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Home Thoughts

This spring provides drinking water for wildlife during the dry season.

“One of the most difficult sights in the wild can be two leopards
mating just in the open. It was late and dark, I tried to get the
female in motion, while circling around the big male.” - ’Love
affairs’ taken by Paolo Torchio

When I was young – I grew up in Kathmandu, Nepal – my father would
sometimes take me to refugee camps where Tibetans who had crossed the
Himalayan mountains from Tibet into Nepal had just arrived. Many of
them had frostbite, were missing fingers and toes. I remember those
physical details clearly but also this sense of blankness. There’s a
sense of having passed through this incredibly challenging physical,
mental and emotional experience. And then once you arrive – whether
it’s Nepal, Germany or Canada – there is a blankness that stays with
you for however many years. I felt that for myself too. I also sense
that from the migrants in the film. I was interested to know whether
you were seeking a sense of hope in these stories?

Refugees, even third generation, still show me the keys of their
original homes. You want to cry because the home, the streets and the
cities have disappeared. But they still hold that key, because they
have the belief [and longing] that’s stronger than anything. But most
beliefs, they vanish eventually. Life passes away. It’s why you see
someone like the Dalai Lama who is over 80 years old and still cannot
reach a very simple fact: he should come back to his land. But, the
whole world is watching and nobody even argues about that. Politicians
are even wary to see him. So then, you see, when we talk about social
justice or fairness, they are almost empty words.

Do you have a desire to go home? What does home mean for you?

Home is something very small: it’s a little street or maybe a tree or
some kind of smell or a kind of temperature. I’m always used to being
pushed around, so I don’t have any land that I can call home. I don’t
know if that’s an unfortunate thing, but that’s my condition.

''In this lovely season of early Summer when every living thing is
full of energy, I wish to welcome all of you, distinguished guests
representing over 100 countries, to attend this important forum on the
Belt and Road Initiative held in Beijing'' said H.E. Xi Jinping in his
address At the Opening Ceremony of The Belt and Road Forum for
International Cooperation.  The Opening Address was headlined ''Work
Together to Build the Silk Road Economic Belt and The 21st Century
Maritime Silk Road''

Many of our African Leaders had of course visited in September for the
FOCAC summit when ''September has just set in Beijing, bringing with
it refreshing breeze and picturesque autumn scenery''

I learnt that it was

''In the autumn of 2013, respectively in Kazakhstan and Indonesia, I
proposed the building of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st
Century Maritime Silk Road, which I call the Belt and Road Initiative.
As a Chinese saying goes, "Peaches and plums do not speak, but they
are so attractive that a path is formed below the trees." Four years
on, over 100 countries and international organizations have supported
and got involved in this initiative. Important resolutions passed by
the UN General Assembly and Security Council contain reference to it.
Thanks to our efforts, the vision of the Belt and Road Initiative is
becoming a reality and bearing rich fruit Today, a multi-dimensional
infrastructure network is taking shape, one that is underpinned by
economic corridors such as China-Pakistan Economic Corridor,
China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor and the New Eurasian
Continental Bridge, featuring land-sea-air transportation routes and
information expressway and supported by major railway, port and
pipeline projects''

To quote a Chinese saying, “The ocean is vast because it rejects no
rivers.” - I enjoy parsing Xi Jinping's linguistics and you will
surely recall a substantial linguistic recasting last year at FOCAC
where the President spoke of ''The End of Vanity [Projects]'' for
example.

it would be churlish not to recognise the breathtaking scope and
contours of H.E Xi Jinping's vision. If You accept that Mankind is at
the apogee of its Progress then at this moment of apogee, there is no
other World Leader thinking or operating at this level. I wrote of the
''Platform Economy'' last week and referenced the new
''blitz-scaling'' economic model that the likes of UBER were pursuing,
however, on a macro level, there is no one who is thinking or
executing at the level of the Belt and Road.

Francis Schaeffer: "We are not building God’s kingdom; God is building
his kingdom, and we are praying for the privilege of being involved."

Of course, as I wrote in August 2017

''Xi Jinping’s One Belt One Road [OBOR] program binds the world to
Beijing because all the roads and railways have but one destination
and that is China'' and we must appreciate how the centre of Gravity
[which was once somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and is
now probably somewhere in Russia] is being shifted further East with
the Belt and Road.  Data from Refinitiv shows the total value of
projects in the scheme stands at $3.67 trillion, spanning countries in
Asia, Europe, Africa, Oceania and South America. The Economist
estimates ''that China will spend $1trn within the next decade on its
monumental scheme.'' Xi said over $64 billion in deals were signed at
the Belt and Road summit. Eximbank said this week that its outstanding
bri-related credit was more than 1trn yuan, or nearly $150bn.

