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Monday 23rd of September 2019 |
23-SEP-2019 :: Streaming Dreams Non-Linearity Crude Oil; @netflix Africa |
Last week I wrote about the Oil Markets and it was this comment by the Houthi Spokesman referencing Dubai and Abu Dhabi
"If you want peace and security for your facilities, and towers made of glass that cannot withstand one drone, then leave Yemen alone,"
which streamed into my consciousness. And I was thinking to myself about what sort of discount should be applied to the Burj Khalifa because frankly I place more credibility on the utterances of the Houthis than their adversaries.
And then in some major non-linear jujitsu move, William Goldings' 1964 novel ''The Spire'' started to spin in my mind. I studied ''The Spire'' at ''A'' level and it made a big impression on me. The Spire is a 1964 novel by the English author William Golding. "A dark and powerful portrait of one man's will". it deals with the construction of the 404-foot high spire loosely based on Salisbury Cathedral; the vision of the fictional Dean Jocelin. In this novel, William Golding utilises stream of consciousness writing with an omniscient but increasingly fallible narrator. Dean Jocelin is the character through whom the novel is presented. Golding utilises the stream of consciousness technique to show his, Lear-like, descent into madness.
The first chapter begins with Jocelin holding the model of the spire and laughing: "He was laughing, chin up, and shaking his head. God the father was exploding in his face with a glory of sunlight through painted glass, a glory that moved with his movements to consume and exalt Abraham and Isaac and then God again. The tears of laughter in his eyes made additional spokes and wheels and rainbows. // Chin up, hands holding the model spire before him, eyes half closed; joy – "I've waited half my life for this day!"'
It doesn't quite make sense, or it doesn't make immediate sense. In Golding's opening sentence we read "God the Father was exploding in his face …" which is initially as enigmatic as it is dramatic – until it is resolved as a metaphorical description of sunlight streaming through a stained glass window. The delay is important. There is a semantic lag, a slight, postponed understanding throughout The Spire.
And then My mind flipped further back to 2001
You remember those twin statues of the Buddha that I told you about? Carved out of a mountain in Afghanistan, that got dynamited by the Taliban back in the spring? Notice anything familiar?" "Twin Buddhas, twin towers, interesting coincidence, so what." "The Trade Center towers were religious too. They stood for what this country worships above everything else, the market, always the holy fuxxing market." [Thomas Pynchon]
And by the way, my conclusion remains we are at a Peacock Throne Moment for the House of Saud and that markets and Folks tend to miss inflection points and therefore I have a supreme conviction around the Oil markets and am conducting my own operations and only on a need to know basis. The Shah of Shahs ended up in Panama all on his lonesome looking out to sea and there is another Fellow not unlike the fictional Dean Jocelin with a $500m Yacht called the Serene who will most likely looking out to Sea in the not too distant future.
I stuck ''non-linearity'' in my headline for good reason and You will need to indulge me. My Mind lept to an Article I read in 2012 ''Annals of Technology Streaming Dreams'' by John Seabrook January 16, 2012
“This world of online video is the future, and for an artist you want to be first in, to be a pioneer. With YouTube I will have a very small crew, and we are trying to keep focussed on a single voice. There aren’t any rules. There’s just the artist, the content, and the audience.”
“People went from broad to narrow,” he said, “and we think they will continue to go that way—spend more and more time in the niches—because now the distribution landscape allows for more narrowness.”
And this brought me to Netflix. Netflix spearheaded a streaming revolution that changed the way we watch TV and films. As cable TV lost subscribers, Netflix gained them, putting it in a category with Facebook, Amazon and Google as one of the adored US tech stocks that led a historic bull market [FT] Today Netflix faces an onslaught of competition in the market it invented. After years of false starts, Apple is planning to launch a streaming service in November, as is Disney — with AT&T’s WarnerMedia and Comcast’s NBCUniversal to follow early next year. Netflix has corrected brutally and lots of Folks are bailing big time especially after Netflix lost US subscribers in the last quarter. Even after the loss of subscribers in the second quarter, Ben Swinburne, head of media research at Morgan Stanley, says Netflix is still on course for a record year of subscriber additions.Optimists point to the group’s global reach. It is betting its future on an expansion outside the US, where it has already attracted 60m subscribers. And this is an inflexion point just like the one I am signalling in the Oil markets. Netflix is not a US business, it is a global business. The Majority of Analysts are in the US and in my opinion these same Analysts have an international ''blind spot'' Once Investors appreciate that the Story is an international one and not a US one anymore, we will see the price ramp to fresh all time highs. I, therefore, am putting out a ''conviction'' Buy on Netflix at Fridays closing price of $270.75.
We started with the Hydrocarbon Economy and arrived at the Information Economy and therefore allow me to conclude with the Digital Economy and and an excellent report via UNCTAD which pronounced
The digital economy continues to evolve at breakneck speed, driven by the ability to collect, use and analyse massive amounts of machine-readable information (digital data) about practically everything. Global Internet Protocol (IP) traffic, a proxy for data flows, grew from about 100 gigabytes (GB)per day in 1992 to more than 45,000 GB per second in 2017. And yet the world is only in the early days of The data-driven economy; by 2022 global IP traffic is projected to reach 150,700 GB per second, fuelled by more and more people coming online for the first time and by the expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT). The power of platforms is reflected in the fact that seven of the world’s top eight companies by market capitalization use platform-based business models. The economic geography of the digital economy does not display a traditional North-South divide. It is consistently being led by one developed and one developing country: the United States and China.For example, these two countries most strikingly, account for 90 per cent of the market capitalization value of the world’s 70 largest digital platforms.Europe’s share is 4 per cent and Africa and Latin America’s together is only 1 per cent. Seven “super platforms” – Microsoft, followed by Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Tencent and Alibaba − account for two thirds of the total market value.
Countries at all levels of development risk becoming mere providers of raw data to those digital platforms while having to pay for the digital intelligence produced with those data by the platform owners.
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Shah of Shahs Ryszard Kapuscinski Africa |
Shah of Shahs depicts the final years of the Shah in Iran, and is a compelling meditation on the nature of revolution and the devastating results of fear. Here, Kapuscinski describes the tyrannical monarch, who, despite his cruel oppression of the Iranian people, sees himself as the father of a nation, who can turn a backward country into a great power - a vain hope that proves a complete failure. Yet even as Iran becomes a 'behemoth of riches' and as the Shah lives like a European billionaire, its people live in a climate of fear, terrorized by the secret police. Told with intense power and feeling, Kapuscinski portrays the inevitable build-up to revolution - a cataclysmic upheaval that delivered Iran into the rule of the Ayatollah Khomeini.
