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Thursday 12th of October 2017 |
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The Latest Daily PodCast can be found here on the Front Page of the site http://www.rich.co.ke |
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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.” ― V.S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River
“It was as Nazruddin had said, when I asked him about visas and he had said that bank notes were better. 'You can always get into those places. What is hard is to get out. That is a private fight. Everybody has to find his own way.” ― V.S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River
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Africa |
Warhol’s 1986 work, made a year before the Pop artist’s death, depicts ’“The Last Supper" 60 times in black and white. The huge grid -- 32 feet wide -- has 10 columns and six rows.
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The Last Supper (Italian: Il Cenacolo or L'Ultima Cena is a late 15th-century mural painting by Leonardo da Vinci Africa |
The Last Supper (Italian: Il Cenacolo [il tʃeˈnaːkolo] or L'Ultima Cena [ˈlultima ˈtʃeːna]) is a late 15th-century mural painting by Leonardo da Vinci housed by the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. It is one of the world's most recognizable paintings.[1]
The work is presumed to have been commenced around 1495–1496 and was commissioned as part of a plan of renovations to the church and its convent buildings by Leonardo's patron Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. The painting represents the scene of The Last Supper of Jesus with his apostles, as it is told in the Gospel of John, 13:21. Leonardo has depicted the consternation that occurred among the Twelve Disciples when Jesus announced that one of them would betray him.
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Law & Politics |
The kingdom has become “more repressive than in the past,” said James Dorsey, a Middle East specialist at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.
“It’s a break with the era of King Abdullah, who often sought to forge consensus,” he said. “The Salmans do not tolerate any criticism whatsoever.”
“You need a very firm hand to see this through without provoking chaos,” said Ali Shihabi, who’s close to the government and executive director of the Arabia Foundation in Washington. “The country is going through a generational succession, the government is undertaking a herculean effort to restructure the country amid low oil prices, and it’s under attack by Shiite and Sunni jihadis and Iran.”
A search for consensus would be futile, he said, because “the political spectrum between the conservatives and the liberals is so wide as to be impossible to reconcile.”
“Saudi Arabia never was an open society, but it never was a kingdom of fear,” said Jamal Khashoggi, a senior journalist and former government adviser now living in self-imposed exile in the U.S. The wave of arrests is “part of the closing down of space for freedom of expression,” he said.
The tougher policies at home and abroad are intertwined in the Twitter hashtag “black list,” launched by royal court adviser Saud Al Qahtani in August. He urged Saudis to name and shame people who took Qatar’s side in the Gulf dispute. There’ll be “tough judgment and pursuit” for every “mercenary” who gets blacklisted, he wrote.
The hashtag has taken on a life of its own. Recent targets include a famous comedian who makes satirical YouTube videos, and a female activist arrested years ago for driving. Khashoggi has also been attacked online, labeled a traitor and mercenary.
“The media and the electronic army are being encouraged to go after those people,” he said. “It’s very Orwellian.”
Conclusions
Its a fiendishly complex Pivot to pull off and so much vim and vigour is being wasted on a sectarian cut-de-sac.
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Xi's legacy may rest on the world's biggest infrastructure project Law & Politics |
Sometimes known as One Belt One Road, or OBOR, it will attempt to integrate China’s markets with those on three continents, Asia, Europe, and Africa. The idea is to build an integrated rail network crisscrossing Central and Southeast Asia and reaching far into Europe, while constructing large, modern deep-water ports to link shipping from China and the surrounding western Pacific to South Asia, Kenya, Tanzania, and beyond.
So far, more than 60 countries have signed on or appear inclined to participate. Together they account for about 70 percent of the Earth’s population and 75 percent of its known energy supplies. Finding reasonably accurate statistics about Chinese geopolitical initiatives has long been a challenge, but under Xi, OBOR appears to have amassed well over $100 billion in commitments from various Chinese or Chinese-derived institutions, including the recently formed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which some already see as a rival to the World Bank.
Backed by Xi’s personal prestige, heft on this scale has turned OBOR into a kind of organizing motif for China’s politics and economy. The clear hope is that it will cement the country’s place as a leading, and, perhaps someday soon, the preeminent center of gravity in the world. Distinct echoes of this kind of ambition are becoming common in the speeches of Chinese officialdom. In September, for example, Foreign Affairs Minister Wang Yi promoted Xi’s “diplomatic thought,” saying it “innovates upon and transcends the past 300 years of traditional Western international relations theory.”