“All of this shows that Belt and Road cooperation is in synch with the
times, widely supported, people centered and beneficial to all''

President Jinping has further fine-tuned his vision and is surely far
more sensitive to his environment and the feedback Loop than his State
Media and its attendant paraphernalia which tends to be rigid and
hard.

“Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock,
which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft,
and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another
paradox: What is soft is strong,” Lao Tzu

He said ''We should pursue the new vision of green development and a
way of life and work that is green, low-carbon, circular and
sustainable''

Finance is the lifeblood of modern economy. Only when the blood
circulates smoothly can one grow. We should establish a stable and
sustainable financial safeguard system that keeps risks under control,
create new models of investment and financing, encourage greater
cooperation between government and private capital and build a
diversified financing system and a multi-tiered capital market.

Third, we should build the Belt and Road into a road of opening up.
Opening up brings progress while isolation results in backwardness.
For a country, opening up is like the struggle of a chrysalis breaking
free from its cacoon. There will be short-term pains, but such pains
will create a new life. The Belt and Road Initiative should be an open
one that will achieve both economic growth and balanced development.

As the second Belt and Road Forum drew to a close, the leaders of 37
countries joined Chinese President Xi Jinping in signing a joint
communique promising to work together as the global project enters its
next phase. At the inaugural forum in 2017, just 29 nations made such
a pledge, with Portugal, Austria, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore
and Thailand among the new signatories this time around.

Now of course, China has had to fine-tune, resize and even the tighten
the Belt and disavow some Folks of the notion that Xi was Santa Claus.
Bloomberg Opinion writes

On Friday, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged high standards and
“zero tolerance” for corruption in the program. The sheer volume of
the supposedly multi-trillion-dollar initiative looked impossible to
match. Meanwhile, a corrosive combination of debt, corruption and
privileged access for Chinese companies threatened to lure or coerce
countries away from the U.S. orbit and into China’s. In many ways,
though, this model always contained the seeds of its own failure. The
emphasis on speed and scale came at the expense of sustainability,
both economically and politically. In most countries, China failed to
build a broader consensus for its investments beyond whatever
government happened to be in office. In a series of elections from
Malaysia to the Maldives, opposition parties have sailed into power by
railing against Chinese megaprojects that looked to be lining the
pockets of politicians more than boosting the economy. Investments in
countries such as Pakistan had already been pared back as rising debt
levels limited their ability to take on new projects. But leaders in
Beijing can and will adjust. They’ve already shown striking
willingness to renegotiate contracts, with Malaysia’s $16 billion East
Coast Rail Link — now around 30 percent cheaper — being only the
largest example.

China is on the hook for billions in Venezuela for billions of Dollars
if Maduro is regime-changed. China has always affirmed its Policy of
non-interference but in many parts of the World we are watching a lot
of long standing Regimes spasm and a betting Man would bet on many of
them dying. This is clearly particularly the case in many parts of
Africa as we watch events unfold in real time in places like Khartoum
and Algiers. Clearly the old Chinese bet of buttressing the incumbent
via building roads to his home village and Football stadia is no
longer de rigeur. A lot of Leaders have yet to make the adjustment.
Those who straddle the Belt and Road Platform ''geo-economically'' and
''geo-strategically'' will evidently get a Free Pass and these
countries are easily identified and include the Near Abroad [Asean],
Pakistan [key to triangulating India and the Gwadar Port is an escape
hatch], Greece and Italy [a beachhead into Europe and where your best
Mate Vlad is also snapping at European Heels] and then Africa of
course where You will note Prime Minister Abiy is getting the
kid-glove treatment, the Indian Ocean Islands [because of Economic
Exclusion Zones, for example].

Xi Jinping has been pivoting his Belt and Road. He has his hand on the
Spigot a lot more firmly. Time to pay attention.

