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Wednesday 03rd of June 2020
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The Way We Live Now Misc. |
It certainly is a new c21st that we find ourselves in. There is a luminous and Fairy Tale feel to life in quarantine and as you know most fairy tales have an oftentimes dark and dangerous and unspoken undercurrent.
I sit in my study and its as if my hearing is sharpened. I hear the Breeze, birdsong, Nature in its many forms and the urban background noise which was once the constant accompaniment to daily life has entirely retreated.
The Nights are dark, the stars are bright and the neighbiours long gone.
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China delayed releasing coronavirus info, frustrating @WHO @AP China |
Throughout January, the World Health Organization publicly praised China for what it called a speedy response to the new coronavirus. It repeatedly thanked the Chinese government for sharing the genetic map of the virus “immediately,” and said its work and commitment to transparency were “very impressive, and beyond words.”China in fact sat on releasing the genetic map, or genome, of the virus for more than a week after three different government labs had fully decoded the information.Chinese government labs only released the genome after another lab published it ahead of authorities on a virologist website on Jan. 11. “This would not happen in Congo and did not happen in Congo and other places,” he said, probably referring to the Ebola outbreak that began there in 2018. “We need to see the data…..It’s absolutely important at this point.”The lack of detailed patient data also made it harder to determine how quickly the virus was spreading — a critical question in stopping it.And he noted that as Beijing’s lack of transparency becomes even clearer, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’s continued defense of China is problematic.“It’s definitely damaged WHO’s credibility,” said Kamradt-Scott. “Did he go too far? I think the evidence on that is clear….it has led to so many questions about the relationship between China and WHO. It is perhaps a cautionary tale.”“We should have actually expressed our respect and gratitude to China for what it’s doing,” Tedros said. “It has already done incredible things to limit the transmission of the virus to other countries.”
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We are in the Götterdämmerung now, the final phase of the Trump era. @TheAtlantic Law & Politics |
We are in the Götterdämmerung now, the final phase of the Trump era. We began with the axis of adults that imperfectly constrained him.
We then entered the age of hubris and action during which he systematically rid himself of the adults and was free to follow his whims.
The third phase was the reckoning as he began to bump up against the contradictions of his own approach, on China and Iran in particular. Now we have finally arrived at the long-feared crisis and unraveling.
For three chaotic years, Donald Trump muddled through, at least in the eyes of Republicans, buoyed by the strong economy he inherited from his predecessor and powered forward by the long GOP wish list, which included, among many items, judicial appointments, deregulation, and the undoing of the Iran nuclear deal.
Virtually every consequential and sympathetic analysis of the Trump administration, though, included a caveat: A serious crisis would upend any Republican progress and test the ill-equipped and vindictive president.
Deep down, we all hoped the country would get lucky and slip through these four years without a paradigm-changing incident. But if luck is earned, we had no right to it.
The worst possible crisis arrived in COVID-19, one that tugged at every weakness of the president and the nation. It demanded scientific literacy, discipline, trust in authority, sacrifice, and patience.
And then another crisis arrived with the economic depression. And then another, with the brutal murder of George Floyd.
Now more than 100,000 people are dead, more than 40 million are unemployed, and violent protests have spread across the country.
These actions simply make matters worse, but he still doubles down again and again.
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02-JUN-2020 :: Fast Forward Market Crashes / Panic |
For Many it has been quite a paradoxical experience, a capsule like experience tuning into the World via broadband receiving semiotic signals and trying to fathom Whether the World has in fact ended.
We learnt that Secret Service Agents rushed President Donald Trump to a White House bunker
Paul Virilo said ‘’Images contaminate us like a Virus’’
The Precipitate Trigger was self-evidently the awful extinction of the life of George Floyd.
However, what I am noticing is a metastatic expansion of this Protest
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After a weekend of nationwide civil unrest futures are rioting higher. @NorthmanTrader @crescatkevin Valuation mania still unbroken. Average market cap to GDP ratio when bear markets and recessions bottom out: .47 67% lower than today. World Of Finance |
and an Economic Policy that starts and Ends with Brrrrrrrrrr!
And bailed out Humans to the tune of $1,200.00 for every $25,000.00 per Capita [and this is not unique to the US but is merely an example of a Worldwide Phenomenon].
Simply fails to comprehend that the ‘’Slaves’’ are now in revolt.
This is a moment of Maximum Danger to the Control Machine 02-JUN-2020 Fast Forward
And from London to Washington, from Mumbai to Wuhan, from Beirut to Hong Kong, the Divisionists and Splittists will frame it as a binary choice as one that is Black versus White, China versus US or any other binary iteration You care to mention whereas its much simpler than that.
It is about the Haves and the Have Nots. Its about the moment of Epiphany when the Have Nots appreciate the predicament in which they have been placed and identify with each other rather than a ‘’boogaloo’’ structure that has been placed upon them.
Will they have that moment of Epiphany? Well There certainly has not been a more ‘’conducive’’ moment.
I would argue that Civil unrest levels are now globally at unprecedented levels that COVID19 was a circuit breaker and that ‘’Risk’’ is now blinking amber and that there remains a remarkable complacency around this risk which Paul Virilio described thus
Paul Virilio pronounced in his book Speed and Politics
“The revolutionary contingent attains its ideal form not in the place of production, but in the street, where for a moment it stops being a cog in the technical machine and itself becomes a motor (machine of attack), in other words, a producer of speed.’’
The Markets are very complacent about A US China ‘’Hot War’’
it has come to a Put Up or Shut Up moment Matters India Taiwan South China Sea et al. Neither Side have an ‘’Off Ramp’’ and the US Electoral Cycle and the ‘’Wolf Warrior’’ Strategy all point at more intensity rather than less.