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Annals of Technology Streaming Dreams John Seabrook January 16, 2012 Africa |
“This world of online video is the future, and for an artist you want to be first in, to be a pioneer. With YouTube [read Reuters Insider] I will have a very small crew, and we are trying to keep focussed on a single voice. There aren’t any rules. There’s just the artist, the content, and the audience.”
“People went from broad to narrow,” he said, “and we think they will continue to go that way—spend more and more time in the niches—because now the distribution landscape allows for more narrowness.”
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$NFLX is a must watch. @TaviCosta Africa |
Now diverging 25 pct pts from Nasdaq! It’s the first FANG stock... 1) below its 200 DMA; 2) with a death cross set up; 3) breaking down from a multi-year support; Is this an inflection point for stocks? Still trades at 106x EV to FCF estimate for 2022!
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24-JUN-2019 :: Wizard of Oz World Africa |
If you were to look at the US economy in isolation, you’d have to say such a forecast is absurd. The economy has some soft spots but unemployment is at multi-decade lows and consumer spending holding up. The US two year note which is at around 1.75% is the financial instrument which is the purest signal. We are in ‘’nose-bleed’’ territory. This is ‘’Voodoo Economics’’ and just because we have not reached the point when the curtain was lifted in the Wizard of Oz and the Wizard revealed to be ‘’an ordinary conman from Omaha who has been using elaborate magic tricks and props to make himself seem “great and powerful”’’ should not lull us into a false sense of security.
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"I tell you, money can't build your spire for you. Build it of gold and it would simply sink deeper." - William Golding, The Spire Africa |
“The most solid thing was the light. It smashed through the rows of windows in the south aisle, so that they exploded with colour, it slanted before him from right to left in an exact formation, to hit the bottom yard of the pillars on the north side of the nave. Everywhere, fine dust gave these rods and trunks of light the importance of a dimension. He blinked at them again, seeing, near at hand, how the individual grains of dust turned over each other, or bounced all together, like mayfly in a breath of wind. He saw how further away they drifted cloudily, coiled, or hung in a moment of pause, becoming, in the most distant rods and trunks, nothing but colour, honey-colour slashed across the body of the cathedral. Where the south transept lighted the crossways from a hundred and fifty foot of grisaille, the honey thickened in a pillar that lifted straight as Abel’s from the men working with crows at the pavement.” ― William Golding, The Spire:
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The world you see is just a movie in your mind Jack Kerouac Africa |
The world you see is just a movie in your mind. Rocks dont see it. Bless and sit down. Forgive and forget. Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you’re already in heaven now. That’s the story. That’s the message. Nobody understands it, nobody listens, they’re all running around like chickens with heads cut off. I will try to teach it but it will be in vain, s’why I’ll end up in a shack praying and being cool and singing by my woodstove making pancakes.
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Dictators: the great performers @NewStatesman H/T @hofrench Law & Politics |
The paradox of the modern dictator is that he must create the illusion of mass support while turning the population into a nation of terrorised prisoners endlessly condemned to faking enthusiasm for their oppressor. Frank Dikötter, a brilliant historian with a prize-winning trilogy on Mao’s China behind him, takes eight of the most successful 20th-century dictators: Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Kim Il-sung, Nicolae Ceausescu, Papa Doc Duvalier and Mengistu, and shows with chilling brevity and clarity how this is done. The road to dictatorship is depressingly predictable. Once power is stolen, the problem is to keep it. Anyone who might develop a separate power base must be struck down. Eradicate rivals, rule through force and fear. Trust no one, particularly family, friends and the army. Keep everyone on their toes with random executions, unpredictable policy changes and imaginative public tortures. So far, so historic. It could be a Shakespeare play. What distinguishes modern tyranny, Dikötter argues, is the cult of personality. Total control of the information space keeps the modern dictator in power. Each dictator’s story is told one by one. They overlap and learn from each other, but all learn from Mussolini, pioneer of modern political theatre and master of propaganda. Actor, stage manager, orator and self-publicist, Mussolini allowed his ideology to remain vague while spending more than half of his time curating his image. Italy was a newspaper with Mussolini writing the front page every day. He knew that a picture of him taking flying lessons was worth any number of carefully argued editorials. After his first propaganda radio broadcast in 1925, 40,000 free radios were distributed to elementary schools between 1933 and 1938. By the onset of the Second World War, subsidised sets numbered 800,000 and loudspeakers had been installed in town squares. His message was inescapable. The dictator must establish omnipresence. “Like a god, he observes you from every angle,” wrote a French journalist. There was no escaping the godlike gaze even in the bathroom, where Mussolini’s image was moulded into bars of soap. The lights were kept burning all night in his office. The legend of his all-seeing eyes was intensified by Goth-style eye make-up in posters, newsreels and the publicity shots included with his “personal” replies to 1,887,112 individual petitions. Mussolini considered himself the greatest actor in Italy. His performances were rehearsed endlessly in front of the camera. He was jealous of Greta Garbo. Hitler too spent hours watching himself in the projection room. He too kept the lights on all night in his office and sold radios below production price. He deployed portable pillar radios to blare out the party message at rallies but otherwise didn’t develop much that was new in terms of saturation propaganda techniques. Like Mussolini, he overstated troop numbers, bussed in crowds, faked news, doctored photographs and inflated supporter numbers. Like Mussolini, he flooded the country with his image. Even after Stalingrad, when everything including paper was rationed and the people starving, four tonnes of paper a month were earmarked for his official photographer, pictures of the Führer being considered “strategically vital”. If Hitler did things bigger than Mussolini, Mao did things bigger still. Seven factories were built in Shanghai alone, with a total surface area of three football pitches, to print portraits, posters and the Little Red Book, published in 1964. Factories producing red ink worked round the clock, but still ran dry. Plastic production was diverted from necessities like shoe manufacture to producing the shiny cover of the Little Red Book. The story of badge fever under dictatorship is probably the most ludicrous. It would be funny if it did not make such tragic clowns of whole populations. Under a dictatorship, a badge pinned just above the heart provides visible proof of the obedience of the citizen, who fervently hopes the little disc will prove a magic amulet against his or her random persecution or execution. Badges proliferated under Stalin