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Friday 18th of March 2016
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Morning Africa |
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.
The Latest Daily PodCast can be found here on the Front Page of the site
http://www.rich.co.ke
Looking forward to tomorrow's #Mindspeak 19th March at the
@SankaraNairobi from 0930 am.
We will be hosting @stpaulsplc The Founder Richard Britten-Long and
Key Officers from the same |
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Marshall McLuhan Africa |
"The goblins make no beautiful things, but many clever ones." — JRR Tolkien
“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
“A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien
“I sit beside the fire and think
Of all that I have seen
Of meadow flowers and butterflies
In summers that have been
Of yellow leaves and gossamer
In autumns that there were
With morning mist and silver sun
And wind upon my hair
I sit beside the fire and think
Of how the world will be
When winter comes without a spring
That I shall ever see
For still there are so many things
That I have never seen
In every wood in every spring
There is a different green
I sit beside the fire and think
Of people long ago
And people that will see a world
That I shall never know
But all the while I sit and think
Of times there were before
I listen for returning feet
And voices at the door”
― J.R.R. Tolkien
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Brazil protests: Rousseff and Lula supporters rally amid corruption claims Law & Politics |
At the end of a week of extraordinary political drama, constitutional
chaos and massive anti-government protests, supporters of Brazilian
president Dilma Rousseff and her predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da
Silva, will rally in cities across the country on Friday.
The Frente Brasil Popular, a network of trade unions, social movements
and other organisations sympathetic to the ruling Partido dos
Trabalhadores (PT) said it would hold events in 45 cities in defence
of democracy and the rights of the working class.
It will mark the first major show of strength by Brazil’s
pro-government factions since an estimated 3 million people took to
the streets on Sunday to demand the president’s resignation.
Conclusions
Seriously in disequilibrium, now.
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New Chinese ship activity spotted at disputed South China Sea shoal Guardian Law & Politics |
The United States has seen Chinese activity around a reef seized by
China from the Philippines nearly four years ago, which could be a
precursor to more land reclamation in the disputed South China Sea,
the US navy chief said on Thursday.
The head of US naval operations, Admiral John Richardson, expressed
concern that an international court ruling expected in coming weeks on
a case brought by the Philippines against China over its South China
Sea claims could be a trigger for Beijing to declare an exclusion zone
in the busy trade route.
Richardson told Reuters the United States was weighing responses to such a move.
He said the US military had seen Chinese activity around Scarborough
Shoal in the northern part of the Spratly archipelago, about 200km
(125 miles) west of the Philippine base of Subic Bay.
Conclusions
China is not prepared to be boxed in. The US Pivot needs to do more
than bare its Fangs.
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Last month was the hottest February in 137 years of record keeping Law & Politics |
Last month was the hottest February in 137 years of record keeping,
according to data released Thursday by the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration. It's the 10th consecutive month to set a
new record, and it puts 2016 on course to set a third straight annual
record.
It was a big month, not only the hottest February but the most unusual
warmth for any month on record. Unprecedented temperatures in the
Arctic, averaging an astonishing 20 degrees Fahrenheit above normal,
melted away layers of ice to record-low levels. The heat helped
prolong the longest planet-wide coral bleaching event. These grim
milestones coincide with the biggest recorded jump in carbon dioxide,
the most important greenhouse gas.
To be sure, some of this is the result of a monster El Niño weather
pattern lingering in the Pacific Ocean. But the broader trend is
clear: We live on a planet that is warming rapidly, with no end in
sight.
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Currency Markets at a Glance WSJ World Currencies |
Euro 1.1314
Dollar Index 94.83
Japan Yen 111.45
Swiss Franc 0.9673
Pound 1.4466
Aussie 0.7642 Australian dollar AUD=D4 shot up to $0.7681, its highest
since July
India Rupee 66.635
South Korea Won 1162.96
Brazil Real 3.6242
Egypt Pound 8.8840
South Africa Rand 15.2231
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Drawing a line in Libya 18TH MARCH 2016 The West's military and political leaders are pondering a major new armed intervention as Da'ish's momentum builds Africa |
Signs are emerging that another major Western intervention in the
Arab-African world is on the horizon. United States President Barack
Obama is telling his National Security Council to consider all options
to counter Da'ish (Islamic State in Syria and the Levant, ISIL) in
Libya. US aircraft have already carried out an air raid on a Da'ish
training camp at Sabratha, west of Tripoli, and are being readied at
British and Italian air bases to carry out more, some possibly
elsewhere in North Africa.
