|
Tuesday 25th of April 2017 |
Morning Africa |
Register and its all Free.
If you are tracking the NSE Do it via RICHLIVE and use Mozilla Firefox as your Browser. 0930-1500 KENYA TIME Normal Board - The Whole shebang Prompt Board Next day settlement Expert Board All you need re an Individual stock.
The Latest Daily PodCast can be found here on the Front Page of the site http://www.rich.co.ke |
read more |
|
MSCI All Country Index at a Record High @markets Africa |
Home Thoughts
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!” ― Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967
“I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.” ― Hunter S. Thompson
“The Edge... 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.” ― Hunter S. Thompson, Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga
“If you're going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you're going to be locked up.” ― Hunter S. Thompson
|
read more |
|
Ozymandias BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY Africa |
I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
|
read more |
|
Transcript of AP interview with Trump @AP Law & Politics |
A transcript of an Oval Office interview Friday with President Donald Trump by AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace. Where the audio recording of the interview is unclear, ellipses or a notation that the recording was unintelligible are used.
AP: I do want to talk to you about the 100 days.
TRUMP: Good.
AP: I want to ask a few questions on some topics that are happening toward the end of the interview.
TRUMP: Did you see Aya (Hijazi, an Egyptian-American charity worker who had been detained in the country for nearly three years) ...
AP: Can you tell me a little bit about how that came about?
TRUMP: No, just — you know, I asked the government to let her out. ...
TRUMP: You know Obama worked on it for three years, got zippo, zero.
AP: How did you hear about this story?
TRUMP: Many people, human rights people, are talking about it. It's an incredible thing, especially when you meet her. You realize — I mean, she was in a rough place.
AP: Did you have to strike a deal with (Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah) el-Sissi over this?
TRUMP: No. No deal. He was here. He — I said, "I really would appreciate it if you would look into this and let her out." And as you know, she went through a trial. And anyway, she was let go. And not only she, it was a total of eight people. ... ___
TRUMP: Yeah, it's funny: One of the best chemistries I had was with (German Chancellor Angela) Merkel.
(Crosstalk) AP: Really?
TRUMP: Chancellor Merkel.
TRUMP: And I guess somebody shouted out, "Shake her hand, shake her hand," you know. But I never heard it. But I had already shaken her hand four times. You know, because we were together for a long time.
AP: Did you expect you would have good chemistry with her?
TRUMP: No. Because, um, I'm at odds on, you know, the NATO payments and I'm at odds on immigration. We had unbelievable chemistry. And people have given me credit for having great chemistry with all of the leaders, including el-Sissi. ...
TRUMP: So it was a great thing to see that happen.
AP: Do you feel like you have changed the office of the presidency, how the presidency can be used to effect change?
TRUMP: I think the 100 days is, you know, it's an artificial barrier. It's not very meaningful. I think I've established amazing relationships that will be used the four or eight years, whatever period of time I'm here. I think for that I would be getting very high marks because I've established great relationships with countries, as President el-Sissi has shown and others have shown. Well, if you look at the president of China, people said they've never seen anything like what's going on right now. I really liked him a lot. I think he liked me. We have a great chemistry together. ...
TRUMP: Only in terms that it will be a massive tax cut. It will be bigger, I believe, than any tax cut ever. Maybe the biggest tax cut we've ever had. ...
|
read more |
|
@AfDB_Group warns US cuts risk stoking extremism via @FT Africa |
US President Donald Trump risks stoking extremism in Africa and provoking a further exodus of migrants heading for Europe if he goes ahead with plans to cut funding to the continent, according to the head of the African Development Bank.
Akinwumi Adesina, president of the AfDB, told the Financial Times that Africa was facing a “triangle of disaster” in high youth unemployment, extreme poverty and environmental degradation related to climate change.
His warning comes after Mr Trump proposed a budget last month that would slash foreign aid and cut the US contribution to the World Bank and other multilateral development banks, like the AfDB, by $650m annually.
