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Friday 28th of September 2018
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Morning Africa |
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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
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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.”
― Peter Shaffer, The Royal Hunt of the Sun
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"The upside-down flamingos" on Lake Bogoria via @LPtravelnews Africa |
Irish-Hong Kong photographer Paul Mckenzie took this photo of “The
upside-down flamingos” on Lake Bogoria, located in Kenya’s Great Rift
Valley. He flipped the picture he took of the flamboyance of flamingos
in post-production to create a more abstract effect. The shot was
highly commended in the “Creative Visions” category. Photo by Paul
Mckenzie/Wildlife Photographer of the Year
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Paul Allen enlists machine-learning tools for monitoring wildlife and ecosystems Africa |
Paul Allen has made a name for himself as a co-founder of Microsoft, a
supporter of artificial intelligence research and a contributor to
causes such as wildlife conservation — so it only makes sense that the
Seattle-area billionaire wants to use machine learning to further his
philanthropic goals.
His latest contribution comes through the Seattle-based Vulcan Machine
Learning Center for Impact, or VMLCI. “Its mission will be to apply
the tools of machine learning and AI for good,” Bill Hilf, CEO of Paul
Allen’s Vulcan Inc., said today in a tweet.
VMLCI’s strategy meshes with the mission of the Allen Institute for
Artificial Intelligence, whose motto is “AI for the Common Good.” The
center aims to forge collaborative partnerships with corporations,
academic institutions and other organizations to help connect folks
working on social and environmental causes with the machine-learning
resources they need.
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'This week @jeremycorbyn proved that he can - and will - win if a snap election is called' @independent Law & Politics |
To win, however, Corbyn will need to go beyond the youth vote that
polls suggest he already has in the bag. And his conference speech
more than hinted that Labour had glimpsed an opportunity in the
“silver” vote – hitherto regarded as the bedrock of the Conservatives’
support. They may well be right. I am not sure that the government has
even now understood quite how politically damaging their proposals for
financing “social care” were – even after they were scared into
dropping them.
I would now go out on a limb and wager that if there is an election in
the next year or so, Corbyn and Labour will win. Which, of course, is
why not just May, but her rivals, will do their absolute best to avoid
one.
Conclusions
His Tilt towards the ''Silver'' vote was subtle and sophisticated = of
course he has already sewn up the Youth Vote. He is the Coming Man.
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US allies converge on China in the South China Sea @asiatimesonline Law & Politics |
China’s rising assertiveness in the South China Sea has provoked a
concerted pushback from the United States and its key allies, with
Japan and the United Kingdom lending their naval assets to recent
stepped up maneuvers that have put the contested maritime region on a
new edge.
The US military flew B-52 bombers close to the South China Sea earlier
this week, a deployment US Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Dave
Eastburn claimed was a “regularly scheduled operation designed to
enhance our interoperability with our partners and allies in the
region.”
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Russia, Somalia Foreign Ministers focus on fostering economic cooperation and trade Horn Diplomat Law & Politics |
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Somali Minister of Foreign
Affairs Ahmed Isse Awad have discussed the prospects of building up
political and trade and economic cooperation on the sidelines of the
UN General Assembly session, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a
statement.
“While sharing opinions on the prospects of developing bilateral
relations, the sides confirmed mutual intention to step up cooperation
in the political, trade-economic and other areas,” the ministry
reported.
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.@Total Sees $100 Oil Coming, And Says It May Not Be a Good Thing @business Commodities |
Chief Executive Officer Patrick Pouyanne sees supportive elements,
such as looming sanctions on Iran and disruptions in Venezuela, that
are stripping supply from the market and pushing prices back into
triple digits for the first time seen since 2014, he said in a
Bloomberg television interview.
“I’m not sure it’s a good news” for the global economy, Pouyanne said.
“Even for the oil industry, because you know, when price goes too high
then you open the door to your competitors” and demand will fall, he
said.
While oil’s rally has stabilized an industry pulverized by the 2014
crash, there’s growing concern that it may become a drag on global
growth. It could prove particularly damaging for emerging economies,
where weakening currencies are making dollar-denominated imports
costlier. Meanwhile, competition from new energy vehicles is seen
carving out a chunk of future global demand.
Brent crude climbed back above $80 this month for the first time in
almost four years as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
signaled it won’t take rapid action to temper prices. Impending U.S.
sanctions targeting Iranian oil sales are likely to have a bigger
impact on the market than they did last time, BP Plc CEO Bob Dudley
said this week.
