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Wednesday 11th of July 2018 |
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. |
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Peter Shaffer, The Royal Hunt of the Sun Africa |
“Have you ever climbed a mountain in full armour? That's what we did, him going first the whole way up a tiny path into the clouds, with drops sheer on both sides into nothing. For hours we crept forward like blind men, the sweat freezing on our faces, lugging skittery leaking horses, and pricked all the time for the ambush that would tip us into death. Each turn of the path it grew colder. The friendly trees of the forest dropped away, and there were only pines. Then they went too, and there just scrubby little bushes standing up in ice. All round us the rocks began to whine the cold. And always above us, or below us, those filthy condor birds, hanging on the air with great tasselled wings....Four days like that; groaning, not speaking; the breath a blade in our lungs. Four days, slowly, like flies on a wall; limping flies, dying flies, up an endless wall of rock. A tiny army lost in the creases of the moon.”
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we could be on the on the cusp of a completely new era, a fundamental reshaping of the international order. And I don't mean over the course of the Trump Administration. I mean by next week @DanielBShapiro Law & Politics |
1. I don't think we are fully grappling with the possibility that we could be on the on the cusp of a completely new era, a fundamental reshaping of the international order. And I don't mean over the course of the Trump Administration. I mean by next week. 2. It sounds outlandish to even say it out loud, and some can easily call this hyperbole. I hope to God it does not happen. But we would be insane not to grapple with the possibility. 3. Trump clearly wants to pull the US out of NATO. He doesn't believe in the alliance (or any alliances); he thinks our allies take advantage of us; he complains that NATO is worse than NAFTA(whatever that means); he seeks purely transactional relations with our closest partners. 4. Should other NATO members meet their 2% of GDP defense spending targets? Absolutely. Trump is on solid ground to push for it. But to consistently trash allies, undervalue their contributions to our security, threaten to withdraw US troops -- that's him wanting out. 5. Perhaps most damaging is that his rhetoric is building up hostility to NATO among his supporters. It's a huge breach in the consensus American support for the alliance that has undergirded Western security for 70 years, and it won't disappear when Trump does. 6. What's more, his passionate desire for friendship with Putin is emboldening Russia & risks doing further damage to European security. If he recognizes Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea, if he seeks to tone down sanctions on Russia over its aggression vs Ukraine, watch out. 7. This could play out in the next 2 weeks. If he sabotages the NATO summit the way he did the G-7, don't be surprised if he actually makes a move toward exiting NATO. Think he won't? On what basis? Because his staff restrains him? Because of his strategic understanding? Please. 8. If we get there, the implications are innumerable & terrifying: Russia pawing at Baltics &other E & C European states; breakdown of joint defense structures; withdrawal of US troops from Euro bases; less restrained German foreign policy; weaker US power projection to Eurasia. 9. That just scratches the surface. We honestly cannot begin to imagine living in a new era without these international organizing structures. Because for all of NATO's challenges, no sane person or American political leader has or would contemplate such a reckless move. 10. But it could happen. Our President doesn't know the history or strategy, doesn't listen to experts, personalizes everything & makes it transactional, & loves the drama of the outrageous move that dominates cable TV coverage. For him, pulling out of NATO is all gain, no cost. 11. Even as I write this, it sounds fantastical. I will be the happiest person on the planet if I look back at this thread and say, man, you were way overreacting. But we need to be ready for this awful scenario to play out. 12. I repeat: we are potentially on the verge of a wildly dangerous cascade of events that will devastate our interests, weaken our leadership, abandon our allies, embolden our adversaries, and make the world a darker and more brutal place. 13. We have done no planning for this course of action. No one thinks it is a good idea. But one man, whose knowledge and values are wanting, whose motivation is suspect, and whose supporters follow him blindly, could take us there. END
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05-DEC-2016:: "We have a deviate, Tomahawk." Law & Politics |
However, my starting point is the election of President Donald Trump because hindsight will surely show that Russia ran a seriously sophisticated programme of interference, mostly digital. Don DeLillo, who is a prophetic 21st writer, writes as follows in one of his short stories: The specialist is monitoring data on his mission console when a voice breaks in, “a voice that carried with it a strange and unspecifiable poignancy”. He checks in with his flight-dynamics and conceptual- paradigm officers at Colorado Command: “We have a deviate, Tomahawk.” “We copy. There’s a voice.” “We have gross oscillation here.” “There’s some interference. I have gone redundant but I’m not sure it’s helping.” “We are clearing an outframe to locate source.” “Thank you, Colorado.” “It is probably just selective noise. You are negative red on the step-function quad.” “It was a voice,” I told them. “We have just received an affirm on selective noise... We will correct, Tomahawk. In the meantime, advise you to stay redundant.” The voice, in contrast to Colorado’s metallic pidgin, is a melange of repartee, laughter, and song, with a “quality of purest, sweetest sadness”. “Somehow we are picking up signals from radio programmes of 40, 50, 60 years ago.”