The spread into Libya of the Da'ish franchise is one of several
existential threats to UN-led efforts to unite the feuding Tobruk- and
Tripoli-based governments and other factions. Support for the new
Government of National Accord (GNA) is the only strategy which Western
governments can countenance to create a viable post-Moammar el Gadaffi
state from an atomised, mess of rival tribal and ideological groups,
and to eliminate Da'ish and criminal gangs from Europe's southern
flank (AC Vol 57 No 2, A cure that could kill). Western governments
want such a government to authorise broader military action in Libya.
Although the GNA's future is far from certain, Western governments
need the new national administration to authorise broader military
action.
Conclusions
The Decapitation of the Strong Man without any serious idea for the day after.
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Gaddafi's Body in a Freezer - What's the Message? 24th October 2011 Africa |
I am left thinking, this dead Gaddafi business is one powerful
message. And today Marshall McLuhan’s prediction in The Gutenberg
Galaxy (1962) that ‘The new electronic interdependence recreates the
world in the image of a global village’ has come to pass. The image of
a bloodied Gaddafi, then of a dead Gaddafi in a meat locker have
flashed around the world via the mobile, YouTube and Twitter.
Who is in charge of the messaging? Through the fog of real time and
raw footage, I note a very powerful message. The essence of that
message being;
‘Don’t Fxxk with us! Be- cause you will end up dead and a trophy
souvenir in a fridge.’
That same person is probably repeating Muammar’s comment, “I tell the
coward crusaders: I live in a place where you can’t get me. I live in
the hearts of millions.”
And asking ‘Really? Are You? Or are you now very dead and in a meat locker?’
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The battle for Kenya's property market Africa |
Back in 2002, Meles Zenawi, then prime minister of Ethiopia, drafted a
foreign policy and national security white paper for his country.
Before finalizing it, he confided to me a “nightmare scenario” — not
included in the published version — that could upend the balance of
power in the Horn of Africa region.
The scenario went like this: Sudan is partitioned into a volatile
south and an embittered north. The south becomes a sinkhole of
instability, while the north is drawn into the Arab orbit. Meanwhile,
Egypt awakens from its decades-long torpor on African issues and
resumes its historical stance of attempting to undermine Ethiopia,
with which it has a long-standing dispute over control of the Nile
River. It does so by trying to bring Eritrea and Somalia into its
sphere of influence, thereby isolating the government in Addis Ababa
from its direct neighbors. Finally, Saudi Arabia begins directing its
vast financial resources to support Ethiopia’s rivals and sponsor
Wahhabi groups that challenge the traditionally dominant Sufis in the
region, generating conflict and breeding militancy within the Muslim
communities.
Fourteen years later, reality has exceeded Zenawi’s nightmare
scenario; not only has every one of his fears come to pass, but
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Saudi King Salman bin Saud
are working hand-in-glove on regional security issues — notably in
Yemen and Libya — which has raised the stakes of the long-running
Egypt-Ethiopia rivalry. If the worsening tensions in the Horn of
Africa erupt into military conflict, as seems increasingly possible,
it wouldn’t just be a disaster for the region — it could also be a
catastrophe for the global economy. Almost all of the maritime trade
between Europe and Asia, about $700 billion each year, passes through
the Bab al-Mandab, the narrow straits on the southern entrance to the
Red Sea, en route to the Suez Canal.
These fractures in the Horn of Africa have been deepened by Saudi
Arabia’s reassessment of its security strategy. Worried that the
United States was withdrawing from its role as security guarantor for
the wider region, it resolved to build up its armed forces and project
its power into strategic hinterlands and sea lanes to the north and
south. In practice, that has meant winning over less powerful
countries along the African coast of the Red Sea — Sudan, Eritrea,
Djibouti, and Somalia — a region that Ethiopia has sought to place
within its sphere of influence.
