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Thursday 13th of June 2019
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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.
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Macro Thoughts |
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The Swing by Kabir Africa |
Between the Poles of the Conscious and the Unconscious there has the
Mind made a Swing.
Thereon hang all Beings and all worlds, and that Swing never ceases
it's Sway Millions of Beings are there The Sun and
the Moon in their courses are there Millions of ages pass And The
Swing goes on. All Swing!
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V.S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River Africa |
*“Going home at night! It wasn't often that I was on the river at
night. I never liked it. I never felt in control. In the darkness of
river and forest you could be sure only of what you could see — and
even on a moonlight night you couldn't see much. When you made a noise
— dipped a paddle in the water — you heard yourself as though you were
another person. The river and the forest were like presences, and much
more powerful than you. You felt unprotected, an intruder ... You felt
the land taking you back to something that was familiar, something you
had known at some time but had forgotten or ignored, but which was
always there. You felt the land taking you back to what was there a
hundred years ago, to what had been there always.” *
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"The business and financial community is deeply concerned about what this may augur for Hong Kong," said Fred Hu @nytimes Law & Politics |
No major company dares to speak out publicly for fear of angering the
Chinese government. Behind the scenes, they are grappling with
difficult questions about whether the legislation would endanger
foreign executives or undermine the city’s legal system, a venue
preferred over the mainland’s Communist Party-controlled courts for
resolving disputes.
The law could broadly threaten Hong Kong’s place as a middle ground
between China and the business world. As the protests gathered steam
in Hong Kong on Wednesday, Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the United States
House of Representatives, issued a statement questioning whether
Washington should reconsider a law that exempts Hong Kong from some of
the trade and technology limits it imposes on the rest of China.
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05-DEC-2016:: hindsight will surely show that Russia ran a seriously sophisticated programme of interference, mostly digital. Law & Politics |
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.”
I have no doubt that Putin ran a seriously 21st predominantly digital
programme of interference which amplified the Trump candidacy. POTUS
Trump was an ideal candidate for this kind of support.
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Japan's @AbeShinzo Looks to Mediate Between U.S., Iran @WSJ Law & Politics |
TEHRAN—Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will seek to open a channel
of communication between Iran and the U.S. as part of a diplomatic
effort to prevent a military standoff between Tehran and Washington
from tipping into conflict.
Mr. Abe arrived in Iran on Wednesday amid a bitter confrontation
between the Trump administration and Tehran that has raised fears of
war between the longtime enemies.
“There is concern over growing tensions in the Middle East. While the
situation draws the attention of the international community, Japan
wants to play a role as much as possible for peace and stability in
the region,” Mr. Abe said at Tokyo’s airport.
Mr. Abe is scheduled to hold talks with Iranian President Hassan
Rouhani later in the day and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on
Thursday.
Expectations are low for a major breakthrough, with Iran’s leaders
maintaining a defiant position in response to President Trump’s offer
of talks.
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said earlier this week that his
country wouldn’t hesitate to use military force if necessary.
Mr. Rouhani said earlier this month that it was the U.S. that had
violated the nuclear agreement.
“The other side that left the negotiating table and breached a deal
should return to normal state. Until then, we do not have a choice but
resistance,” Mr. Rouhani was quoted as saying by the government’s
official website.
“When there is an economic war against the Iranian people, you cannot
expect those who have supported or initiated it to stay safe,” Mr.
Zarif said.
Despite Iran’s resistance to talks, the meeting with Mr. Abe
represents a chance to open a line of communication with Washington.
Mr. Abe and Mr. Trump spoke earlier this week by phone and have bonded
over many meetings, most recently during a trip by Mr. Trump to Japan
last month.
Mr. Abe has also highlighted Japan’s good relations with Iran as an
advantage in trying to narrow the divide between Washington and
Tehran.
“He has a very rare existence that is trusted by both sides. It’s the
time to use the asset,” said Kazuto Suzuki, a professor of political
economy at Hokkaido University in Japan.
Those sanctions have sent Iran’s oil sales plummeting, including to
Japan, which is abiding by the sanctions and received its last cargoes
of Iranian oil earlier this spring.
For Japan, a stable Middle East is crucial as it gets most of its oil
and gas from the region. In 2003, Japan sourced about 15% of its oil
imports from Iran; last year, the figure fell to 4%.
Other countries, notably Oman and Iraq, are also trying to position
themselves as intermediaries in defusing the tensions between
Washington and Tehran.
Oman, whose foreign minister visited Tehran in late May, has friendly
ties with both countries and has previously acted as a go-between.
However, some analysts believe that the possibility of real progress
is rather low.
They expect that Tehran may prefer to wait for the end of Mr. Trump’s
term, betting that a new administration will soften the U.S.’s line on
Iran.