and Kim Il-sung, but peaked under Mao. Fifty million were produced per month in 1968 and a thriving black market sprang up. Underground factories emerged, often fed by the same government organisations that were producing the legitimate badges. Spurred by the profit motive, competitive badge production in Communist China became a form of capitalism. As aluminium became ever scarcer, the people were robbed of their everyday necessities, such as buckets, pots and pans. Once they were gone, bigger things disappeared. Factory machines were stripped of their aluminium parts, disabling industry and causing Mao to roar; “Give me back my aeroplanes!” Dikötter’s relentless cataloguing of the sort of banality that warps everyday reality under dictatorship sharpens the horrors we already know about. His subject is not the huge, senseless waves of unpredictable terror, torture, purges, famines and wars. Rather, he shows us the nuts and bolts, the small processes by which communities are torn apart and individual humanity is systematically dismantled by the destruction of truth and logic, followed by the sowing of confusion and terror to produce docile, atomised individuals whose ecstatic praise of the regime, prompted by fear, transforms all sections of society into liars. The resulting insecurity keeps the dictator in place, making a coup almost impossible. In a landscape of fake news where everybody is counterfeiting belief, who can you trust as co-conspirator? The dictator must never be predictable. This would engender a feeling of security both at home and abroad. In 1940, Mao promised “a multi-party system, democratic freedoms and protection of private property”. Two years later, he smartly reversed the policy with the Rectification Campaign, which uprooted anything privately owned, including independent thought. Witch-hunts, denunciations, inquisitions, executions and purges resulted in the triumphant announcement that the Rectification Campaign had guaranteed ideological and political unanimity in the party. And so finally, in 1945, he got what he wanted: his thoughts were enshrined in the party constitution. This is the state all dictators aim for. It gives the green light to an unlimited cult of personality. Loyalty has been transferred from the creed that put him in place, to loyalty to the person himself. Mao’s Communist Party, like the Bolsheviks, Mussolini’s Fascists and the Nazis, was held together not so much by a programme or a platform but by a chosen leader. Once he has reached a degree of security at home, the dictator must establish his reputation as a good egg abroad. Another wearisome pattern emerges. Enter the useful idiot, the foreign influencer who can be fooled by fireside chats and a tour of carefully curated Potemkin countryside populated by merry peasants. Who wants to believe that millions were killed and entire cities starved into submission? Certainly not George Bernard Shaw, the best-known useful idiot. Bamboozled by Stalin on a visit to Russia in 1931, Shaw was thereafter determined to keep the scales on his eyes, dismissing real news as fake and continuing, despite the evidence, to worship nice, sweet “Uncle Joe”, for the next 20 years until he died in 1950, breathing his last beneath a portrait of his hero. England was Mussolini’s useful idiot. He was hailed by Winston Churchill as “the greatest lawgiver among living men” and greeted at Victoria station by “a screaming mass of humanity, blinded by the flashes of the photographers’ cameras”. Churchill also said some complimentary things about Stalin, but that was during the wartime Yalta Conference, so allowances might be made. Mao’s useful idiot was an American journalist called Edgar Snow. Mao instructed that “security, secrecy, warmth and the red carpet” be rolled out for Snow. They duly were. Every sentence of Snow’s 1937 book, Red Star Over China, was examined and, if necessary, amended by Mao. It became an international bestseller. Kim Il-sung similarly manipulated the American Harrison Salisbury. Ceausescu’s impressive use of Richard Nixon – “He may be a commie, but he’s our commie!” – and the journalist Michel-Pierre Hamelet resulted in him receiving the Order of the Bath from our own dear Queen. Doc Duvalier used the American Herbert Morrison, who described him as “a dedicated honest individual who is trying to help his people”. Once credentials are established abroad, and the international tiger is off his back, the dictator is much safer at home. Constantly and inexorably, new purges unfold. The greater the misery the greater the propaganda, and the greater the tyrant’s insecurity. Even as terror increases and millions are displaced and starved, a peculiar pattern emerges: the dictator writes a book. Other people’s books get burned as the vanity project progresses. Mao composes terrible poems with titles such as “Revolution is Not a Dinner Party”. Papa Doc writes Essential Works and demands that everyone should learn at least three-quarters off by heart when 90 per cent of the population are illiterate. Hitler has already written Mein Kampf by the time he comes to power and rests on his dubious laurels. Stalin knows when he’s beaten and tinkers with poetry while relying mostly on a ghost writer to secure his literary immortality. Mao has greater success with the Little Red Book, printed in a palm-size format to fit into a soldier’s hand to take to war, just as Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra had been printed for German troops to take to the First World War and The Great Gatsby for American troops in the Second. Presumably, they all served equally well as loo paper. Dictators are never afraid of lying. The examples in the book are endless. In 1922, Mussolini threatened to send 300,000 blackshirts to Rome, though only 30,000 existed. Duvalier declared, “My government will scrupulously protect the honour and civil rights which constitute the joy of all free peoples,” during his inauguration in 1957. Within weeks his secret police had purged his rivals and were executing 11-year-olds. Finally, the dictator takes the place of God. In a post-religious century, faith in a providential leader serves as a substitute for religion. Shrines to Lenin and Stalin sprang up in the traditional Red Corner in Russian houses, where icons used to hang. Mao asked wonderingly, “What is wrong with worship?” But it is Papa Doc Duvalier in Haiti who doesn’t just allow himself to be put there. He grabs God’s reins, claiming to be a voodoo spirit and naming his militia the Tonton Macoutes – bogeymen within the iconography of the voodoo religion. Macoutes carried a gun and dressed like ghost-gangsters, servants of death in shiny suits, dark glasses and homburg hats. Within a year, Duvalier claimed to have a force of 25,000 under his command (they probably never numbered more than 10,000). A macoute was an informer, a neighbourhood boss, a bully, a torturer and a pillar of the political regime. Few were paid and they used their power to extort, intimidate, rape and murder. They reported back to Duvalier, who dressed like Baron Samedi, spirit king of the dead, in top hat, tailcoat and dark glasses. Given to mumbling sinister incantations, the Doc encouraged rumours that he used the hearts of his murdered enemies to strengthen his powers. He eventually came to believe that he was God, declaring himself “the word made flesh”, invulnerable to bullets and machine guns because “I am already an immaterial being”. That no one tested the statement was Haiti’s tragedy. As was the fact that America under John F Kennedy was well aware of everything that was going on and knew that a small force might easily topple the regime, but backed off after the 