The Saudi presence along the African Red Sea coast has grown more
sharply pronounced since its March 2015 military intervention in
Yemen, which drew in Egypt as part of a coalition of Sunni Arab states
battling Iran-backed Houthi rebels. The coalition obtained combat
units from Sudan and Eritrea, and scrambled to secure the entire
African shore of the Red Sea.
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Zupta chamber of secrets blown open: Tide turns in ANC Africa |
The conspiracy of silence in the ANC has been broken. With official
confirmation from Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas that he was
indeed offered the position of finance minister by the Gupta family,
the dam walls have broken. New allegations of audacious moves by the
Guptas are emerging, including trying to woo or give instructions to
senior government leaders. It is being alleged that the Guptas had
planned to have Jonas fired and replaced with a new ANC Member of
Parliament. The go-between role of the president’s son, Duduzane Zuma,
in the Guptas’ political manoeuvres is also being exposed.
ut it is Zuma’s own organisation that he has to fear. After years of
dodging responsibility and laughing off accountability, his friends
the Guptas brought him to the moment of reckoning.
Even for the ultimate Teflon man, political survival might be
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Nile flood, 1923 One of the earliest images in the exhibition is of the Giza pyramid complex Photograph: Mohamed El Ghazouly Africa |
Nigeria’s currency crisis Can you spare a dollar? Economist
http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21695065-how-make-hard-currency-shortage-worse-can-you-spare-dollar
THE mutterings of discontent are growing louder in Nigeria’s street
markets. The price of a bag of rice has surged by 12.5% in the past
month. Supplies of bread have dwindled after bakers turned off their
ovens to protest about the rising cost of flour. The rich lament that
milk is missing from supermarket shelves. The poor complain about the
price of garri (cassava flour). A fish importer estimates that 70m
Nigerians can no longer afford his wares.
Such are the symptoms of Nigeria’s foreign-exchange crisis. Africa’s
most populous nation exports oil and imports nearly everything else.
As oil prices have collapsed, Nigeria’s foreign earnings have tumbled
with them, putting huge pressure on the naira, the local currency. Yet
President Muhammadu Buhari refuses to allow the naira to devalue,
fretting that this would fuel inflation. Economists point out that a
weaker currency would simply reflect that Nigeria is poorer now than
it was when oil was above $100 a barrel. He ignores them.
The policy is not working: inflation hit 11.4% in February and growth
has fallen to 2.1%. Factories are closing down for lack of supplies
and the managers of those still running spend much of their time
trying to find things to sell abroad to raise dollars, such as gold
jewellery or gum arabic. Most have been pushed into the black market,
where they pay about 60% above the official rate unless they are lucky
enough to get some of the $200m or so released each week by the
central bank. That the bank has the power to hand out subsidised
greenbacks naturally invites corruption. An executive at a big
importer says its budgets now include a 30% “premium” to be paid to
central bank officials to get dollars.
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Fairy Circles, Long a Mystery in Africa, Now Found in Australia Africa |
When Stephan Getzin, an ecologist at the Helmholtz Center for
Environmental Research in Leipzig, Germany, opened the email, his
heart began to flutter. Attached was an aerial image of fairy circles,
just as he had seen in countless photos before. But those images were
always taken along long strips of arid grassland stretching from
southern Angola to northern South Africa.
These fairy circles — which looked nearly identical — came from
Australia, not Africa.
“I was really astonished,” Dr. Getzin said. “I couldn’t believe what I
was seeing.”
The emailed photo came from Bronwyn Bell, who does environmental
restoration work in Perth. She had read about Dr. Getzin’s research in
Namibia and made a connection to the odd formations in her home state,
Western Australia.
Until that point, Australian circles were completely unknown to
science. “Not even the Australians were aware of their jewel,” Dr.
Getzin said.