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"Oftentimes for the Trumps, optics matter more than substance" @VanityFair Law & Politics |
On Monday evening, Ivanka Trump took the stage at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit, in Washington D.C., her adopted hometown. During her brief tenure as a White House adviser, Ivanka has had an uncomfortable time accumulating credibility at similar high-level networking events. In April, at the G20 Summit in Berlin, the moderator of her panel greeted her with a dismissive question about how she managed her various priorities. “What is your role,” the moderator queried, “and who are you representing: your father as president of the United States, the American people, or your business?” Members of the audience groaned when she discussed her father’s attitudes toward paid family leave. “You hear the reaction from the audience,” the moderator interrupted, using their audible disdain as a springboard into another question about her father’s treatment of women.
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Kim Jong-Un's little sister -- and chief image-maker -- has established herself as the most powerful woman in the nuclear-armed state's political hierarchy. @AFP Law & Politics |
With her elevation to North Korea's powerful politburo, leader Kim Jong-Un's little sister -- and chief image-maker -- has established herself as the most powerful woman in the nuclear-armed state's political hierarchy.
Yo-Jong is believed to be in her late 20s, making her the youngest member of the reshuffled Workers' Party politburo that was unveiled at the weekend.
She is the only one of Kim Jong-Un's siblings to hold an official title and -- in a family tree complicated by their father Kim Jong-Il's various marriages and partnerships -- enjoys a special relationship with her brother in that they also share the same mother.
"They share a life-long bond and her promotion to the politburo means Kim Jong-Un has complete trust in her," said Professor Yang Moo-Jin of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.
"She could be the one to take over from Kim in the event of his absence," Yang told AFP.
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World Bank Africa's Pulse, No. 16, October 2017 Africa |
Following a sharp slowdown over the past two years, a recovery is underway in Sub-Saharan Africa. Gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the region is expected to strengthen to 2.4 percent in 2017 from 1.3 percent in 2016, slightly below the pace previously projected. The rebound is being led by the region's largest economies. In the second quarter of 2017, Nigeria exited a five-quarter recession and South Africa emerged from two successive quarters of negative growth. Economic activity has also picked up in Angola. Elsewhere, an increase in mining output along with a pickup in the agriculture sector is boosting economic activity in metals exporters. GDP growth is stable in non-resource intensive countries, supported by domestic demand. But the recovery is weak in several important dimensions. Regional per capita output growth is forecast to be negative for the second consecutive year, while investment growth remains low, and productivity growth is falling. |
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Angola to return to economic growth in 2017 MacauHub Africa |
Angola was one of the two Portuguese-speaking countries experiencing an economic recession in 2016, with GDP contracting 0.7%, but is expected to return to growth of 1.5% this year, according to the World Economic Outlook of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The only other Portuguese-speaking country whose economy contracted in 2016 was Brazil, with a fall of 3.6%, according to the same figures, which predict that the largest country in Latin America will grow by a modest 0.7% this year.
The report released on Tuesday in Washington projects that Brazil will achieve economic growth of 1.5% in 2018 and 2.0% in 2022.
Back in Africa, the other four Portuguese-speaking countries – Cabo Verde (Cape Verde), Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe – show economic growth in both 2016 and forecasts for 2017, 2018 and 2022.
According to the IMF, these four countries, with the exception of Mozambique, have experienced steady rates of economic growth over the years, with Cabo Verde at around 5.0% and Sao Tome and Principe also around 5.0%.
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Angola's coming power struggle African Business Magazine Africa |
The 38-year rule of José Eduardo dos Santos was over. The peaceful handover of power by Africa’s second longest-serving president is significant, but the question is just how real a transfer it will be.
Although dos Santos takes his leave, the ageing leader made sure to entrench his power base before departing, and Lourenço inherits an office and a body politic that has been completely crafted in dos Santos’s image. That said, chinks in the ex-president’s armour are starting to appear, and whether or not Lourenço will exercise power freely depends on dos Santos’s popularity within the MPLA and the party’s popularity within Angola.
Having considered stepping down before, dos Santos was well prepared to set up exit strategies. The national assembly has passed a bill making him “president emeritus”, a position that will give him immunity from prosecution for any abuse of office. In addition, he will remain president of the ruling MPLA and hence will continue to choose candidates for the national assembly and exert wide influence on government.
Weeks before stepping down he pushed a law through parliament blocking Lourenço from appointing any new chiefs of military, police and intelligence services for eight years and instead promoted 165 senior police officers of his own choice to key security positions.