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Congo's Kabila delays @UN chief's visit, refuses to see U.S. envoy @nikkihaley Africa |
Kabila, who succeeded his assassinated father Laurent in 2001, was busy organizing Dec. 23 elections and had to postpone a visit by Guterres and African Union Commission chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat, said Congolese government spokesman Lambert Mende.
“As for Nikki Haley I don’t see why and how the president’s refusal to see her has created so much controversy. Nikki Haley ... was already in DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) and she met President Kabila,” Mende said.
Haley met privately with Kabila for 90 minutes in Kinshasa in October, warning him that “a relationship with the United States is dependent on how he acts going forward.” Diplomats said she had planned to visit again this week.
The U.S. mission to the United Nations was not immediately available for comment on Haley’s trip.
“Is it the case that in all African countries in the middle of the electoral process these same visitors come to verify if the preparations are going in the right direction? If yes, they are also welcome in our country,” Mende said.
Kabila was required by the constitution to step down in December 2016 but the election to replace him has been repeatedly delayed.
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"We don't know whether CDC group is running away completely or selling part of its shares. So we don't really know what is going on. They have not made it officially to us. If they make it clear to us we shall inform you," Africa |
Dfcu Ltd general manager George Ochom said “Liquidity is very critical in any bank. Really it is critical in the interbank market because you know there are always payments that go for daily basis so in normal cause of banking business there is a lot of movements of funds."
In its letter, CDC expressed hope that Dfcu would continue to “succeed with the support of Arise B.V., its major shareholder.” CDC’s investment in Dfcu, according to the institution’s official website, is $15.1m (equity) and $10m (subordinated loan).
About nine institutional investors own Dfcu, with Arise BV holding the largest shareholding at 59 per cent. CDC is in second position, followed by National Social Security Fund (NSSF). It is not immediately clear if the recent resignation of Arise BV executive director Deepak Malik from the Dfcu bank’s board of directors is also linked to the current crisis.
Some insider reports indicate that the crisis was sparked off by the fight over sharing of the Shs 127 billion after tax profit that the bank made in 2017 following the acquisition of Crane bank. After the Crane bank takeover, Dfcu's annual net profit jump by more than 136% while assets leaped up by 100% in 2017 - putting it right on the list of the most profitable banks in the country.
Dfcu's after tax profit in 2016 was just Shs 46 billion before the Crane bank takeover. It was the first time Dfcu had crossed the Shs 100 billion threshold, becoming the fourth bank to do so in the country.
Dfcu acquired Crane bank at about Shs 200 billion,but the bank's management insist Crane bank was valued above Shs 1.3 trillion. Dfcu is listed on the Uganda Securities Exchange and is still battling a court case with Crane bank shareholders over the takeover.
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Kenya's consumption of cement dipped to 1.4 million tonnes in the second quarter of the year, pointing to a persistent slowdown of activity in the real estate sector Africa |
National cement consumption stood at 1.5 million tonnes in the first quarter of last year, continuing a losing streak that persisted throughout 2017.
The decline in consumption was also manifest in the 15.7 per cent drop in the volume of imported cement and the eight per cent decline in importation of cement clinkers in the three months to March, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS).
“Similarly, the volume of imports of construction materials such as iron and steel bars, and rods declined by 4.9 per cent during the quarter in review,” said the statistics office.
Kenya’s cement consumption initially dipped in 2017 -- the first time in 17 years – in line with the decline in construction sector demand.
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