Tracks of Oryx antelopes crossing fairy circles in Namibia. Credit
Norbert Jürgens
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/03/14/science/fairy-circles-australia.html?ref=africa&_r=0
The Paris Review Malick Sidibé’s Iconic Photos of Nightlife in
Bamako, Mali
pic.twitter.com/BTAzna2v6r
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LOOK In Bamako Paris Review Africa |
“You go to someone’s wedding, someone’s christening,” he told
LensCulture in 2008, speaking of the renown he gained as a party
photographer:
I was lucky enough at that time to be the intellectual young
photographer with a small camera who could move around. The early
photographers like Seydou Keïta worked with plate cameras and were not
able to get out and use a flash. So I was much in demand by the local
youth. Everywhere … in town, everywhere! Whenever there was a dance, I
was invited … At night, from midnight to four A.M. or six A.M., I went
from one party to another. I could go to four different parties. If
there were only two, it was like having a rest. But if there were
four, you couldn’t miss any. If you were given four invitations, you
had to go. You couldn’t miss them. I’d leave one place, I’d take
thirty-six shots here, thirty-six shots there, and then thirty-six
somewhere else, until the morning.
Vues de dos—Juin, 2003/2004, vintage gelatin silver print, glass,
paint, cardboard, tape, and string, 10 3/4" x 14 1/2".
http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/03/17/in-bamako/
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Destitute Zambian Mineworkers Dream of Copper Market Rebound Africa |
Across Africa, the commodity price downturn spurred by slumping demand
from China has slammed economies from Nigeria to South Africa. Zambia,
which relies on copper for more than 70 percent of its export
earnings, has been particularly hard hit. More than 10,000 workers
have lost their jobs since late last year, as plunging prices for the
metal left mines unprofitable and power shortages hobbled production.
The economy grew last year at the slowest pace since 1998, and the
kwacha has slumped 44 percent against the dollar since the start of
2015, more than any other African currency.
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20 OCT 14 :: Ebola Severity Lies in Speed of Infections, The Star Africa |
“The effectiveness of electronic money lies in its mass, which
increase its velocity of circulation.’’
Virilio claims that as the “last post-industrial resource,
acceleration exceeds accumulation...the escape velocity becomes the
equivalent of profit.” Virilio believes that accel- eration and speed
are the defining characteristics of our new world. So my first point
about the Ebola virus is that it is not about the absolute number of
cases, it is about its ‘escape velocity’ viruses that exhibit
non-linear and exponential characteristics.
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@KenolKobil reports FY PAT 2015 +84.642% Earnings here Kenyan Economy |
Par Value: 0.50/-
Closing Price: 10.80
Total Shares Issued: 1471761200.00
Market Capitalization: 15,895,020,960
EPS: 1.37
PE: 7.88
KenolKobil FY Earnings through Dec 2015
FY Net sales 86.557936b vs. 90.209977b -4.048%
FY Cost of sales [80.720486b] vs. [85.088414b] -5.133%
FY Gross profit 5.837450b vs. 5.121562b +13.978%
FY Other income 1.411992b vs. 0.851713b +65.783%
FY Administrative and operating cost [2.223810b] vs. [1.771446b] +25.536%
FY EBITDA 4.794782b vs. 3.911475b +22. 582%
FY Finance cost [0.651344b] vs. [1.212792b] -46.294%
FY Profit before income tax 3.364023b vs. 1.994716b +68.647%
FY Profit for the year 2.014974b vs. 1.091284b +84.642%
EPS 1.37 vs. 0.74 +85.135%
Dividend Final 0.25 Interim 0.10
Total assets 17.377103b vs. 23.915166b -27.339%
Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the year 0.762095b vs.
1.051464b -27.521%
Company Commentary
a record net profit of 2b shillings +85% versus 2014
Strategy ''to turn around the business by reducing debt, simplifying
the business and engaging in value adding activities, such as closing
protracted law suits, selling under performing assets and exiting
operations in difficult, unprofitable countries.
Sales volume +13%
6.7% gross Margin versus 5.7% in the previous year
Debt level reduced from 10.4b in 2014 to 4.6b at end of 2015
improved gearing ratio of 31% in 2015
Forex Losses for the year was 232m
We have divested Kobil Tanzania and inactive depot asset in Congo
Final Dividend 25cents a share +10cents Interim
Conclusions
Strong earnings and probably more to go, given how last year witnessed
an exponential drop in the Price of Fuel [and this year we are seeing
better price stabilisation]
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Pan Africa Insurance Co reports FY PAT 2015 -95.68% Earnings here Kenyan Economy |
Par Value: 5/-
Closing Price: 50.50
Total Shares Issued: 144000000.00
Market Capitalization: 7,272,000,000
EPS: -0.43
PE:
First listed insurance company on the NSE.
