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Wednesday 18th 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.
The Latest Daily PodCast can be found here on the Front Page of the site http://www.rich.co.ke |
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Africa |
Home Thoughts
The Youngest Daughter Hannah [who was once known as Hannah Banana but woe betide you mentioning the same because she is quite a grand 12 year old these days but I am sure would behave as elegantly as HM The Queen did the Donald] has become a very keen Horse-rider. There is a scene in Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding and the Father and Mother are talking to each other and looking down at their sleeping and soon to be married Daughter. This morning she was fast asleep and as i lent down to kiss her i taught of that Father in that Mira Nair movie and that moment and Nishet saw me immediately afterwards and knew my frame of mind intuitively as she always does.
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Law & Politics |
"Mandela was a skilful strategist, a visionary, and a product of collective leadership. The tapestry of his legacy is woven by deep thinkers and freedom fighters, as well as the unnamed and unknown who sharpened his intellect" — Graça Machel. #NMAL2018
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05-DEC-2016:: Trump is a linguistic warfare specialist. Law & Politics |
Trump is a linguistic warfare specialist. Look at the names he gave his opponents: Crooked Hillary, Lyin’ Ted, Little Marco, ‘Low-energy’ Jeb — were devastating and terminal. The first thing is plausible deniability (and some folks here at home need to remember those words). The second thing is non-linearity, you have to learn how to navigate a linear system (the new 21st digital ecosystem) in a non-linear way.
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A walk on the wild side as Trump meets Putin at Finland station @asiatimesonline Law & Politics |
Trump treats the EU with undisguised disdain. He would love nothing better than for the EU to dissolve. His Arab “partners” can be easily controlled by fear. He has all but declared economic war on China and is on tariff overdrive – even as the IMF warns that the global economy runs the risk of losing around $500 billion in the process. And he faces the ultimate intractable, the China-Russia-Iran axis of Eurasian integration, which simply won’t go away.
So, talking to “world-class thug” Putin – in usual suspect terminology – is a must. A divide-and-rule here, a deal there – who knows what some hustling will bring? To paraphrase Lou Reed, New Trump City “is the place where they say “Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side.”
During the Helsinki presser, Putin, fresh from Russia’s spectacular World Cup soft power PR coup, passed a football to Trump. The US president said he would give it to his son, Barron, and passed the ball to First Lady Melania. Well, the ball is now in Melania’s court.
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Currency Markets at a Glance WSJ World Currencies |
Euro 1.1633 Dollar Index 95.18 against a basket of currencies, the dollar was up at 95.210 .DXY, after jumping 0.46 percent overnight. Japan Yen 113.07 It also climbed to its highest since January against the yen at 113.07 JPY=. Swiss Franc 1.0020 Pound 1.3090 Aussie 0.7350 India Rupee 68.54 South Korea Won 1130.66 Brazil Real 3.8380 Egypt Pound 17.9003 South Africa Rand 13.3148
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IMF Africa Perspective Africa |
The recovery in Sub-Saharan Africa is set to continue, supported by the rise in commodity prices. For the region, growth is expected to increase from 2.8 percent in 2017 to 3.4 percent this year, rising further to 3.8 percent in 2019 (0.1 percentage point higher for 2019 than forecast in the April WEO). The upgraded forecast reflects improved prospects for Nigeria’s Its growth is set to increase from 0.8 percent in 2017 to 2.1 percent in 2018 and 2.3 percent in 2019 (0.4 percentage point higher than in the April WEO for 2019) on the back of an improved outlook for oil prices. Despite the weaker‑than-expected first quarter outturn in South Africa (in part due to temporary factors), the economy is expected to recover somewhat over the remainder of 2018 and into 2019 as confidence improvements associated with the new leadership are gradually reflected in strengthening private investment.