President Xi Jinping on Saturday hailed deals worth more than $64
billion signed during China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) this week
as he sought to reassure skeptics the project will deliver sustainable
growth for all involved.
Xi said market principles will apply in all Belt and Road cooperation
projects and that his signature initiative to recreate the old Silk
Road joining China with Asia and Europe will deliver green and
high-quality development.
“More and more friends and partners will join in Belt and Road
cooperation,” he said in his closing remarks. “The cooperation will
enjoy higher quality and brighter prospects.”
“All of this shows that Belt and Road cooperation is in synch with the
times, widely supported, people centered and beneficial to all,” Xi
said on Saturday.
Data from Refinitiv shows the total value of projects in the scheme
stands at $3.67 trillion, spanning countries in Asia, Europe, Africa,
Oceania and South America.

China’s globe-spanning infrastructure initiative is shrinking. The
rhetoric at the second Belt and Road Forum, being held in Beijing this
week, has been less triumphalist — and new plans for roads, pipelines,
bridges and rail lines more modest — than at the first: On Friday,
Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged high standards and “zero
tolerance” for corruption in the program. Unfortunately for the U.S.
and its allies, though, a downsized program could pose more, not less
of a competitive threat to the West. Until now, most worries about the
Belt and Road have focused on its size and those weak standards. The
sheer volume of the supposedly multi-trillion-dollar initiative looked
impossible to match. Meanwhile, a corrosive combination of debt,
corruption and privileged access for Chinese companies threatened to
lure or coerce countries away from the U.S. orbit and into China’s.

In many ways, though, this model always contained the seeds of its own
failure. The emphasis on speed and scale came at the expense of
sustainability, both economically and politically. In most countries,
China failed to build a broader consensus for its investments beyond
whatever government happened to be in office. In a series of elections
from Malaysia to the Maldives, opposition parties have sailed into
power by railing against Chinese megaprojects that looked to be lining
the pockets of politicians more than boosting the economy. Investments
in countries such as Pakistan had already been pared back as rising
debt levels limited their ability to take on new projects.

But leaders in Beijing can and will adjust. They’ve already shown
striking willingness to renegotiate contracts, with Malaysia’s $16
billion East Coast Rail Link — now around 30 percent cheaper — being
only the largest example. Newly elected governments have found Chinese
counterparts relatively flexible on rescheduling loans, revisiting
project costs or shifting the focus of the two sides’ economic
cooperation. Even the flagship China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is set
to level out at around a third of the scale that was once touted.

This leaner version of the Belt and Road will potentially be far more
potent. China will still be able to deploy its many advantages in the
new scheme: its capable infrastructure firms, large-scale subsidies
for its major companies, speedy decision-making, increasingly
cutting-edge technology, and willingness to finance non-bankable
projects that fit broader strategic goals. At the same time, a more
measured approach, better attuned to political and economic risk and
more responsive to local demands, will give China greater scope to
entrench its presence in the economic sectors that matter. Most
important of these will be digital infrastructure projects, where
China’s advances — from fiber-optic cables to telecoms networks — will
likely do more to affect U.S. security and commercial interests than
any number of roads, railways or dams.China’s 5G capabilities are
proving attractive even to key U.S. allies, posing risks for U.S.
intelligence-sharing and military mobilization. Chinese surveillance
technologies are being rolled out across the developing world,
promising to spread China’s authoritarian capabilities. From data
access to standard setting, the so-called Digital Silk Road will also
augment China’s edge in the industries of the future — and will
receive a warm welcome from countries looking to benefit from
Beijing’s subsidized prices and fast rollouts, even if they’d chafe
against Chinese port or airport acquisitions.

A rebalancing away from the most toxic aspects of the Belt and Road
would certainly limit China’s ability to ensnare smaller countries in
debt and gain access to such strategic assets. But, it will also force
the U.S. to compete against China’s underlying strengths and most
compelling appeals rather than on the Belt and Road’s most obvious —
and fixable — flaws.

There is truth to claims that bri credit can be ruinously expensive.
Consider China Eximbank’s lending to Kenya for the Nairobi-Mombasa
railway. Local reports say half the $3.6bn loan was priced 3.6
percentage points above a floating market interest-rate. That is high
for a poor country. It is just one of many such loans by Eximbank,
which said this week that its outstanding bri-related credit was more
than 1trn yuan, or nearly $150bn.

Take a group of 37 poor countries monitored by the imf. Loans from
traditional bilateral lenders, including America and Japan, have
declined from 7% of the debtors’ gdp to 2% over the past decade. Loans
from China, by contrast, have soared from virtually nothing to 4%.