FY Gross written premium 5.181614b vs. 5.246527b -1.237%
FY Outward reinsurance premium [384.628m] vs. [255.757m] +50.388%
FY Investment income 2.388531m vs. 1.993175b +19.835%
FY Fair value [losses]/ income [637.144m] vs. 648.386m -198.266%
FY Total income 7.237184b vs. 7.974995b -9.252%
FY Insurance outgo [4.257215b] vs. [5.053694b] -15.760%
FY Commission and operating expenses [2.301649b] vs. [1.751465b] +31.413%
FY Total expenses [7.186122b] vs. [6.825007b] +5.291%
FY Profit before tax 0.054325b vs. 1.152598b -95.287%
FY Profit for the year after tax 27.350m vs. 871.190m -95.68%
FY Profit attributable to equity holders of the parent [61.559m] vs.
871.190m -107.066%
EPS [0.43] vs. 6.05 -107.107%
Dividends –
Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the year 3.916168b vs.
3.981296b -1.636%
Company Commentary
-95% decline in FY Profit before Tax
The Asset Management and property businesses exceeded 2014 operating
profit levels whilst the life insurance and Loans' businesses
performance declined.
Newly acquired General Insurance business also under performed.
''Life Insurance business was negatively impacted by challenges
experienced with our distribution network from Q3 2014 to Q3 2015''
No Dividend
Conclusions
Fair Value Losses will be a common theme across this Sector.
Africa’s ports The bottleneck Economist
http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21695054-new-investment-alone-will-not-fix-africas-ports-governments-need-deal
AT THE entrance to the Port of Mombasa, just in front of where
machinegun toting policemen check visitors’ permits, is a shipping
container mounted on a plinth. It was erected last year to commemorate
the port processing 1m containers (or TEUs; twenty-foot equivalent
units are the industry standard) in a year for the first time. It is a
boast about how much the port, east Africa’s biggest, has improved in
recent years. And at the other end of the bay, a brand new container
terminal juts out into the water, a smooth new road leading from it.
On a hillside nearby, Chinese workers in straw hats look over the
valley where a new railway is being built from the port to Nairobi.
All this gives a solid sense of progress. Yet behind the scenes, not
everything is going well at Mombasa. Though the builder, Toyo, a
Japanese company, has handed over the new terminal to the government,
a tender has not yet been agreed to run it. Instead, the port’s
management is in chaos. Last month the head of the Kenya Ports
Authority (KPA) was sacked along with six other senior officials.
Corruption has soared of late, grumble Kenyan businessmen. “The port
of Mombasa is completely rotten,” says one chief executive.
What is true of Mombasa is true of ports across Africa. From Nigeria
to Djibouti, decrepit and inefficient container ports are being
expanded with money from the World Bank, governments (particularly
those of China and Japan) and logistics firms such as Bolloré (a big
French company which operates 14 port concessions across the
continent). That offers the potential to transform African trade. Yet
corruption and poor management may mean the gains will be squandered.
Good ports are perhaps more important to Africa than any other region.
On a continent bereft of good roads and productive factories, fully
90% of trade happens by sea. Ports also corrall trade where it can be
regulated and taxed: in Kenya, for example, some 40% of government
revenue is generated by the customs department. Ports are also the
means by which much contraband, from drugs to ivory, escapes to the
rest of the world.
Yet many African ports are dire. And most are tiny. In 2013
sub-Saharan Africa’s largest, Durban, in South Africa, processed just
2.6m containers––a thirteenth as many as Shanghai, the world’s busiest
port. And they cost a fortune to use. According to the World Bank, in
2011 shipping a container from Africa was typically twice as
time-consuming as getting one shipped from India and about six times
as slow as doing it through an American port. On average, containers
sit waiting in African ports for three weeks before being taken to
their final destination—compared with a week in other emerging
markets.
This makes Africa poorer. The World Bank’s figures suggest that delays
in ports add roughly 10% to the cost of imported goods, more in many
cases than tariffs. For exports the harm is worse. In northern
Mozambique, the banana industry could be 20 times larger if Nacala—a
natural deep-water port—were as cheap as those in Ecuador, reckons
Jake Walter of TechnoServe, an NGO. Instead, perhaps 80% of containers
leave Africa empty.
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