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This paper discusses Al-Shabab's (AS) financial system and estimates the amount collected by the group Africa |
Summary This paper discusses Al-Shabab's (AS) financial system and estimates the amount collected by the group, based on figures provided to Hiraal by former AS finance and Zakawaat officials. With the rise of Islamic State in Somalia, AS is not the only terrorist group currently involved in tax collection in Somalia; however, it is currently the largest, and this paper therefore focuses on the group. AS has two main departments that collect taxes from the public: the Zakawaat Office and the Finance Office. The former is tasked with collecting non-monetary taxes such as livestock and farm produce, while the latter collects all monetary taxes. The first head of the Zakawaat office was Sheikh Fuad, who notoriously paid all the collected Zakah to the poor, leading to his immediate dismissal after his first year in the job; Al-Shabab had a different interpretation on how the Zakah should be used, and afterwards only a small fraction was given to the poor. The Office is currently headed by Mohamed Mire, who is from Puntland. The AS Finance Department was originally formed when the group conquered its first port city, Barawe, in 2008.1 The first Head of Finance was the deceased 'Al-Maqdisi' who was from Bosaso. He built the department from a ragtag, informal, highly inefficient office to become the most ruthless collection entity in Somalia. It is currently headed by Hassan Afgoi. AS is financially self-sufficient; however, its expenses are ballooned by recurring payments to hundreds of officials and local influencers, many nominally in charge of areas not controlled by the group. The group has however managed to raise emergency funds to keep itself afloat, and has never failed to pay its fighters and administrators. Zakawaat Zakawaat is collected by troops mobilised from different AS departments, assisted by clan elders; they are put into action during the collection season, which is traditionally the month of Ramadan. The starting rate is one camel out of every 25 camels owned and one goat out of every 40 goats. Collection is done uniformly across all the regions in south and central Somalia, including in the districts that AS does not control. Collectors issue receipts to pastoralists; those who lose their receipts are made to pay the taxes again in the next year. This ensures that pastoralists who were away from AS territory during the preceding year do not escape payment of Zakah. 2 Money is collected at checkpoints by AS collectors. Every day, an auditor calls them to ask for the serial numbers of the receipts they have issued. After ten days, an accountant collects the money from the checkpoints. Each town has a number of checkpoints surrounding it; all these are visited by the accountant, who takes the money to the auditor, who sits at the head office in the town. The auditor makes sure the money collected and receipts match; he gives a stamped letter to the accountant, who takes the money to the bank. At the bank, the accountant is given a slip which he takes back to the auditor. After every two months, the collectors are replaced and sent on leave for a month. After that, they are reassigned. Each truck is taxed at $555, while larger trucks are taxed $1150 each time they use the road while carrying goods.11 The AS tax revenues are estimated in this paper at $27mn while its expenditures are at around $25.6mn. While our estimates are conservative, the group breaks even on its balance sheet every year. This is shown by the fact that the emergency tax collection is not done on a regular basis, and not in every region. On the other hand, the fact that emergency collection is sometimes needed shows that AS profits are not significant and its income is just enough to cover its expenses.
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Africa |
It takes some brazenness for a nation rated six steps into junk territory and with the world’s worst-performing currency to issue a Eurobond in this market.
But Angola did just that on Monday, selling $500 million of 30-year debt in only the third dollar-denominated deal from an emerging-market government since May.
The sale suggests that even with sentiment toward emerging markets turning much more bearish in the past three months, some investors still can’t resist higher returns. Angola, which was increasing, or tapping, its $1.25 billion 2048 notes first issued in May, paid a yield of 9.1 percent in a deal arranged by Deutsche Bank AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd.
Angola, rated B- by S&P Global Ratings, is scarcely without problems. The OPEC member’s economy was battered by the crash in oil prices four years ago and is yet to recover. The central bank has devalued the kwanza by 35 percent this year in a bid to end huge shortages of foreign exchange.
But the above-average yields have gone down well with investors. Angola is the third-best performer this year in the Bloomberg Barclays Emerging Markets USD Sovereign Bond Index, which includes more than 70 countries. Its Eurobonds have returned 0.8 percent, compared with an average loss among peers of 3.5 percent. The tap even came with a lower yield than on the original, which paid 9.4 percent.
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Kenya's @SafaricomPLC in "advanced talks" to take M-Pesa to Ethiopia @ReutersAfrica Kenyan Economy |
Kenya’s Safaricom is in “advanced talks” with the Ethiopian government to introduce its popular M-Pesa mobile money service to neighbouring Ethiopia, a market of 100 million people, two sources said on Tuesday.
Britain’s Vodafone, Safaricom’s parent company, will license the use of the M-Pesa trade name to an Ethiopia-based bank while Safaricom will host the servers in Nairobi, one telecoms industry source told Reuters.
Ethiopia’s state telecommunications monopoly, Ethio telecom, will carry the service, the source added. Started in 2007, M-Pesa has nearly 30 million users in Kenya.
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