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco, when the CIA tried to overthrow Fidel Castro. Curiously, Doc Duvalier used Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, Lion of Judah and King of Kings as his useful idiot. Selassie’s blood runs like a thin red thread through these stories. In 1935-36 he was toppled from his throne by Mussolini, thus providing el Duce with a great moment of glory. Restored by the British in 1941, Selassie helped establish the Organisation of African Unity and in 1966, he visited Haiti, where Duvalier was projecting himself as spiritual leader of the black world; “… the Living Sun… who has lighted the revolutionary conscience of the blacks of the American continent and of the universe”. Selassie gave Duvalier some flattering quotes that were substantially bulked out by fake ones. Returning to his own country, Selassie died in mysterious circumstances aged 83, probably smothered by the final dictator in this book, Mengistu Haile Mariam, who had the emperor’s remains buried underneath his office and ruled Ethiopia from there, placing his desk right above the corpse, a gruesome anecdote but no worse than many in this catalogue of horrors. What makes a dictator in the first place? Dikötter does not delve about in childhoods. He gives two reasons for this. One: most childhood legends are complete fabrications by the time the tyrant has come to power. Two: to precis, many of us have appalling fathers but we don’t all turn into Hitler. Cautious, he goes so far as to identify one psychological quality – lack of empathy, combined with ruthlessness. Every dictator punishes at random and every dictator takes major decisions on his own. All the dictators in the book are men. Could a woman become a dictator? Certainly they could, Dikötter assures us, they just haven’t yet had the equal opportunity, and Eva Perón doesn’t quite make the cut. This is a wonderfully moving and perceptive book, written by a very brave man. Dikötter lives in Hong Kong, where he is chair professor of humanities at the university. His books are banned in China. He is not afraid to describe Xi Jinping as recreating a dictatorship on the Leninist model. Robustly, he dismisses anxieties concerning Western institutions today. Dictators are indeed anti-experts who surround themselves with sycophants promoted regardless of experience or knowledge, and this may ring some bells. Trump may lie, Boris Johnson may have said he wanted to be world king, but to mention dictatorship in the same breath is to trivialise. What we are living through is democracy in action. But we’d better not forget that power can easily be stolen. Eternal vigilance, after all, is the price of liberty. Sue Prideaux is the author of “I Am Dynamite! A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche” (Faber & Faber) How to Be a Dictator: The Cult of Personality in the Twentieth Century Frank Dikötter
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Hezbollah says Iran would destroy Saudi Arabia in any war @Reuters Law & Politics |
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon’s Hezbollah warned Saudi Arabia on Friday against betting on a war against Iran because it would destroy the kingdom and said Riyadh and the United Arab Emirates should halt the conflict in Yemen to protect themselves. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, head of the Iran-backed Shi’ite Muslim group, also said new air defenses could not easily defend Saudi Arabia from the type of drones used in a Sept. 14 attacks on Saudi oil installations. Tensions have spiked in the region since the attacks that officials in Washington and Riyadh have blamed on Iran, which has denied involvement. Responsibility was claimed by Yemen’s Houthi movement, an Iran-aligned group fighting a Saudi-led alliance in Yemen’s civil war. Hezbollah is a heavily armed Shi’ite group set up by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982 and a major part of a Tehran-backed regional alliance. “Don’t bet on a war against Iran because they will destroy you,” Nasrallah said in a televised speech. Noting that the attack had initially halved Saudi oil output, he added: “Your house is made of glass and your economy is made of glass. Like the glass cities in the UAE.” Nasrallah said the attacks on the Aramco installations showed the strength of the Iran-backed alliance and that new air defenses could not easily defend Saudi Arabia given its size and the maneuverability of the drones used. New air defenses would “be very expensive and it will be of no use”, he said. His advice to both Saudi Arabia and its ally the United Arab Emirates was to instead stop the war in Yemen. Noting threats by the Houthi movement against the UAE, he added: “The thing that will protect the installations and infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and the UAE is halting the war against the Yemeni people.”
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Saudi Arabia up in Flames: Riyadh Is Headed for a Major Disaster Strategic Culture Foundation H/T @KetanVora4 Law & Politics |
On Saturday September 14th, Yemen’s Houthi rebels announced that they had conducted a massive attack on several Aramco plants in Saudi Arabia, including the largest oil refinery in the world in Abqaiq, using 10 drones. On Twitter, dozens of videos and photos showed explosions, flames and the resulting damage. The move is part of a retaliatory campaign by the Houthis in response to the indiscriminate bombings conducted by the Saudi air force over more than four years. UN estimates speak of more than 100,000 deaths and the largest humanitarian crisis since the Second World War. The Saudi kingdom finds itself in an increasingly dangerous situation as a result of the retaliatory capacity of the Houthis, able to inflict severe military and economic damage on Riyadh with their missile forces. Estimates suggest that Riyadh is losing something in the region of $300 million a day from the Houthi attacks. On Sunday September 15, a spokesman for the Saudi oil ministry spoke of damage that is yet to be calculated, possibly requiring weeks of repair. Meanwhile, Saudi oil production has halved following the Saturday attack. With a military budget of $200,000, the Houthis managed to inflict damage numbering in the billions of dollars. The withdrawal of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates from the conflict in Yemen, driven by their desire to improve relations with Tehran, and the impossibility of the United States intervening directly in the conflict, has created significant problems for the House of Saud. The conflict is considered by the UN to be the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, and Trump has no intention of giving the Democratic presidential contenders any ammunition with which to attack him. Bolton’s dismissal could be one of those Trump signals to the deep state stating that he does not intend to sabotage his re-election hopes in 2020 by starting a new war. This reluctance by Washington to directly support Israel and Saudi Arabia has aggravated the situation for Riyadh, which now risks seeing the conflict move to its own territory in the south of the country. The Houthi incursions into Saudi Arabia are now a daily event, and as long as Riyadh continues to commit war crimes against innocent Yemeni civilians, the situation will only worsen, with increasingly grave consequences for the internal stability of the Saudi system. Saturday’s retaliation is the real demonstration of what could happen to the Saudi economy if Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) refuses to sit down and negotiate a way out of one of the worst military disasters of the contemporary era. The invincibility of US weapons systems is only