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Will Angola probe go right to the top? @Africa_Conf Africa |
First came the shocking but not wholly surprising news on 24 September
that José Filomeno dos Santos, better known as Zenú, son of the former
President, José Eduardo dos Santos, was being held in preventive
detention in connection with a US$1.5 billion corruption case. Zenú
was appointed by his father in 2013 as Chief Executive of the Fundo
Soberano de Angola with some $5bn of state funds.
Sacked from the Fund in January by new President João Lourenço, Zenú
was charged in May with fraud on a $500m transfer of cash from the
central bank in Luanda to a company in Britain. Angolan-Swiss
businessman Jean-Claude Bastos de Morais, an asset manager with the
fund, is also being held in Luanda.
According to filings from the Panama Papers leak in May 2016, Bastos
de Morais earned over $41m in just 20 months for managing the fund's
assets.
How far might this probe go? Prosecutor-General Alvaro da Silva João
insists the state has 'sufficient evidence' of Dos Santos and Bastos
de Morais's involvement in 'acts of corruption'. Anti-corruption
campaigner Rafael Marques de Morais reports that Zenú had a plan to
raise a $30bn investment fund, managed by his company Mais Financial
Services and backed by his father. The former central bank governor
Valter Filipe, has been sacked and is being held responsible for
ordering the $500m transfer. The question now is from whom did Filipe
get his orders.
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A Kenyan woman joked that, rather than giving them more loans, Xi Jinping, China's president, should keep all the leaders indefinitely in China instead @FT @DavidPilling Africa |
More than 40 African leaders trooped this month to Beijing for the
triennial Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. A Kenyan woman joked
that, rather than giving them more loans, Xi Jinping, China’s
president, should keep all the leaders indefinitely in China instead.
The continent, she said, would be better off without them. In the end,
Mr Xi went for option number one: he gave them more money. Over the
next three years, he announced, China would offer $60bn in new
funding.
The issue of Africa’s supposed debt addiction to China has become the
subject du jour — or remen huati, as they say in Mandarin. In
copper-rich Zambia, which is heavily indebted to Beijing, China has
been accused of using loans to inveigle itself into state-run
entities, including the electricity utility and state broadcaster. The
Zambian government denies the claims.
Africa’s vibrant civil society has become more alive to the topic of
China’s supposedly neo-colonialist ambitions. Beijing is routinely
accused of getting African countries in hock so that it can control
resources and manipulate political systems. A typical take, by South
African cartoonist Zapiro, shows Mr Xi trundling along with a shopping
cart into which he has casually thrown the entire African continent.
It is captioned “Chinese Takeaway”.
The idea of China’s supposedly nefarious African actions has gained
credence in Washington. Legislation that would double funding for the
US Overseas Private Investment Corporation to $60bn is being sold to
Donald Trump specifically as countering China’s supposed “debt trap
diplomacy”. Ray Washburn, president of Opic, told the Financial Times
that China was engaged in “economic warfare”.
In an open letter, 16 senators sounded the alarm. China, they said,
had already parlayed loans to Sri Lanka into a 99-year lease on
Hambantota port.
In Africa, Beijing had got its hooks into Djibouti. Some 80 per cent
of the country’s external debt is owed to China, a situation senators
said made the geostrategic country, on the Red Sea, vulnerable to
Chinese meddling.
China does indeed have global ambitions. But the demonisation comes in
the context of an escalating US trade war with Beijing. As much as
anything, the alarm in Washington is an acknowledgment that China’s
development strategy has been working. While the US has been sleeping,
China, particularly in Africa, has stolen a march by using relatively
modest sums to gain outsized influence.
Many of the claims made against China are exaggerated. According to
the China Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University,
which tracks Chinese loans to Africa, the World Bank consistently
lends more to the continent than China’s Eximbank. Although Chinese
loans lack transparency, it says, its best estimate is that they are
not a major contributor to African debt distress.
Indeed, many African governments have gone on eurobond borrowing
sprees, meaning they are in debt as much to Wall Street and the City
of London as to Beijing. Researchers at Johns Hopkins found that only
in Zambia, Djibouti, and possibly Congo-Brazzaville, were loans from
Beijing the major cause of debt distress.
If China is weaponising capital — using loans to create countries in
its own image — then the west did exactly the same in the 1970s and
1980s when it made massive and unsustainable loans to Africa through
multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and IMF.
When those loans turned sour, the same institutions pushed through
their favourite medicine: hated structural adjustment programmes that
eviscerated the state — and from which many countries are arguably
still recovering.
Certainly, there have been problems with Chinese finance too. Angola’s
government took over last year only to find that loans made under the
previous regime to Sonangol, the state oil company, were far more
expensive than advertised.
