono Kittony, disclosed in Abuja late on Monday that this was agreed at a meeting with prominent businessmen from both countries.
Kenya Shilling versus The Dollar Live ForexPros 87.152 http://j.mp/5jDOot
Nairobi All Share Bloomberg +11.064% 2014 http://www.BLOOMBERG.COM/quote/NSEASI:IND
151.77 +0.34 0.22%
Nairobi ^NSE20 Bloomberg +0.3911% 2014 http://j.mp/ajuMHJ
4,946.24 +3.37 +0.07%
Every Listed Share can be interrogated here http://www.rich.co.ke/rcdata/nsestocks.php
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