in Hollywood movies The Houthis have in recent months managed to strike their targets in Saudi Arabia dozens of times using different aerial means. This highlights once again the total failure of American air-defense systems in the country. In contrast, the multiple Russian anti-aircraft systems in Syria have achieved a 100% success rate with regard to interceptions, managing to disable (through electronic warfare) all the drones, mortars and missiles launched by jihadists against Russia’s bases in Tartus bases and Latakia. Mike Pompeo blames Tehran for the Yemeni attack on Saudi Arabia, of course without offering any proof. Riyadh and Tel Aviv are increasingly isolated in the Middle East. Washington is only able to offer tweets and paranoia about Iran to help its allies, given that a direct intervention is seen as being too risky for the global economy, not to mention the possibility of the conflict becoming a wider regional conflagration that would sink any chance of reelection in 2020 for the present administration. Trump, Netanyahu and MBS are concocting a witches’ brew that will bring about a disaster of unprecedented proportions to the region. It is only a matter of time before we see the baleful consequences of their handiwork. There is some talk doing the rounds that the Saudis conducted a false-flag attack on their own oil refineries, a hypothesis that enjoys a superficial plausibility. The resulting increase in the price of oil could be seen as having a positive effect on Aramco’s share price, it is true. But for the reasons given below, this hypothesis is actually not plausible. The Houthis develop their own weapons, assisted by the Yemeni army. Used drones would cost less than $20,000 a piece. The military embargo on Yemen (enforced by the US and UK) has created a humanitarian disaster, limiting food and medicine. The delivery of weapons by sea therefore seems unlikely. As repeatedly stated by Mohammad Javad Zarif, the foreign minister of Iran, as well as representatives of Ansarullah, Tehran has no influence on the Houthis. The Yemeni response is part of an increasing asymmetric logic, which has as its primary objectives the halt to Riyadh’s bombings of Yemen by increasing the costs of doing so such that they become unsustainable. The obvious pressure point is the 20 billion barrels in strategic reserves. There is no need for a false flag to blame Iran for the work of the Houthis. The corporate media is enough to have the false accusations repeated without the help of the Israelis or US-based neocons. The Saudis are more cautious, even if unable to decide how to proceed. In Yemen, they have no more cards to play: they do not want to sit down and deal with Ansarullah, Tehran is unassailable, while Tel Aviv is pushing for a conflict, with Riyadh offered to be sacrificed. I have been writing for months that, sooner or later, an event will occur that will change the regional balance in a possible conflict with Iran. This happened on Saturday, when half of Saudi Arabia’s oil production was brought to a halt by an attack. There could not be any worse news for the neocons, Wahhabis and Zionists. If the Houthis could inflict such damage using 10 drones, then Tel Aviv, Riyadh and Washington must be having conniptions at the thought of what the Iranians would be capable of doing in the event that they themselves were attacked. Any power (in this case the US and their air-defense systems) and its close ally would do everything to avoid suffering such a humiliation that would only serve to reveal their military vulnerabilities. Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s visit to Moscow is seen by many in Israel as a failure. It is confirmed in Tel Aviv that the Zionist state’s recent attacks in Syria have been quashed by Russian intervention, sending an unambiguous message to Netanyahu. Netanyahu and MBS, I reiterate, are heading towards the political abyss. And given their inability to handle the situation, they will do everything in their power to draw Washington into their plans against Iran. It is all certainly vain. But in the coming weeks, I expect further provocations and tensions in the Middle East.
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16-SEP-2019: Drones Strikes Deep Inside the Kingdom Law & Politics |
Last week was the Anniversary of 9/11 and it is increasingly apparent that More Americans are questioning the Official 9/11 Story As New Evidence contradicts the Official Narrative [MintPress News] The overwhelming evidence presented now demonstrates beyond any doubt that pre-planted explosives and/or incendiaries — not just airplanes and the ensuing fires — caused the destruction of the three World Trade Center buildings, killing the vast majority of the victims who perished that day. The Official Narrative around the assassination of JFK has been similarly debunked. Two great American Writers have touched on this Don DeLillo in his book Libra "There is a world inside the world." "There's always more to it. This is what history consists of. It is the sum total of the things they aren't telling us." Thomas Pynchon in Bleeding Edge “No matter how the official narrative of this turns out," it seemed to Heidi, "these are the places we should be looking, not in newspapers or television but at the margins, graffiti, uncontrolled utterances, bad dreamers who sleep in public and scream in their sleep.” Events in Saudi Arabia this weekend has been interpreted every which way and allow me to try and interpret the events outside the Echo Chamber that is the Saudi paid PR machine and the reflexive Pompeo ''Iranians under the bed'' standard response. It has been reported that a swarm of ten armed and explosive Drones struck at the heart of the Kingdom's Oil industry. The strikes were on Saudi Arabia's 7 million barrel per day Abqaiq processing complex and its second-biggest oil field, Khurais, Saudi Aramco describes its Abqaiq oil processing facility there as “the largest crude oil stabilization plant in the world.” Abqaiq is perhaps the world’s most important oil installation. According to the @EIAgov the plant has a capacity of more than 7 million b/d or about 8% of the world's total oil production [Energy Intelligence]. Most of the oil produced in the country [Saudi Arabia] is processed at Abqaiq before export or delivery to refineries. Saudi Aramco is assuring the World it can restore output quickly but has admitted that the production shutdown amounts to a loss of about five million barrels a day, the people said, roughly 5% of the world’s daily production of crude oil. The kingdom produces 9.8 million barrels a day. I cannot recall an attack of this severity in the Kingdom ever. The Houthis took responsibility for this attack. U.N. investigators have previously pronounced that the Houthis’ new UAV-X drone, likely has a range of up to 1,500 kilometres (930 miles). Secretary Pompeo immediately dismissed the possibility that these drones originated from Yemen and blamed Iran. More worryingly for the Kingdom are reports of cooperation by people in Saudi Arabia. It may well be that drones were launched from inside Saudi Arabia and that their launch point was far nearer to the targets than publicly assumed. Neither option is a good one. If the Houthis did launch the attack from the Yemen, it speaks to the fact that nowhere in the Kingdom is safe and the Houthis have achieved an asymmetric balance, which is quite extraordinary. In November 2017, I wrote of how the then 30-year-old Crown prince of Saudi Arabia Mohamed bin Salman MBS had arrived on the scene and immediately launched an unwinnable war in the Yemen. It will be a cake walk MBS said over in a week he said and they will be throwing rose petals at our feet. Abu Dhabi's