For Mr. Abe, the Tehran trip is part of a broader effort to raise
Tokyo’s international profile. He has sought to insert Japan into the
dispute over North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and has courted Russian
President Vladimir Putin, seeking to end a decades-old conflict over a
series of islands near Japan.
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Trump Threatens Merkel With Pipeline Sanctions, U.S. Troop Cut @bpolitics Law & Politics |
Donald Trump upped his criticism of Germany on Wednesday as he
threatened sanctions over Angela Merkel’s continued support for a gas
pipeline from Russia and warned that he could shift troops away from
the NATO ally over its defense spending. Echoing previous threats
about German support for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, Trump said he’s
looking at sanctions to block the project he’s warned would leave
Berlin “captive” to Moscow. The U.S. also hopes to export its own
liquefied natural gas to Germany. Regardless of the political
controversy, the Nord Stream 2 project has faced delays and may not be
ready to transport gas until the second half of 2020, according to a
report made public by Denmark’s Energy Agency. Nord Stream 2
organizers argue a new pipeline is needed to guarantee supplies will
continue to flow in the coming decades as EU domestic reserves shrink
and import needs rise. Opponents of the project say it hurts the
bloc’s cohesion and weakens its Energy Union strategy aimed at
integrating the region’s gas and power markets, diversifying energy
supplies and improving security. Uniper SE, Engie SA, Royal Dutch
Shell Plc, OMV AG and BASF SE’s Wintershall are European partners of
Russia’s Gazprom PJSC in financing the project to expand Nord Stream
by 55 billion cubic meters a year. Russia supplies a third of Europe’s
gas and has no plans to give up its share to the expanding list of
competitors from Norway to the U.S.
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Law & Politics |
We must also facilitate informal trade which is 60-70% of Africa's; I
was on a Lagos-Abidjan flight with some “fat” women who turned out to
be slim, with bundles of cloth wrapped around their bodies to avoid
luggage charges on their twice-a-day trips - Dr. Adesina #AfDBAM2019
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A Tiny Tyranny in Equatorial Guinea Sustained by Oil Riches @business Africa |
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has ruled the West African
nation for almost 40 years, and less than half the population has
access to clean water.
The six-lane highway stretching from Equatorial Guinea’s airport to
its multimillion-dollar seaside resort in Sipopo is lined with
skyscrapers, a state-of-the-art Israeli-run hospital, and luxury homes
surrounded by carefully tended gardens. The 16-mile drive suggests the
country’s oil reserves have enriched this tiny 11,000-square-mile West
African nation, which has been ruled for almost 40 years by one man,
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.
Veer off the route, and the picture that emerges is much less divine.
In Fishtown, one of as many as eight shanty communities in the
capital, Malabo, hundreds of people live in wooden shacks. Children
romp near sewage that flows onto dirt roads strewn with trash. Street
vendors sell tomatoes and beans under a mesh of electrical wires that
often spark fires. To pass time, unemployed men play Akong, a local
board game. Many were idled after Obiang’s building spree ended two
years ago. The country has some of the world’s worst social
indicators: Less than half of the population of about 1.3 million
people has access to clean water, and 20% of children die before
reaching the age of 5, United Nations data show. More than half of all
children of primary age aren’t in school.
Poverty is in the eyes of the beholder—at least according to Gabriel
Mbaga Obiang Lima, one of the president’s sons and the minister of
mines and hydrocarbons. He acknowledges difficulties in tackling what
he calls “pockets” of destitution, which he blames on the poor having
too many children and not saving enough money. “When our peers from
Nigeria and Sudan come to see our slums, they say: ‘This is not
poverty. Come to our country to see real poverty.’ ”
His father, the president, rules the country from Malabo, which is set
on a volcanic island about 150 miles from the rest of the country on
the mainland. Obiang’s rise to power began in Spain—the former
colonial ruler of Equatorial Guinea—where he received military
training at an elite academy during the 36-year-long dictatorship of
Francisco Franco. When the African country became independent in 1968,
Francisco Macias Nguema was elected president—and Obiang, his nephew,
rose to become head of the national guard. Macias hated
intellectuals—he even banned the word “intellectual.” A third of the
population was killed by Macias’s security forces or fled during his
decade-long rule. Obiang overthrew his uncle in 1979. Macias was put
on trial and executed by firing squad.