Chinese-financed projects often lack strict environmental safeguards
and can be shoddy. Most worrying of all, easy money, with few strings
attached — until the bill comes due anyway — has fostered corruption
in countries from Kenya to Nigeria.
Yet on balance, China’s entry into Africa has been a boon, providing
the ports, roads and airports without which no development push can
get started.
None of this means that Africa should ignore the warnings about
Chinese loans. Civil society is right to keep a close watch on
infrastructure projects that are too often overpriced and unable to
generate sufficient income to pay back the underlying loan.
China has presented African leaders with an opportunity to jump-start
development. If they squander it, they really do deserve to be locked
up in Beijing.
Conclusions
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03-SEP-2018 :: :: Belle at the ball Africa |
I remember a time when My then 11 Year Old Daughter Layla had attended
the School Disco and when I picked her up, her eyes glittered and she
could scarcely stand still and I asked
''Darling, How was it?''
''And She said to me, Daddy, I danced and I danced and I didn't stop''
I wanted to pick her up and spin her and spin her because as Jean Rhys
wrote in her Novel ''Wide Sargasso Sea''
"Only the magic and the dream are true - all the rest's a lie." and "I
must remember about chandeliers and dancing, about swans and roses and
snow."
The reason my mind looped back to my 11 Year old Layla was because The
Financial Times's David Pilling had asked me about Theresa May's visit
to Africa.
Aly-Khan Satchu, a financial analyst in Nairobi, described the “mood
music” around the trip as “quite sweet”. One of the few commentators
to praise the prime minister’s dancing in Cape Town as per David.
This is largely a 'born free' generation and the UK is wise to play to
that theme for multiple and overlapping reasons,"
"China had a singular and positive influence on Africa. It rebalanced
the demand side for Africa's commodities and also bought those
commodities on a long-term basis. It was this which triggered the
African recovery some two decades ago, However, since then a
freewheeling China Inc has favorited elites, has facilitated
large-scale looting via inflated infrastructure, some
of which were white elephants on Day One, and has lumped the African
citizen with the tab. How this plays out is now the key to
Sino-African relations going forward. A Hambantota scenario would be
problematic," referring to the Sri Lankan port which has been leased
to China for 99 years [Sputnik]
The West is pushing back for a number of reasons. Certainly since
uncorking Libya, immigration in Europe is a big theme. There is a
clearer sense that in order to stem immigration, Europe needs to put
its shoulder to the wheel and look at how to stimulate African
Economies and job creation. President Trump is also rattling Xi
Jinping's Golden Cage and surely wants to bottle up China in the South
China Sea and hence The Indian Ocean becomes central. It even got a
mention in Trump and Uhuru's press release.
However, most of all, the West sees a very big debt crisis looming and
is positioning for the Fall-Out. The Dominoes have already started to
fall. Now we will really find out if Xi Jinping is Santa Claus?
Theresa May started her Trip in Cape Town which was particularly apt
given that on February 3rd 1960 another British Prime Minister Harold
Macmillan said
'The wind of change is blowing through this continent. Whether we like
it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact''
A Debt crisis and a political inflexion point where those who fought
for Independence hand over to the ''Born Free'' Generation is in fact
a ''double whammy''
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Ethiopia to Mauritius: how will Africa match jobs to its population boom? Africa |
The Asian miracle of manufacturing export-led growth, he told his
audience bluntly, can’t and won’t be repeated in sub-Saharan Africa.
Something different is needed, he said. The question, however, is
precisely what.
Not least among the various alarm bells that have been rung this year
are warnings over faltering efforts to reduce chronic poverty,
reflected in the fact that Nigeria – one of the region’s biggest
growth economies – has overtaken India in terms of numbers of the very
poorest.
Another cause of concern has been the growing indebtedness of African
countries, often for costly infrastructure projects backed by China,
which some fear may soon be unsustainable.
Instead of the “Asian tiger” model – or even suggestions that African
countries could model themselves on China – Stiglitz favours a more
complex and multi-faceted approach.
The economist has singled out countries as diverse as the tiny Indian
Ocean island of Mauritius – which he dubbed a “miracle” after a visit
in 2011 – and Ethiopia.
While Mauritius ticks multiple boxes as a success story in economic
development and adaptability, how far its achievements are exportable
is open to question.
The island has a population of 1.3 million, political stability and an
effective welfare state providing free education and healthcare, but
it is also attractive for other reasons. It has a largely bilingual
population, with most Mauritians speaking both English and French, and
also has ties to India, China and the African mainland.