MBZ saw the writing on the Wall and stop lossed his Yemeni Adventure. It is clear now that the ''Yemen War has become Saudi Arabia’s Vietnam (or Soviet Union’s Afghanistan or indeed U.S. version of Afghanistan)'' @JKempEnergy and that the ''The kingdom has thrown everything into conflict but failed to achieve a decisive military advantage and favourable political endgame'' More worrying for the Kingdom is the second scenario were these Drones might have been launched within the Kingdom which would be signalling that the Houthis might well have teamed up with the Saudi Shia who represent up to 25% of the Population and have been ground down viciously by the House of Saud, characterised as Apostates and whose Leaders have been beheaded and crucified. Zerohedge is speculating that this is a false Flag attack designed to ramp up the Price of Oil in order to grease the way for the Saudi Aramco IPO. If this is true and I put the probability at zero then the Crown Prince is I am afraid insane for who would buy a share of a company when its major installations are not secure but under severe attacks? The Saudi Aramco IPO is now dead in the Water. The Surge in the Oil Price [which I will get to momentarily] will have zero effect on the IPO because now the overwhelming geopolitical question is around the longevity of the House of Saud and its Crown Prince who is of course the Proud Owner of Leonardo Da Vinci's Salvatori Mundi which means Saviour of the World and according to Robert Baer has so. many enemies that he sleeps on his $500m yacht the Serene off Jeddah. The much commented on Orb is of no help now. If the Houthis have tapped into the Saudi Shia, the House of Saud in my opinion is on its last legs. This is a Big Call and needs to be understood for that. No amount of paid PR or kind words from Trump can finesse this. Over the Weekend, so many of the Oil Watchers I follow were saying we must wait for the Official Saudi comment. Let me tell you this for free. Saudi comment is worthless, irrelevant and paid for. The Oil Markets open on Sunday evening. On June 17th this year I wrote [quite presciently I must admit] ''All global markets have become liquidity Traps. The Oil Markets trade 24 hours but in the early hours is when Gremlin Wizards and Djinns [The Quran says that the Djinn are made of a smokeless and "scorching fire", They are usually invisible to humans, but humans do appear clearly to Djinn, as they can possess them. DJinn have the power to travel large distances at extreme speeds and are thought to live in remote areas - so now You Know] stalk the Exchanges like the FX Markets. Therefore, we could very well see a Price Spike. One Touch is the Way to go'' I reckon we could jump as high as $80.00 which would be a +45.00% leap versus Fridays closing price before we trade back to about +10% with would be about $60.00+ as Trump unloads Crude from the Reserve. So Big Price Spike then retracement but then if we do get within 10% of Fridays closing Price of $54.83, then you need to get long. The production shutdown amounts to a loss of about five million barrels a day and is a big deal. In May I wrote about Iran and I quoted Hunter S. Thompson who described The Edge [and I was describing Iran as being at the Edge] thus “There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over'' My Mistake was to think Iran was at the Thompsonian Edge whereas it is clear now that it is the Kingdom.
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@realDonaldTrump's Penchant for Lies Offers a Way Out of War With Iran @thedailybeast @csdickey Law & Politics |
PARIS—Does Donald Trump really want irrefutable, iron-clad proof that Iran staged a devastating attack on Saudi Arabia last Saturday? Probably not. At least not to talk about publicly. Empirical truth is not his thing. And in this case that might be for the best. Indeed, lies could make the difference between war and peace. Looked at the Middle Eastern way, Iran’s thin veil of denial offers an opening for Trump: a way to avoid a full-scale conflagration or complete humiliation. All week long, Trump has taken it, and Tehran has even praised his restraint. Asked by CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh if he thought Trump is “gun-shy,” Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said no, that he believed Trump has been the subject of many attempts to drag him into a war with Iran, but has resisted. “It doesn’t mean somebody is gun-shy in order to avoid starting a war based on a lie,” Zarif said, rather archly. He meant the “lie” that Iran blew up the biggest petroleum processing plant in the world and cut off 5 percent of global supply, which is by all indications the truth. The Saudis, too, despite fairly damning physical evidence, have been careful to say Iran was behind the attack but not that Iran launched it. Meanwhile, Trump, clearly signaling he has no taste for a third Middle Eastern war going into the election year, tells the Saudis he’ll be happy to stand back and watch them fight it, which he probably knows they are not about to do. When armies in the Middle East square off against each other and Armageddon approaches, which is fairly often, the traditional language of statecraft is not that of Sun Tzu but of the suq: a marketplace of deception, overbidding, and denials where victories rarely are complete, defeats even more rarely acknowledged. And Donald Trump, God knows, is comfortable in the twilight zone of truth, where fact exists on a spectrum of the believable, the sellable, the convenient. Which is to say that, even without any intellectual background in the arid hills of the Holy Land or the viscous waters of the Gulf, Trump has an instinct for the importance of face-saving deception, especially when the face being saved is his own. As The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake wrote a couple of years ago in rueful wonderment, for Trump “plausible deniability is a way of life. The ability to pretend he didn’t actually say what he seems to have just said is something Trump has weaponized and exploited,” and he “is actually pretty good at this.” “Throughout the course of his presidency,” Blake wrote, Trump “has repeatedly gone right up to the line of doing something he cannot possibly explain, while always leaving himself an out—enough plausible deniability for the people who think he’s great to go right on thinking that.” Some buttoned-up Pentagon official told CBS News this week that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei approved the attack on the Saudis’ Abqaiq facility “but only on the condition that it be carried out in a way that made it possible to deny Iranian involvement.” Probably the official thought that was a damning indictment. Not so. If Iran wanted a full-scale war, it would have attacked directly. And if it had wanted complete anonymity, it would have used better frontmen than the increasingly clientized Houthi rebels in Yemen. What it wanted in fact was to operate in the shadowland of deniability that everybody in the region understands. Spectacular as it was, with flames shooting into the Saudi sky and devastating economic damage, the Abqaiq and Khurais oil-field attacks were calibrated carefully. As far as we know, and as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani pointed out, nobody was killed. There was no blood. In any consideration of a casus belli that counts for a lot. And the Iranians certainly remember that when they openly shot down an American drone, killing no one, Trump decided not to hit back in order to avoid human casualties. The “I know you know I know you know” game is as old as the Middle East, and all the players, including Israel, know how to play it. Messages are sent through