It is welcome that China is supporting hard-up nations. But its
enthusiasm generates foolhardiness. David Dollar of the Brookings
Institution in Washington has found that Chinese development lending
appears indifferent to political and economic risks. The Centre for
Global Development has identified eight countries drowning in red ink
that could be further swamped by bri projects (see chart). A report in
December released by Peking University ranked 94 bri countries based
on measures such as the quality of their financial regulation and
their openness to trade. Pakistan came second to last. That is awkward
for China: Pakistan may receive as much as $60bn in bri loans, which
would make it the biggest recipient of all.

There is truth to claims that bri credit can be ruinously expensive.
Consider China Eximbank’s lending to Kenya for the Nairobi-Mombasa
railway. Local reports say half the $3.6bn loan was priced 3.6
percentage points above a floating market interest-rate. That is high
for a poor country. It is just one of many such loans by Eximbank,
which said this week that its outstanding bri-related credit was more
than 1trn yuan, or nearly $150bn.

But this points to another concern that will be harder for China to
deal with because it relates to the very nature of the bri: its sheer
ambition. Potential benefits look impressive. A recent study by the
World Bank concluded that bri transportation projects could lift
global gdp by 3%. That is larger than the benefits that are usually
shown to be generated by free-trade agreements. It could yet bear out
China’s notion that Westerners (save Donald Trump) just want to lower
tariffs, whereas China is trying to build the roads that let trade
happen.

China cannot achieve this alone, but its often overweening approach to
the bri has alienated potential partners. America, India and Japan
want little to do with it. One reason is that China is, in effect,
asking others not only to sign up to its infrastructure plans but also
to endorse Mr Xi’s worldview. It does not help that China reveals so
little about its lending and that contracts go mainly to Chinese
firms.

Some analysts in China have started to express unease. Economists at
the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a think-tank, argued in a
paper last year that the government must entice other countries to
back bri projects in order to share the risks. Otherwise, it could be
China that finds itself trapped. Conservative estimates are that China
will spend $1trn within the next decade on its monumental scheme—about
as much as it holds today in American government bonds. Mr Xi would be
wise not to let such an outlay turn sour.

September has just set in Beijing, bringing with it refreshing breeze
and picturesque autumn scenery. And we are so delighted to have all of
you with us

To quote a Chinese saying, “The ocean is vast because it rejects no rivers.”

Donald Trump, a spam bot that was granted sentience by a curse from a
witch, has decided he would like to speak to the manager of Twitter.
The President had a closed door meeting with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey
on Tuesday and it was the high-powered, dystopian version of Trump
huffily bursting into an Apple Store and leaning menacingly over the
Genius Bar, demanding to know why his phone kept showing him negative
comments about himself. "Clearly there is something wrong with your
product," he'd say, swooping his bang as an employee quietly ticked
off a box marked "Does not know what he's talking about; is loud."

Trump summoned @Jack to the White House ostensibly to talk about
"protecting the health of public conversation ahead of the 2020 U.S.
election."

The image of @Jack, who looks like Goth Shaggy from Scooby-Doo,
lightheaded from having only eaten a bay leaf and a page from 1984 for
breakfast, trying to explain why Twitter is bad to the reason Twitter
is bad is both poetic and incomprehensible.

Two Trump administration officials said on Friday that neither a
wind-down period nor a short-term waiver on China’s oil purchases from
Iran are being contemplated after Washington surprised Iran’s
customers on Monday by demanding they halt the purchases by May 1 or
face sanctions.

International Markets

Euro 1.1163
Dollar Index 97.95
Japan Yen 111.7050
Swiss Franc 1.0191
Pound 1.2941
Aussie 0.7055
India Rupee 69.834
South Korea Won 1157.96
Brazil Real 3.9295
Egypt Pound 17.1695
South Africa Rand 14.3391

Shares of #Tesla plunge almost 6% to the lowest level since 2017 as
investors betting TSLA will soon raise capital. The stock has dropped
15% this week that included worse-than-expected results and a pitch by
CEO Elon Musk on autonomous cars that failed to win over investors.

Commodities

Emerging Markets


Frontier Markets

Sub Saharan Africa

The organizers of the protests that drove Sudan's President Omar
al-Bashir from power said they met Saturday with the ruling military
council for talks on forming a transitional government.

