|
Thursday 20th of December 2018 |
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
Macro Thoughts |
read more |
|
Third Canadian detained in China, Canadian media says, citing ministry @Reuters Law & Politics |
A third Canadian citizen has been detained in China, Canada’s National Post newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing the Canadian foreign ministry. China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, told a daily news briefing in Beijing that she was unaware of the report. Two Canadians - former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor - were detained after Canadian police arrested Huawei Technologies Co Ltd’s [HWT.UL] chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, on Dec 1. Canada’s Global Affairs office told the National Post that they were aware of a detention but did not provide details and did not suggest a connection to Meng’s detention. The Canadian government has said that there is also no explicit link between Meng’s arrest and the detentions of Kovrig and Spavor. But Beijing-based Western diplomats and former Canadian diplomats have said they believe the detentions are a form of “tit-for-tat” reprisal by China, in response to Meng’s arrest.
|
read more |
|
Switzerland prepares to launch Iran payments channel @FT Law & Politics |
Switzerland is close to launching an initiative to let companies sell food, medicine and medical devices to Iran using a payments channel that would be the first such mechanism to win Washington’s approval since it reimposed sanctions against Tehran. Bern’s humanitarian supplies plan, which is the subject of delicate ongoing talks with the US and Iran, comes as leading EU powers hope within weeks to set up a much-touted mechanism to finance broader trade with Tehran. The simultaneous efforts highlight the transatlantic schism since President Donald Trump pulled out of a landmark international nuclear deal with Iran in May. While Switzerland’s work is consistent with Washington’s insistence that it will continue to allow humanitarian trade with Tehran, US officials have denounced the EU for its efforts to defy reimposed US sanctions on industries ranging from oil to finance. The Swiss economic affairs department told the Financial Times it was “striving” to set up the humanitarian payments channel “as soon as possible” but could not give a start date. “Discussions are still ongoing with US authorities, Iran and Swiss companies,” it said. Switzerland, which is not an EU member and has a large pharmaceuticals sector and a tradition of neutral diplomacy, has strong credentials to be a base for the mechanism. Roche, the Swiss pharmaceuticals company, said it was aware of “discussions on a potential alternative financing channel for humanitarian purposes” but could not comment further. “To our knowledge no concrete proposals have been made,” it said. The US state department signalled that it was comfortable with the Swiss channel: “We understand the importance of this activity since it helps the Iranian people. It has never been, nor is it now, US policy to target this trade.” It added: “The United States maintains broad authorisations that allow for the sale of agricultural commodities, food, medicine, and medical devices by US persons or from the United States to Iran. “In addition, US sanctions laws provide similar exemptions for sales of food, agricultural commodities, medicine, and medical devices by non-US persons to non-designated persons in Iran.” Brian Hook, US special representative for Iran, warned last month that Tehran would have to “create a financial sector that is open and transparent” to facilitate the humanitarian imports and ensure they were not diverted to “regime elites”. The Iranian rial has depreciated by about 50 per cent this year, pushing up prices of food and medicine. Central bank figures show a 60 per cent year-on-year rise in food prices in November. While Iran’s government says there is no severe shortage of pharmaceuticals, people complain that treatments for acute conditions such as cancer have soared as much as threefold — if they can be found at all. The EU hopes its payments channel for non-dollar denominated Iran trade could be in place as soon as the end of this month, Federica Mogherini, the bloc’s foreign policy chief, said last week. The initiative — led by France, Germany and the UK — has struggled to make headway because of technical and political problems, notably a reluctance by countries to host it because of a possible US backlash. EU diplomats say it is likely France and Germany will shoulder the biggest burden, including hosting the channel. US officials have alternated between condemning the effort and dismissing it as a paper tiger, as international companies with American links are likely to shun it due to worries it could open them up to US sanctions.
Conclusions
I somehow doubt the US will countenance the Mogherini plan.
International Markets
|
read more |
|
@facebook Faces Intensifying Pressure From Washington on Privacy @technology World Currencies |
Facebook Inc. faces growing pressure over its privacy protections as the District of Columbia sued Wednesday over its handling of user data, exemplified by the privacy breach in which personal information of millions of Americans was transferred to Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm hired by President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. The suit alleges Facebook violated the district’s Consumer Protection and Procedures Act as a result of lax oversight of the company’s third-party applications. It came just hours after an explosive New York Times report that the social media giant had allowed, even after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, more than 150 companies to access more users’ personal data than it had disclosed, prompting renewed calls for Congress to act. “It is beyond obvious at this point that social media platforms are simply not up to the task of voluntarily ensuring the privacy and security of their users,” Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, tweeted on Wednesday. “Congress must step in.” Washington Attorney General Karl Racine, who filed the lawsuit, said in a statement that “Facebook put users at risk of manipulation by allowing companies like Cambridge Analytica and other third-party applications to collect personal data without users’ permission.” Facebook has been battered all year by questions about its privacy protections, and its shares took another hit Wednesday, falling as much as 7.3 percent and trading at $136.43 at 2 p.m. in New York.