proxies with limited attacks, including terrorism and assassinations, and messages are received but responsibility is not officially acknowledged. “Deniability” allows those who’ve been hit to respond short of all-out war or abject surrender. When Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, an Iran-basher from way back, tries to point the finger more directly at Tehran, using language that might make war unavoidable, Trump pulls him back. (Trump fired National Security Advisor John Bolton for his unrestrained bellicosity, as it happens, just days before the Abqaiq attack.) “It has to be said the current explosive situation is Trump’s own towering fxxk-up.” When South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham opines, as if over a glass of sweet tea on a sweaty day, that Trump’s measured reaction so far is seen by the Iranian regime as “a sign of weakness,” Trump responds that he has lots of options, a powerful army, and could do things he calls “dastardly”—a word that suggest he doesn’t like those things and doesn’t want to do them, which probably is true at a minimum for political reasons. For the factual record, however, it has to be said the current explosive situation threatening a vast war, a massive surge in oil prices, and a global recession is Trump’s own towering fxxk-up. His campaign rhetoric in 2016, well adapted to audiences he learned to cultivate as a patron of professional wrestling, dubbed the Obama administration’s hard-won agreement with Iran “the worst deal ever” in the world. Never mind that it stopped for years Tehran’s chances of developing nuclear weapons, Trump vowed to throw it out. Once in office, Trump discovered the co-signatories—Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China—thought the deal worth keeping, contending that if there were other issues, like Iran‘s proxy forces all over the Middle East and its missile development, they could be negotiated separately. It galled Trump that the Iranians observed the nuclear agreement to the letter, and he finally decided in May 2018 the only way to keep his promise to get a new deal was to crash the old one by pulling out of it and ratcheting up economic pressure on Tehran. (Privately, allies were told the U.S. expected, or more likely hoped, Iran would nevertheless continue to abide by the agreement’s terms, a situation that lasted more than a year, in fact.) Trump’s foreign-policy trademark is the use of the weaponized dollar, forcing other countries to bend to his will through tariffs or sanctions, not military action. He figures if you take away their butter you don’t need to use your guns. But it was always obvious that some of his targets, unable to fight back on financial turf, would turn to what the military calls kinetic action, which is what we saw last Saturday. Can deniability restore the peace that Trump’s sanctions, Saudi impetuousness and Iranian drones have torn asunder. That isn’t clear. But Trump already has shown on many fronts that his willingness to accept the implausible denials of his adversaries goes way beyond anything we’ve seen in modern American history. Trump has been willing to accept the denials of Vladimir Putin about Russia’s well-documented efforts to subvert American democracy. He has accepted the denials of Kim Jong Un when the North Korean is accused of bad faith in the nuclear deal that Trump touted highly but has failed to deliver. Why would Trump not accept the denials of Iran about the Saudi attack? He might even go ahead and meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, if such an encounter can be arranged. It would be great theater, just the kind Trump loves. Indeed, as he tries to extract the United States from the disaster he precipitated, maybe Trump thinks all of this passes for smart statecraft. And maybe it’s not quite as crazy as it sounds.
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US 'Weaponizing' Dollar Law & Politics |
"The dollar is a weapon and Trump is relishing his financial warfare strategies," Mr. Satchu told Sputnik. "Trump's aggressive foreign economic policy is the signature success of this administration. It is highly effective — look at Venezuela to see its most extreme output. Iran is in a similar bind. China is in retreat notwithstanding some bravura talk. Trump can keep it up. It's working a treat," Mr. Satchu told Sputnik.
International Markets
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7-SEP-2018 :: A decade after Lehman World Currencies |
My career in the financial markets was in what is called ‘’The repo market’’ and described: ‘’Over here are investors with cash that’s not doing anything profitable at the moment. Over there are banks with tons of bonds and a need for ready money. The so-called repo market is where the two sides meet. Repurchase agreements make up an essential, if esoteric, piece of financial plumbing. By providing a place where assets can be pawned for short-term loans, a healthy repo market helps a wide range of other transactions go more smoothly. But a repo meltdown was a crucial part of the financial panic in September 2008..’’
I then ran a customer financing desk, where we would finance hedge funds and all. We expanded the business to include all the G7 markets and even Emerging Mar- kets. All through the second half of the 1990s onwards, one of the most profitable trades was at quarter-end with Lehman Brothers. Lehman were renowned for playing the leverage game at 300 and 400 to 1 but at quarter end would need to show a much reduced leverage Ratio and we would enter into ‘’repo’’ transactions with them which were characterised as Index-linked Swaps. Subsequently and much later these were called Repo 105s.
Commodities
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Robert Gabriel Mugabe (1924-2019) Africa |
Most of Zimbabwe’s citizens are ‘’born free’’ the fight for independence was real but is no longer relevant is it? We are grateful to all those iconic leaders who liberated our continent of which Mugabe is one but at what price? Fighting for independence is not the same as building an economy which provides opportunity for all its citizens. As some African leaders laud Mugabe today, @PastorEvanLive argues: “There can be no mixed feelings, misconceptions or complications about Robert Mugabe’s legacy. He presided over the destruction of millions of people’s lives over a span of 37 years.” Emmerson Mnangagwa who was eulogising Mugabe as a Revolutionary Icon has failed and is frankly as untenable as his erstwhile Mentor.
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JAN-2019 :: "money is the most universal and most efficient system of mutual trust ever devised." Africa |
“Money is accordingly a system of mutual trust, and not just any system of mutual trust: money is the most universal and most efficient system of mutual trust ever devised.” “Cowry shells and dollars have value only in our common imagination. Their worth is not inherent in the chemical structure of the shells and paper, or their colour, or their shape. In other words, money isn’t a material reality – it is a psychological construct. It works by converting matter into mind.” The Point I am seeking to make is that There is a correlation between high Inflation and revolutionary conditions, Zimbabwe is a classic example where there are $9.3 billion of Zollars in banks compared to $200 million in reserves, official data showed. The Mind Game that ZANU-PF played on its citizens has evaporated in a puff of smoke. ‘’The choice of that moment is the greatest riddle of history’’ and also said “If the crowd disperses, goes home, does not reassemble, we say the revolution is over.” What is clear to me is that Zimbabwe is at a Tipping Point moment.