When anti-government protests erupted in Sudan at the end of last
year, the response of President Omar al-Bashir came straight from the
dictators' playbook -- a crackdown that led to scores of civilian
deaths.
At the same time, a more insidious strategy was being developed -- one
that involved spreading misinformation on social media, blaming Israel
for fomenting the unrest, and even carrying out public executions to
make an example of "looters."
The author of this strategy was not the Sudanese government. According
to documents seen by CNN, it was drawn up by a Russian company tied to
an oligarch favored by the Kremlin: Yevgeny Prigozhin.
One official of the former regime said Russian advisers monitored the
protests and began devising a plan to counter them with what he called
"minimal but acceptable loss of life."
While the documents do not come from official Russian agencies, they
were essentially a blueprint for protecting the Kremlin's interests in
Sudan and keeping Bashir in power.
The documents seen by CNN, which include letters and internal company
communications, are among several thousand obtained and investigated
by the London-based Dossier Center, run by exiled Russian businessman
Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Sudan has been Moscow's template for expanding its influence in Africa
and around the globe: A hybrid of private and state interests that
rewards both oligarchs and the Kremlin.
It's a low-cost strategy that gives Moscow a foothold in strategic
places, without the commitment of regular forces or major investment
by the Russian government. Instead it uses companies that supply
private contractors in return for commercial concessions.
Indeed, the documents seen by CNN originate from a St.
Petersburg-based company, M-Invest, which has an office in the
Sudanese capital, Khartoum.
M-Invest lists as its core business the "extraction of ores and sands
of precious metals." As CNN has previously reported, the company was
granted concessions for a gold mine in Sudan.
But its activities seem to have gone far beyond mining.
President Bashir cultivated a close relationship with the Kremlin,
visiting Moscow in 2017. Russia supplied modern Su-35 fighter jets in
the same year.
Put simply, Russia had placed a big bet on Bashir. As protests against
the regime gathered steam, that bet was at risk.
According to the documents reviewed by CNN, M-Invest drew up a plan to
discredit and suppress those protests.
One document from early January, reviewed by CNN, proposes spreading
claims that protesters were attacking mosques and hospitals.
It also suggested creating an image of demonstrators as "enemies of
Islam and traditional values" by planting LGBT flags among them. And
it proposed a social media campaign claiming that "Israel supports the
protesters."
The strategy also suggested the government "simulate a dialogue with
the opposition and demonstrate the openness of the government" in
order to "isolate leaders of the protest and gain time."
M-Invest proposed ways to make the government look good -- through
widely publicized "free distribution of bread, flour, grain, food."
But most of its focus was on the protests. It recommended fabricating
evidence "of arson by protesters against mosques, hospitals and
nurseries, [and] stealing grain from the public store."
It also suggested blaming the West for the protests and using
"extensive media coverage of the interrogation of detainees, where
they admit they arrived to organize civil war in Sudan." And it even
proposed "public executions of looters and other spectacular events to
distract the protest-minded audience."
In a letter to Bashir, drafted on March 17, Prigozhin complained that
the Sudanese government's "inaction" had "provoked the intensification
of the crisis." And he added, with unknowing prescience: "The lack of
active steps by the new government to overcome the crisis is likely to
lead to even more serious political consequences."
Potepkin also identifies himself as a project manager for another
company, Megaline, which is 50% owned by Prigozhin's holding company
Concord, according to company records. In a note on Megaline's
letterhead to Sudan's minerals ministry in 2017, he says that M-Invest
"will enjoy all the necessary support of the Megaline Group."
CNN was unable to contact Potepkin.
M-Invest also signed a contract with the Russian Defense Ministry,
seen by CNN, for the use of transport aircraft of the 223rd Flight.
Between August 2018 and February 2019, two aircraft of the 223rd
Flight made at least nine flights to Khartoum. One of those planes
took Bashir on his controversial visit to Syria last December, the
first by an Arab leader since the start of the Syrian uprising in
2011.
Russia has also reinforced its presence in the neighboring Central
African Republic, sending convoys of supplies across the border.
Whether Sudan will remain central to Russian ambitions in Africa
depends on the unfolding situation in Khartoum. Moscow will not give
up easily. It has strong links with the Sudanese military, which is
now in the driving seat -- even if Bashir, the man described by
Prigozhin as a "wise and balanced politician," is now in a
high-security prison.

Drops: coffee (10.9%), oilseeds (21%) and leather (6.4%). Also
declining: meat, fruit/Veg, gold, live animals, spices, natural gum,
electricity etc.