Until the 1990s, Equatorial Guinea’s main source of revenue was cocoa
and coffee. Then oil was discovered. (The country is the smallest
member of OPEC.) Since then, Obiang has tightened his grip through a
system of patronage that enriches his family and allies. Obiang’s
eldest son and vice president, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, flaunts
his private jet trips and yacht parties on Instagram. “Teodorin” (or
little Teodoro) was convicted in absentia by a French court in 2017
for embezzling more than $100 million of Equatoguinean public money to
buy a fleet of supercars and a mansion near the Champs-Élysées. He
spent more than $300 million from 2004 through 2011 on luxuries,
including Michael Jackson memorabilia, U.S. Department of Justice
lawyers said in a separate money laundering case settled in 2014. That
sum amounted to slightly less than 10% of Equatorial Guinea’s annual
oil revenues at the time and, according to a paper published by the
Center for Global Development, would have been more than enough to
eradicate the country’s poverty. Teodorin hasn’t commented on either
case, but his defense appealed the French court ruling, saying he
amassed his fortune legally and has immunity as vice president.
Teodorin is in charge of national security. Under his watch, arbitrary
detention, torture, and the killing of dissidents have earned the
regime a human-rights record comparable to that of Syria and North
Korea in the latest ranking by U.S.-based think tank Freedom House.
Teodorin’s half-brother Obiang Lima, the oil minister, dismisses
accusations of rights violations and torture as “fake news” spread by
international organizations.
Any local dissent, however, is muted. Only 10 public protests were
recorded in Equatorial Guinea from 1997 through April of this year,
according to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a
U.S.-based nongovernmental organization that tracks political unrest.
Part of the reason for dampened dissent is the conscious underfunding
of education by the regime. Activists’ ability to mobilize is limited
by the cost of mobile internet access in the country, which is the
highest in the world: 1GB of monthly broadband data costs $34.80, well
above the $6.96 charged in neighboring Gabon and 73¢ in India,
according to data compiled by the Alliance for Affordable Internet.
“Terror and fear has taught our people to swallow their rage,” says
Moises Enguru, a pastor and rights activist. “Our generation inherited
a useless country. The regime has killed our working culture,
education, and morals.” A group of young writers and artists is
struggling in secret to nurture a generation of activists who can more
effectively challenge the regime. “We need to educate critical minds
who can lead the movement,” says one of the organizers who spoke on
condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “Change is inevitable,
but it may take a while.”
One of the few people to openly criticize the regime is Mariano Ebana
Edu, a rapper whose 2013 hit, A Letter to the President, called for
equal rights and potable water. On a recent evening, with the music in
his jeep blaring, Edu drives through the streets of a slum called
Santa Maria. He passes women with buckets on their head lining up to
get water from communal taps. Moments later, he’s in the upscale
Paraiso neighborhood, where high white walls topped by barbed wire and
spanning several blocks seal off Obiang’s private compound. “This is
our reality,” says Edu, who goes by the name Negro Bey. “Our wealth is
not shared fairly.”
On the sidelines of an oil conference at the Sipopo conference center
in April, Obiang Lima says foreign attempts to discredit his father
have failed and that the government continues to use oil revenue to
improve the lives of Equatoguineans. But poverty has risen since oil
prices dropped in 2014, and the country’s production was halved to
120,000 barrels per day from more than 300,000 during peak years,
according to the latest World Bank Macro Poverty Outlook.
“Life is getting harder,” says Marcial Abaga, a member of the
opposition Convergence for Social Democracy Party, whose home in
Fishtown, like many others, has no running water. “If you complain
about living conditions, you’re considered an enemy of the state, and
you’re ostracized. You become like me.”
Meanwhile, at 77, Teodoro Obiang isn’t loosening his grip on power,
despite rumors of ill health and alleged coup attempts. When recent
waves of unrest unseated autocrats from Sudan to Zimbabwe, Obiang was
unshaken. He’s now the world’s longest-serving president. And he and
his family are likely to extend their hold until their oil runs dry.
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Lets start in Khartoum. The "zeitgeist" of the Revolution was as intoxicating as the Oudh that the Saudi Arabian Ambassador once gave me and I found myself semi delirious intoxicated on my own perfume. Africa |
The exquisite murals, the composition of the crowds, the element of
Girl Power which spoke to hope and a Future. As I watched events
unfold it felt like Sudan was a Portal into a whole new another
Normal. David Pilling in the Financial Times captured the Essence by
quoting William Wordsworth, who wrote of the French Revolution:
OH! pleasant exercise of hope and joy! For mighty were the auxiliars
which then stood Upon our side, we who were strong in love! Bliss was
it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!--
Not in Utopia, subterranean fields, Or some secreted island, Heaven
knows where! But in the very world, which is the world Of all of
us,--the place where in the end We find our happiness, or not at all!
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Khartoum sit-in may be gone, but its dream of a democratic Sudan remains @AJENews Africa |
Over the following days, the RSF and army removed the barricades and
shot anyone who guarded them. More people were killed and reports
surfaced of women being raped during the sit-in's dispersal. But the
opposition alliance continued to resist, launching a general strike
that paralysed parts of the capital and other cities.