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25-FEB-2019 :: Zimbabwe finally overhauled its dysfunctional,''whack'' and even Voodoo FX regime. Africa |
Zimbabwe finally overhauled its dysfunctional,''whack'' and even Voodoo FX regime. Zimbabwe’s government dropped its insistence that a quasi-currency known as bond notes are at par with the dollar as it overhauled foreign-exchange trading and effectively devalued the securities. While the government has previously insisted that bond notes and RTGS dollars are worth the same as U.S. dollars, the units currently trade at between 3.66 and 3.8 to the dollar respectively on the black market [Bloomberg] “The introduction of a Zim dollar will be just in name, but the RTGS$ is essentially the Zim dollar.” Tendai Biti is predicting a 6-8 range whilst the Government is looking for it to appreciate to 2.5 which is best characterised as ''Hail-Mary'' economics. This is the right move but I would definitely be short at 2.5, if it ever gets there which is entirely unlikely.
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If you're wondering what on earth is happening in #Egypt right now and why, here's some quick background. @MHassan_1 Africa |
On September 2nd, a former contractor working with the Egyptian military released a video online accusing president Sisi and his close companions of rampant corruption in the construction industry, and of robbing him of over 200 million Egyptian pounds. The man, Mohamed Ali, who is also an actor, released a series of daily videos detailing specific projects Sisi, his wife, and several other top generals were involved in - which included using state funds to build personal palaces and hotels. The videos gained massive traction in Egypt, and were watched by millions each day, giving Mohamed Ali a sudden and overwhelming following, and prompting him to continue criticising the Egyptian government and its economic and political failures. Keep in mind that under Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, opposition and criticism has become virtually impossible. Activists are jailed. Opposition parties shut down. Journalists arrested without charge. Simply posting anti-government messages on social media can get you jailed and tortured So for many, Mohamed Ali, who had fled to Spain a year before releasing the videos, quickly became a rallying figure and a voice who spoke directly to Sisi without hesitation. He also knew his secrets, having worked closely with him for years. Last week, Sisi did something unusual. He directly responded to Mohamed Ali's claims during a youth conference. He admited that he did build palaces using state funds, but denied he was corrupt and claimed it was all for the country's good. This didn't go down well. People were furious. And Mohamed Ali used the momentum to call on people to take to social media and demand Sisi resign. If that didn't happen, they should protest for 1 hour on Friday night. Which is tonight. No one knew what to expect tonight. People were terrified of going out and facing threats of violence and arrests at the hands of the police and army like we've seen before. Protesting under Sisi is banned, and activists have received lengthy sentences for taking part before. People also remember well what happened in 2013 in Rabaa, when police and soldiers opened fire on supporters of then-president Mohammed Morsi, killing at least 1000 in a single day. But people did come out, energised by Mohamed Ali's videos, and desperate to release their anger after years of oppression, fear and economic woe. What we saw tonight hasn't happened since 2013, and could spell the beginning of the end of Sisi's reign. What happens now is anybody's guess. Mohamed Ali has repeatedly called on other top military figures, like defence minister Mohamed Zaki, to detain Sisi himself. He's also suggested many in the army were fed up and would support the protesters. What we saw tonight was still a few hundred or thousand people out on the streets, a far stretch from the millions in 2011 or 2013 that prompted the army to move. But if what Mohamed Ali suggests is true, there could be factions within the army ready to take control sooner rather than later, and what that spells for both Sisi and the future of the country is anybody's guess. With Sisi out of the country and on his way to the UN General Assembly in NY right now, we saw a surprisingly restrained police force on the streets. Though that could change if the protests continue. For now Egyptians have taught themselves two important lessons tonight. 1) They can break through the barrier of fear tightly wound by the army over the last 6 years. 2) The energy of the 2011 revolution still lives.
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Chinese-built port in Kenya's Lamu to be launched in November @XHNews Africa |
MOMBASA, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese-built port in Kenya's Lamu is expected to be launched in November, an official said on Friday. Daniel Manduku, managing director of Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) told journalists in Mombasa that China Communications Construction Company has so far completed the first berth. "We will commission the Lamu port which will be the second commercial seaport for Kenya in November," Manduku said. He said that the construction of the second and third berths will be completed in 2020. "The port will initially target transshipment cargo that is destined for smaller ports in the eastern African region," said Manduku. KPA hopes to attract cargo that is destined for Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam, the port of Beira in Mozambique, as well as those in Mauritius and Somalia. Manduku said the seaport will offer attractive port charges and infrastructure to lure imported cargo destined for the region. He said that the supporting infrastructure to transport cargo from Lamu into the interior of Kenya by either road or rail is yet to be finalized. According to KPA, the Lamu port will have the capacity to handle larger sea vessels as compared to the existing port of Mombasa due to its deep natural waters. "With the new seaport, Kenya will be able to handle ships with a capacity of 8,000 twenty foot equivalent units (TEUs) compared to 6,000 TEUs currently, "said Manduku. He said the first three berths of the seaport will be funded by the government, while additional berths will be undertaken by the private sector. ■
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Lamu and the Muslim Admiral Zheng He Africa |
Of course, the first engagement between China and Kenya, occurred in the c15th, when the Chinese Admiral Zheng He [a Muslim and a Eunuch] visited the Swahili coast. Naturally, the Chinese have been keen on ventilating the story of Zheng He's c15th visit because it is a Soft Power Gift Horse. You will recall the discovery of Chinese DNA on Pate Island and the story is that the DNA belonged to Chinese Ming sailors who were shipwrecked and then married the local women.
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06-AUG-2018 :: The Indian Ocean Economy and a Port Race Africa |
Today from Massawa, Eritrea [admittedly on the Red Sea] to Djibouti, from Berbera to Mogadishu, from Lamu to Mombasa to Tanga to Bagamoyo to Dar Es Salaam, through Beira and Maputo all the way to Durban and all points in between we are witnessing a Port race of sorts as everyone seeks to get a piece of the Indian Ocean Port action. China [The BRI initiative], the Gulf Countries [who now appear to see the Horn of Africa as their hinter- land], Japan and India [to a lesser degree] are all jostling for optimal ‘’geo-economic’’ positioning.
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