The Mozambican government is working to find a solution to pay civil
servants’ salaries for April after failing to borrow MZN 3 billion
from the domestic banking system

This is a #ClimateEmergency at 1°C of warming. It is going to get
much, much worse from here. #ExtinctionRebellion

Kenneth struck barely a month after Cyclone Idai cut a path of
destruction through central Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, leaving
more than 1,000 dead.
"There is no record of two storms of such intensity striking
Mozambique in the same season," the WMO said, labelling Kenneth an
"unprecedented tropical cyclone."
The UN weather agency added that a fact-finding mission currently in
Mozambique will in part look at the "impact of climate change and
sea-level rise on Mozambique's resilience" to extreme weather.
Climate change has made cyclones more damaging, as rising sea levels
have increased the strength of storm surges, WMO spokeswoman Clare
Nullis told AFP.
Higher or more powerful waves are driven towards the shore,
potentially posing a greater risk for coastal-dwelling populations.
According to WMO, the current cyclone season in the southwest Indian
Ocean "has been exceptionally intense," including 15 storms and nine
"intense cyclones."
That ties a record set in 1993 and 1994, the agency further said.

The remains of Aman Anywelwisye Kalyembe, an albino buried in 2015 in
the Rungwe district of the Mbeya region in the south of the country,
were exhumed and moved by unidentified individuals during the night of
April 23 and 24, the society said.

The incident was "fuelling fear among albinos and their families," it
said in a statement.

It attributed such actions to "superstitious beliefs at a time when we
are preparing for (general) elections in 2020."

Rwanda’s biggest brewer, Bralirwa Ltd, said on Friday pretax profit
rose 33 percent to 10.3 billion Rwandan francs ($11.39 million) in
2018, boosted by sales of its premium brand Mutzig.
The rise in sales of premium beer offset weaker sales of its other
beers and soft drinks, the beverage company, a subsidiary of Heineken
N.V., said. Volumes fell by 13 percent to 1.7 billion Rwandan francs
($1.88 million) in 2018, it said.
Bralirwa is Rwanda’s oldest brewery and has the right to produce beer
brands such as Amstel. It also produces branded soft drinks such as
Coca-Cola.
Last year it launched local production of Heineken with a plan also to
export it to neighboring countries. But Bralirwa said the strained
relations between Rwanda and its neighbours Burundi and Uganda were
affecting exports.
“This is something we hope will not last long. It being a landlocked
country, it needs other countries for us to have access to the sea,”
said Merid Demissie, its managing director.
“This is extremely important for us. The impact is not big but we
definitely need those markets.”
The company exports around 5 percent of its total volume to the region
but did not give specific details on exports to Burundi and Uganda.

Kenya

President Uhuru Kenyatta today joined other Heads of State and
Government in a Gala Dinner hosted by President Xi Jinping of the
People's Republic of China during the Second Belt and Road Forum at
the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China.

“It is estimated that when the agreement is fully implemented, the
Chinese market will absorb over 40 percent of Kenya’s avocado produce,
making it one of the largest importers of the fruit,” State House said
in a press statement.

The ‘’Zeitgeist’’ of a time is its defining spirit or its mood.
Capturing the ‘’zeitgeist’’ of the Now is not an easy thing because we
are living in a dizzyingly fluid moment. Whether its President Trump’s
rat-a-tat Tweets or a mind boggling 625% share price advance because
an erstwhile Tea Company [The Long Island Iced Tea Corp was a
little-known company making non- alcoholic lemonades and ice teas]
renamed itself the Long Blockchain Corp. We are living in
extraordinarily fast moving times. Paul Virilio has said ‘Wealth is
the hidden side of speed and speed the hidden side of wealth’ and he
is not wrong.

Exports of duty-free goods to the US under the African Growth and
Opportunity Act (Agoa) grew by 25 percent last year, marking one of
the biggest leaps in nine years, according to the latest figures by
the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS).
The goods, mainly textile products, increased from Sh33 billion in
2018 to Sh41.5 billion last year. Capital investment increased to 96.3
billion in 2018 from Sh95.3 billion in 2017 while direct employment in
the sub-sector increased by 5.1 per cent to 46,248 persons in 2018.
“The value of the exports increased significantly by 25.8 per cent
from Sh33.1 billion in 2017 to Sh41.6 billion in 2018,” says KNBS in a
report.

“The amazing sunrise light through one of the rare days when the fog
is covering the mara plains like a blanket. Lost at the horizon, the
balloons are taking off for a magical morning flight.” - ’Golden mara
plains’ taken by Paolo Torchio in aid of the Angama Foundation