The USDCNH is the preeminent way to play the Intensification.
As at May 31st because Weekends typically bias lower and are noisy
May 31 via Stephen Streater
Global R accelerates, led by Brazil2. SA29 a persistent climber. UK5 R climbing. >+5%: Brazil2 South Africa29 Colombia31 Egypt36 Afghanistan45 Oman51 Nigeria53 Cameroon66 Sudan69 Guatemala70 Djibouti77 Kenya94 Haiti98
On top of all that we know have an Ebola Outbreak in DR Congo
Congo declares new Ebola epidemic, 1,000 km from eastern outbreak Reuters
Democratic Republic of Congo declared a new Ebola epidemic on Monday in the western city of Mbandaka, more than 1,000 km (620 miles) away from an ongoing outbreak of the same deadly virus in the east.
Health Minister Eteni Longondo said four people who died in Mbandaka were confirmed as positive cases following testing at the national biomedical laboratory in the capital Kinshasa.
“We have a new Ebola epidemic in Mbandaka,” Longondo told reporters. “We are going to very quickly send them the vaccine and medicine.”
The outbreak was confirmed by World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who tweeted: “This outbreak is a reminder that #COVID19 is not the only health threat people face.”
Congo has been struggling to put an end to a nearly two-year-old Ebola outbreak near its eastern borders with Rwanda and Uganda, which has killed more than 2,200 people, the world’s second-deadliest outbreak of the disease on record.
It was days away in April from declaring the end of that outbreak, its tenth since the virus was discovered in 1976, when a new chain of infection was confirmed in the east. However, no new cases have been detected there in over 30 days.
Ebola Virus
The first known emergence of Ebola Zaire—the hottest subtype of Ebola virus— happened in September, 1976, when the virus erupted simultaneously in fifty-five villages near the Ebola River. Ebola Zaire is a slate-wiper in humans. It killed eighty- eight per cent of the people it infected. Apart from rabies and the human immunodeficiency virus, H.I.V., which causes aids, this was the highest rate of mortality that has been recorded for a human virus. Ebola was spread mainly among family members, through contact with bodily fluids and blood. Many of the people in Africa who came down with Ebola had handled Ebola-infected cadavers. It seems that one of Ebola’s paths wends to the living from the dead.
These remain precarious times.
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Hugh Hefner, Chicago 1966. Photo: Burt Glinn/Magnum Photos. @Artforum Misc. |
THE SOFT PRISON: WELCOME TO THE TELE-REPUBLIC OF YOUR HOME
One of the fundamental biopolitical changes in pharmacopornographic techniques characterizing the Covid-19 crisis is that the domestic space, and not traditional institutions of social confinement and normalization (hospital, factory, prison, school, etc.), now appears as the new center of production, consumption, and political control. The home is no longer only the place where the body is confined, as was the case under plague management. The private residence has now become the center of the economy of tele-consumption and tele-production, but also the surveillance pod. The domestic space henceforth exists as a point in a zone of cybersurveillance, an identifiable place on a Google map, an image that is recognized by a drone.
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The worrying development is Transmission Hotspots #COVID19 and the Spillover Moment Africa |
Kano in Nigeria for example
Western Cape growing at an alarming rate @sugan250388
Someone with close knowledge of the medical profession said it was almost impossible to secure a hospital bed in several cities.
The Aga Khan hospital in Dar es Salaam had a well-equipped ward for 80 coronavirus patients, but several were dying each night, he said.
The Question for SSA is whether these Transmission Hot Spots expand and conflate?
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Zimbabwe tightens coronavirus lockdown in capital Harare #COVID19 @ReutersAfrica Africa |
Zimbabwean troops and police on Tuesday tightened the coronavirus lockdown in the capital Harare, blocking many cars and buses from entering the central business district as cases of infections increased.Coronavirus infections have more than tripled to 203 in the last few days. Mnangagwa had eased the lockdown since it was first imposed at the end of March.“So if this is about Covid-19 why is it only happening in Harare? This appears to be more about politics than medicine or health,” MDC senator David Coltart wrote on Twitter. |
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Uganda to lose $1.6 bln in tourism earnings as a result of COVID-19 @ReutersAfrica Tourism, Travel & Transport |
“Already Ugandan will lose 1.6 billion dollars per annum from the loss of tourism,” Museveni said in a speech late on Monday referring to the impact of COVID-19 on the economy.
The president did not say what time frame he was referring to. Latest available data from the country’s statistics’ office shows Uganda earned $2 billion from tourism activities in 2017, up from $1.7 billion the previous year.
The International Monetary Fund said last month that Uganda’s tourism earnings were expected to fall 54% in the 2019/20 (July-June) fiscal year, and decline 52% in the next year.
Museveni said the economy would also lose a substantial chunk of the $1.3 billion sent home each year by Ugandans working abroad as many would be out of work due to the global economic downturn following the pandemic.
Uganda has so far recorded 458 cases of COVID-19, with no deaths reported.
Stringent measures implemented to curb the virus’s spread including bans on both public and private transport, temporarily shutting nearly all businesses and closure of borders has wiped out much of economic activity.
The IMF last month nearly halved its forecast for economic growth in Uganda for the financial year ending in June to 3.3% and projects 3.7% growth in the following fiscal year. In the year ended June 2019, the economy grew 6.5%.
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02-MAR-2020 :: The #COVID19 and SSA and the R Word Africa |
We Know that the #Coronavirus is exponential, non linear and multiplicative.
what exponential disease propagation looks like in the real world. Real world exponential growth looks like nothing, nothing, nothing ... then cluster, cluster, cluster ... then BOOM!
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