Historically, it has managed the transition since independence in the
late 1960s from reliance largely on a single resource – sugar –
through a period of textiles manufacturing in the 80s and 90s to where
it is now, emerging as a hub for offshore financial services (some of
them murky), call centres and an emerging tech focus combined. All in
addition to the tourism for which it is most famous.
“It follows that you need to have a multi-pronged strategy. Some
African countries have natural resources, which means they can get
foreign exchange – but that won’t create jobs. But there are a variety
of sectors that can embed modernisation, including advanced tourism
and telecoms.”
“I think Ethiopia does have an industrial strategy and has been very
successful through a combination with modernisation of agriculture.
“Then I think about Rwanda’s attempts to be a hi-tech hub but also
develop hotels and conventions.”
“Labour is much more footloose and willing to leave than was witnessed
in Cambodia and Vietnam,” says Lindsay Whitfield, an Oxford economist
who has studied Ethiopia’s apparel sector. “Thus, firms are on the
offensive in Ethiopia, trying to keep labour.”
It is a delicate balancing act. Critics, including the International
Trade Union Confederation, have argued that pay is simply too miserly.
Wages in Ethiopia’s apparel sector are the lowest in Africa, and there
is no legal minimum.
“You cannot live on that amount in Addis,” says Alemu Abebe, a
22-year-old outside the gates of Bole-Lemi, who quit his sewing job
for one in construction after only three months. With construction
over for now, he’s back looking for factory work. “Maybe it will have
changed a bit,” he says, hopefully.
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Ethiopian crackdown clouds premier's reform agenda @FT Africa |
Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s new prime minister, is facing questions over
his ability to deliver on promises of democratic reform after a
crackdown by government security forces following a recent spate of
violence.
Since taking power in April Mr Abiy has overseen the release of
thousands of political prisoners and welcomed exiled opposition
leaders back to the country. But his relaxation of state control has
been accompanied by an upsurge in ethnic violence.
This month at least 28 people died in the capital, Addis Ababa, in
violence involving youth groups and security forces that flared when
political leaders from the country’s south returned from overseas.
Mr Abiy had won praise for his reform pledges from Washington to
Riyadh, but the clashes underscored the scale of the challenge he
faces in a country marked by authoritarian rule and ethnic tensions
fuelled by poverty.
“Abiy has done a lot to bring dissatisfied groups, factions and actors
back into the political process, to normalise their status, and that
has created a lot of optimism,” said Michael Woldemariam, an Ethiopia
expert at Boston University.
You’ve got a country with a long history of authoritarianism, with a
very difficult history of ethnic politics and you’re almost taking the
lid off a lot of those tensions
“On the other hand, you’ve got a country with a long history of
authoritarianism, with a very difficult history of ethnic politics and
you’re almost taking the lid off a lot of those tensions,” he said.
Ethnic violence had broken out sporadically around the country in
recent months but Mr Abiy’s administration had done little in response
until last week.
The government arrested more than 3,000 people in the capital in a
crackdown reminiscent of the actions of some of Mr Abiy’s
predecessors.
About 1,200 of those detained had participated in the violence and are
being given “rehabilitation education” at a camp outside the capital,
the Commissioner of the Addis Ababa Police Commission said on Monday.
Mr Abiy’s chief of staff condemned the violence on behalf of the prime
minister, but his office has made no comment on the police response.
For some observers, the clampdown is at odds with Mr Abiy’s commitment
to reform.
“While the Ethiopian authorities have in recent months made a
commendable attempt to empty the country’s prisons of arbitrary
detainees, they must not fill them up again by arbitrarily arresting
and detaining more people without charge,” said Joan Nyanyuki, Amnesty
International’s director for east Africa.
For others the challenge facing Mr Abiy is more complicated. Rashid
Abdi, Horn of Africa project director at the International Crisis
Group, said the end of the old order had uncorked multiple forms of
discontent. “The pressure was mounting on [Mr Abiy] to be seen to be
firm” in response, he said.
Ethiopia is a vast country of 105m people from around 80 ethnic
groups, divided among nine ethnic regions. The ruling coalition, the
Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, in power since
1991, includes member parties from four of the ethnic regions but has
long been dominated by the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front. The
ethnic Tigray represent only about 6 per cent of the population.
Mr Abiy, an ethnic Oromo from southern Ethiopia, has promised a more
inclusive form of politics. Where the EPRDF of old sought to suppress
dissent — it controls all seats in the parliament — Mr Abiy has
preached reconciliation.
“The state wants to democratise but without compromising the rule of
law and it is struggling to find a balance between the two and to
respond with proportionate force,” said Hallelujah Lulie, a regional
security analyst based in the Ethiopian capital.