|
read more |
|
@JunckerEU : Africa's future will shape Europe's @dwnews Africa |
Juncker urged European firms on Tuesday to boost their investments in Africa in a "partnership among equals," reminding the joint European Union and Africa Union forum that Africa's population was forecast to double to 2.5 billion by 2050. "Africa's future is also our [European] future," said Juncker in opening remarks to representatives of 800 businesses and political leaders gathered in Vienna. Asked if Europe was too late in discovering business investment opportunities in Africa, Juncker replied: "Yes, but we do it better." Hosting the forum with the AU's current chairman, Rwanda's President Paul Kagame, Chancellor Kurz of Austria — which holds the rotating EU presidency and is an advocate of strict European rules on migration — said: "We must not leave the African continent to China," describing Tuesday's forum as a "good start" for more investment by Europe beyond the Mediterranean. In September, Beijing hosted African leaders at a summit, offering billions. Last year, China opened its first overseas military base in Djibouti and ranks as Africa's largest trading partner, followed by Japan and the EU (taken as a single entity), according to EU statistics. Among EU nations, the highest surpluses in trade with Africa last year were accrued by Germany (€8.3 billion) and France (€ 5.6 billion). "It's better to start than not start at all," said Namibian Communications Minister Stanley Simataa in Vienna Tuesday, saying past colonial "dark chapters" were part of the "shared history" of Africa and Europe. Austria's recent avoidance of the UN migration pact adopted by 164 nations in Morocco was criticized as a "surprise" by AU commission chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat. European heavyweights like Germany, France and Italy only sent ministerial level officials to the Vienna investment forum, according to a forum list of attendees: Those present included presidents and premiers from Egypt, Ethiopia, Guinea, Kenya and Mauritius. Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser said that the German giant planned to invest an additional 500 million euros ($567 million) to provide infrastructure, including "affordable" electricity, on the African continent. Africa's burgeoning mega-cities include Congo's Kinshasa, Nigeria's Lagos, Egypt's Cairo, Tanzania's Dar es Salaam and Angola's Luanda, faced "extreme risks" from climate warming, warned the Britain-based research team Verisk Maplecroft in a study last month. Kinshasa, now at 13 million and set to double in population by 2035, risked extreme flooding. Luanda would struggle with high heat levels, as well as water shortages, it added.
|
read more |
|
DJ, Businessman Face Off in Battle for Madagascar's Presidency @business Africa |
Almost a decade after a military-backed ex-nightclub DJ seized power from a business tycoon in Madagascar, the two are squaring up again in a runoff vote to decide who’ll become the next president. The failure by either candidate to accept the outcome could trigger a repeat of violence that’s marred previous ballots on the Indian Ocean island. That could pose a threat to the world’s biggest vanilla industry and businesses like Sumitomo Corp.’s Ambatovy nickel mine and Rio Tinto Group’s QMM mineral-sands project. Voting got under way at 6 a.m. Wednesday in the capital, Antananarivo. About 10 million voters are registered to cast their ballots for the candidates: 69-year-old millionaire businessman Marc Ravalomanana and Andry Rajoelina, 44, whose career spans disc-jockeying at nightclubs in the capital to becoming its mayor. “Madagascar stands a lot to lose if this election leads to a new crisis,” particularly its bid to encourage foreign investment, said Juvence Ramasy, a political scientist and lecturer at the University of Toamasina in the country’s east. Foreign direct investment in the country has yet to recover from the record $1.39 billion Madagascar received in 2008, the year before the two candidates became embroiled in a dispute that ended when the army stepped in to support Rajoelina. Malagasies consider crime and security, along with a lack of roads and other infrastructure as the most pressing problems the government should address, according to a survey published last month by Afrobarometer. Those are issues the two candidates have campaigned on. Rajoelina has portrayed himself as a “builder” on his Twitter account and has vowed to develop the country’s infrastructure. During his five years in office that followed the 2009 dispute, he struggled to reverse an economic crisis following the suspension of most foreign aid to the government. Ravalomanana has pledged to accelerate economic growth and strengthen the rule of law. He previously served as president from 2002, when he triggered a political crisis by declaring himself president without waiting for a runoff after a disputed vote. He was re-elected in 2006, but forced to resign by the army in 2009 after clashes between protesters and security forces that left scores of people dead. The runoff is being held after none of the 36 candidates who ran in the first vote on Nov. 7 won more than 50 percent of the vote. Hery Rajaonarimampianina, who resigned in September to seek re-election, obtained less than 10 percent.
|
read more |
|
More than 100 killed in Congo clashes days before vote @ReutersAfrica Africa |
KINSHASA (Reuters) - More than 100 people have died in clashes between rival ethnic groups in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo this week, local activists said on Wednesday. The fighting in Mai-Ndombe province is some of the worst to hit the normally peaceful area in years and comes days before Sunday’s long-delayed presidential, legislative and provincial elections, which many fear could turn violent. The fighting between the Batende and Banunu ethnic groups broke out on Sunday over the disputed location of a Banunu chief’s burial, said Jules Bango, an activist in the town of Yumbi, on the banks of the Congo River
|
read more |
|
Sasini Tea & Coffee Ltd.reports FY 2018 EPS -14.474% Africa |
Par Value: 1/- Closing Price: 19.70 Total Shares Issued: 228055504.00 Market Capitalization: 4,492,693,429 EPS: 1.30 PE:
Sasini PLC FY 2018 results through 30th September 2018 vs. 30th September 2017 FY Revenue 3.515220b vs. 4.201196b -16.328% FY Gain/ [Losses] arising from fair value changes on biological assets 55.558m vs. 81.746m -32.036% FY Results from continuing operations 354.615m vs. 373.181m -4.975% FY Finance income 112.663m vs. 141.864m -20.584% FY Profit before tax from continuing operations 448.806m vs. 504.021m -10.955% FY Profit before tax 448.806m vs. 520.921m -13.844% FY Profit for the year 293.523m vs. 339.407m -13.519% FY Profit attributable to owners of the company 295.497m vs. 346.183m -14.641% EPS on operating activities 1.13 vs. 1.27 -11.024% EPS on biological assets 0.17 vs. 0.25 -32.000% EPS 1.30 vs. 1.52 -14.474% Total Assets 12.961380b vs. 13.196025b -1.778% Total Equity 11.323783b vs. 11.315877b +0.070% Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the period 1.135609b vs. 1.406876b -19.282% Dividend 1.00 vs. 1.00 –
|
read more |
|
|
|
|