"We'll continue until the last martyr falls," said one man I spoke to
on my last night at the sit-in when I called to check on him and ask
if he thought it was all over.
Days later, as I drove by the site of the sit-in, all evidence it had
ever stood there was either removed or being removed.
The sit-in may be gone, but it'll always be the place that brought
together people who dared to think of a different Sudan, a democratic
Sudan. No amount of paint will whitewash that memory.
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And now we have two visions of the Future Africa |
And now we have two visions of the Future. One Vision played out on
our screens, the Protestors could have been our Wives, our Children,
our Daughters and Sons. The Other Vision is that of MBS, MBZ and
Al-Sisi and its red in tooth and claw. Vladimir and Xi backed the Gulf
and America is below the radar.
Hugh Masakela said ''I want to be there when the People start to turn
it around'' Sudan is a Masakela Pivot moment
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Naspers Ltd., Africa's largest company by market value, said its expects earnings grew by as much as a third in the latest financial year. @business Africa |
Naspers Ltd., Africa’s largest company by market value, said its
expects earnings grew by as much as a third in the latest financial
year.
Core headline earnings per share from total operations, which strip
out non-operational items, are expected to have grown by between 31%
and 33% in the year to March 31, the company said in a trading
statement ahead of results expected on June 21. Naspers didn’t give a
reason for the improving operating performance.
Analysts have forecast full-year core headline EPS growth of 25
percent, according to the average of 10 estimates compiled by
Bloomberg.
Naspers is trying to narrow its valuation discount compared to its
stake in Tencent Holdings Ltd., now worth about $128 billion.
Cape Town-based Naspers is the Chinese internet giant’s largest
shareholder. The company is moving most of its internet businesses to
a new listing in Amsterdam as part of that effort.
Overall earnings per share are expected to have dropped as Naspers
sold fewer assets compared to the prior year. Its biggest such deal --
the sale of a stake in Indian e-commerce startup Flipkart to Walmart
Inc. -- earned the company $1.6 billion.
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Ethiopia plans to issue telco licenses by year-end @ReutersAfrica Africa |
Ethiopia is aiming to award telco licenses to multinational mobile
companies by the end of the year, ending a state monopoly and opening
up one of the world’s last major closed telecoms markets, three people
with direct knowledge of the process said.Ethiopia’s telecoms industry
is considered the big prize in a push to liberalize the country’s
economy launched last year by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed because of its
huge protected market serving a population of around 100 million.
Government officials have already looked at several potential options,
including the sale of a minority stake in Ethio Telecom, granting of
new licenses to multiple telecoms operators or a combination of both.
The plan, which has not yet been formally announced, would open the
bidding process for two licenses in September and they would be
awarded in December.Vodafone, South African operator MTN, France’s
Orange and Etisalat of the United Arab Emirates are likely to be among
the leading contenders vying for entry into the Ethiopian market.
Senior executives from those companies attended a telecoms conference
in Addis Ababa this week and met with government officials. Ethiopia’s
potential as an untapped market could outweigh concerns about any
risks, including Ethiopians’ low income levels and the country’s
over-valued birr currency.
“There will be a bidding war. It’s the last greenfield site. There’s
an opportunity to be market dominant,” said one company executive.
“It feels real this time, for the first time,” one of them said.
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02-JUL-2018 :: Ethiopia Rising. @TheStarKenya Africa |
The Prime Minister needs to execute real quick on the economic front
but if he levels the playing Field, a whole Troop of folks will be
looking to pile in. That Troop will include the Ethiopian Diaspora,
Foreign Investors and I am sure our very own Safaricom.
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@KeEquityBank Group Holdings Plc. plans to set up a representative office in Ethiopia as the East African nation opens up its financial sector Kenyan Economy |
Kenya’s biggest bank by market value received approval to open the
office at the end of May, the person said, asking not to be identified
because the matter is private. It also secured a license to provide
remittance services in partnership with an Ethiopian lender to target
three million Ethiopians living abroad, the person said.
A spokesman for Equity Group didn’t immediately respond to requests
for comment. Neither did Yinager Dessie, the governor of the National
Bank of Ethiopia.
Equity Group would be the second Kenyan bank to set up in Ethiopia
after rival KCB Group opened a representative office in the capital,
Addis Ababa.
Ethiopia, which has 18 commercial banks serving more than 100 million
people, is working with the World Bank to open up its financial sector
to foreign investment.
The industry has been closed to investors since a Marxist junta
nationalized lenders four decades ago. Significant changes may include
the establishment of a capital market and the modernization of the
nation’s payment system.
Equity Group helped facilitate 106.7 billion shillings ($1.1 billion)
of remittances to Kenya by end of 2018 through partnerships with
global payment companies such as PayPal Holdings Inc. and Moneygram
International Inc.
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