“The development agenda must not be myopic. We must therefore do everything to support Africa, to create more jobs . . . To do that requires a lot of financing. We need more resources to do more as a bank,” Mr Adesina said. “Everywhere you find this triangle of disaster you always find terrorists.”
Somalia, where al-Shabaab extremists have a strong foothold, has been hit by a series of severe droughts that many experts link to global warming. In north-east Nigeria, a region where Boko Haram militants have wreaked havoc, poverty and lack of job opportunities are often cited as contributing to young people’s susceptibility to extremism.
Many African countries, particularly commodity exporters, have also been enduring their worst economic downturns in years.
Last week, the International Monetary Fund reduced its growth projection for sub-Saharan Africa to 2.6 per cent this year, although the figure is skewed by the poor performance of South Africa, as well as big oil producers such as Nigeria and Angola. Still, the IMF warned that the region was set to record a second consecutive year of output lagging population growth, meaning per capita incomes are falling in some countries.
The potential cut to US funding also comes at a time when some multilateral institutions, including the World Bank, are running up against capital limits and being forced to scale back lending. In an interview with the FT last week, Steven Mnuchin, US Treasury secretary, was non-committal over whether the new administration would back a capital increase for the World Bank.
Mr Adesina said multilateral development banks were needed more than ever.
“If you don’t create jobs in Africa fast then the whole terrorism thing that you see in Africa is just the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “Look at all the young people heading for the Mediterranean Sea. The future of Africa doesn’t lie on the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. It lies in a more prosperous Africa.”
He also appealed to Mr Trump’s business instincts. The AfDB’s work on infrastructure and other projects benefited US companies operating in Africa, he said. US legislation giving African countries preferential trade access to the US — the African Growth and Opportunity Act — had helped non-oil African exports to the US reach $4.5bn annually, but also contributed to $18bn of US exports to Africa, creating an estimated 210,000 jobs, Mr Adesina said.
Jeffrey Sachs, a development expert, said that while Washington worried about “wasting our money in Africa”, Beijing was busily seizing the commercial opportunity.
“China says we’re not wasting our money we’re building a new world economy. China gets it and Europe and the US have not gotten it,” Mr Sachs said.
|
read more |
|
Nigeria Said to Let Market Set Naira Rate on Exchange Window Africa |
Nigeria’s central bank will let the market determine the naira’s rate in a new foreign-exchange window for portfolio investors as the nation struggles to revive its economy amid a dollar shortage. Naira forward contracts and banking stocks rose.
Governor Godwin Emefiele told senior bankers that he would tolerate the naira weakening in the window, which started today, according to a person who attended meetings with the policy maker over the past two weeks. While that may cause the currency to depreciate to its black-market level, the central bank probably won’t devalue the interbank exchange rate, the person said, declining to be identified because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.
The naira has traded at around 315 per dollar on the interbank, or spot, market since August. The black-market rate plummeted to a record 520 against the greenback in February, but recovered to 390 after the central bank sold $3 billion to $4 billion on the forward and spot markets.
Three-month non-deliverable forward contracts on the naira rose 0.9 percent to 355 per dollar at 4:14 p.m. in Lagos, the highest on a closing basis since March 6, suggesting traders see the currency weakening about 11 percent in that period. Six-month contracts rose 0.7 percent to 374.5.
|
read more |
|
Zimbabwe's "bond note" surrogate currency will not solve its economic problems, the International Monetary Fund said Africa |
"We think that, going down this one (bond) note route, in and of itself, will not address the challenges that the country has," Selassie said, according to a transcript of the media briefing.
"So, it's very important to have a more comprehensive policy package which also addresses a lot of the fiscal challenges that the country faces, a lot of the structural reforms that have to be done."
The central bank says it has so far printed $121 million in bond notes but a high demand for cash has meant that the surrogate currency is also in short supply.
|
read more |
|
|
|
|