One solution is economic, according to Mr Hallelujah. The EPRDF has
recorded impressive growth rates in the last decade but struggled to
create enough jobs for Ethiopia’s rapidly growing population. “It
comes back [to] a lack of opportunities, a lack of jobs, that lies
behind the violence,” Mr Hallelujah said.
Mr Abiy has pledged to open the country’s tightly controlled economy
to investment but it will take time. In the meantime Ethiopians are
likely to see a “tougher Abiy” according to the International Crisis
Group’s Mr Abdi.
“I can’t doubt Abiy’s instincts for reform, he’s taken a lot of
risks,” Mr Abdi said. “But he’s also an ex-intelligence officer, so he
has that security training and sensibility and I think that is now
beginning to assert itself.”
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.@Choppies_BW results not chop chop @BDliveSA Africa |
Choppies’ share price fell as much as 85% on Tuesday morning after the
Botswana-based food retailer said it would miss a deadline to publish
its financial results for the year to June.
Choppies expanded its footprint in SA in 2015 and competes with the
likes of Shoprite and Boxer. The Johannesburg-and Botswana-listed
company had 71 stores in SA in 2017, making the country its
second-largest market after Botswana.
It also operates in Kenya, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The group, which is reportedly in a dispute about its shareholding
structure in Zimbabwe, said "a number of matters requiring the
attention of the board and management, which may impact materially on
the results, are being considered.
"The possible reporting impacts of these matters have not yet been
finally and fully determined," the company said in a statement, adding
it would miss the reporting deadline of September 30 2018.
The group said its profit after tax would fall by at least 20%, though
it could not yet quantify the decline.
Choppies’ shares closed 73% lower on the Botswana Stock Exchange and
72% lower at 46c on the JSE.
The group, which operates across Southern and East Africa, listed on
the JSE in May 2015 at R4.90 per share.
City Press recently reported that Choppies’ shareholders in Zimbabwe
were in a tussle over the size of their holding.
Zimbabwean company Nanavac Investments, which is owned by that
country’s former second vice-president, Phelekezela Mphoko, and his
son, believes it is a 51% shareholder in the local unit.
But Choppies claims that Nanavac’s interest in the business is a mere
7%, according to the report.
One analyst, who asked not to be named, said on Tuesday the market was
concerned that Choppies had "some problems in terms of internal
controls, or a lack thereof, hence the delay in publishing the
results".
Another analyst said Choppies’ dramatic share decline could make it a
takeover target for the likes of SA’s Shoprite.
Cratos Capital portfolio manager Ron Klipin held the view that
Choppies was under "quite a bit of pressure".
"They’re a small player in a big pond, where the big players have the
benefit of large-scale purchasing power," Klipin said.
"In the longer term, I’m not sure that a small player can survive in
that sort of market, and I would suspect that with their wide
geographical footprint, the cost of distribution could be a problem
for Choppies," he said.
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Ivory Coast to Increase Cocoa Farmers' Pay Africa |
Ivory Coast is set to raise the minimum pay for cocoa farmers for the
first time in two years after a recovery in global prices, according
to three people familiar with the matter.
The world’s top cocoa grower will increase the so-called farmgate
price to between 750 CFA francs ($1.34) and 800 francs per kilogram
for the bigger of the two annual harvests that begins next week, said
the people, who asked not to be identified because they’re not
authorized to speak publicly about the matter. Minimum pay was 700
francs per kilogram for last main crop.
The issue was discussed at a commodities council meeting of President
Alassane Ouattara on Wednesday morning and a final announcement will
be made on Oct. 1, said the people.
A spokeswoman for cocoa regulator Le Conseil du Cafe-Cacao declined to
comment when contacted by phone, while a spokesman for the government
didn’t answer calls.
Cocoa futures in London have gained more than 10 percent over the past
year on forecasts for smaller harvests in the world’s biggest
producers in West Africa, staging a recovery after the previous year’s
slump of almost a third. The increase will also narrow a price
difference with neighboring Ghana, where farmers have been paid the
equivalent of $1.57 per kilogram for the past two years, creating a
gap which encouraged the smuggling of beans.
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What is next for Africa-to-Africa investment? @AfDB_Group Africa |
“African companies that invest in Africa have clear con dence in her
long-term growth potential; they are at the cutting edge of their
industries and, moreover, are capitalizing on their African context to
generate higher returns. The highlights, lessons and checklist
solutions in this report signpost what it will take for other
companies and policymakers to promote an ‘invest with impact’ approach
in Africa.”
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