In this manner, Lourenço is being thoroughly checked and balanced
Lourenço has never been a member of dos Santos’s inner circle. Despite election posters showing a united MPLA front, they are not close. In 2001, Lourenço, at the time secretary-general of the MPLA, expressed his interest in the presidency as dos Santos toyed with the idea of retiring. When dos Santos changed his mind, Lourenço was seen as a threat and relegated to the sidelines for the next decade. But he kept his head down and slowly rose to become defence minister in 2014.
“My guess is that we’re going to have to wait 18 months to two years to tell what is going on,” she says. “I would be very surprised if there were any moves to be antagonistic before then, but I think we are going to see a standoff at some point.”
Dr Gastrow concludes: “At the moment everyone is holding their breath to see when a split between Lourenço and dos Santos will happen.”
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No Congo election until mid-2019, says electoral commission Africa |
A long-delayed election in Democratic Republic of Congo to replace President Joseph Kabila cannot take place until at least April 2019, the electoral commission said, a schedule certain to enrage opponents who say Kabila is clinging to power.
The polls were originally scheduled for November 2016. The schedule outlined by the electoral commission would torpedo an agreement between Kabila’s representatives and his opponents that the election would take place before the end of this year.
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Raila Odinga takes a gamble by threatening to boycott Kenya's election @TheEconomist Kenyan Economy |
IN THE rickety wooden markets in Nairobi, where traders flog old books, second-hand clothes and kitchenware, walking away is a buyer’s last negotiating ploy. If he is lucky, he will be chased down the street and offered a better price. Raila Odinga, Kenya’s softly-spoken opposition leader, seems to be hoping a similar strategy may rescue his electoral chances.
On October 10th Mr Odinga withdrew from a re-run of the presidential election scheduled for October 26th, arguing that if it went ahead then it would not be free or fair. Courts had already annulled the presidential part of a wider set of elections held on August 8th, after finding problems with the way in which it was run. But no reforms have been made to the electoral process since then, he argued.
It had already been clear for several weeks that Mr Odinga did not plan to contest the election. His coalition of parties, the National Super Alliance (NASA), had been running a bare-bones campaign. The candidate himself had made plans to travel to Britain and possibly America two weeks before the vote—prime campaigning time—presumably to drum up international support for his withdrawal.
Yet the announcement still contained a surprise. This is because instead of proposing a straightforward boycott, Mr Odinga seems to be hoping that by standing down he will force the courts to halt the election altogether and order a new one in the future after the parties have nominated new candidates.
Under the original Supreme Court ruling that annulled August’s election, the electoral commission has until November 1st to organise a new one. If that deadline is missed then Kenya will be plunged into a constitutional crisis. It is unclear how that would be resolved. Those in the camp of the incumbent president, Uhuru Kenyatta, want an election to be held no matter what. Some hardliners want him simply to be declared president. In parliament MPs pushed through an amendment to the electoral law that automatically awards victory to the remaining candidate if one of them withdraws from a re-run of a presidential election.
Yet the real crisis is one of legitimacy, not law. Should the courts and electoral commission go ahead with a vote that is not contested by Mr Odinga, his supporters will surely try their best to disrupt it, says Michael Chege of the University of Nairobi. In their strongholds, principally in Western Kenya and certain Nairobi slums, they could prevent the electoral commission from holding a vote that would satisfy the courts.
By walking away, Mr Odinga seems to be gambling on his ability to threaten chaos to push Mr Kenyatta to negotiate. But the trouble with that strategy is that Mr Odinga is running out of money. And although protests occasionally gum up the centre of Nairobi, even his most partisan supporters will not stay on the streets indefinitely. The worst outcome, for Mr Odinga and Kenya, is that his bluff is called and the election goes ahead without him. Mr Kenyatta might remain president, but a large proportion of the population would not recognise his right to rule and would feel left out of the political system.
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The all-share index dropped 0.67 percent blue-chip index 1.41 percent, Kenya's dollar-denominated 2024 sovereign bond fell as much as 1.2 cents Reuters data Kenyan Economy |
Odinga, who successfully challenged the Aug. 8 re-election of President Uhuru Kenyatta last month, said the repeat poll should be canceled and a fresh election held after the election board has carried out reforms.
“There was cautious optimism, but now political risk has risen considerably overnight driven by the opposition candidate’s withdrawal,” said Ken Minjire, the head of securities at Genghis Capital in Nairobi.
The all-share index has lost 5.5 percent and the blue chip index is down 10 percent since the August election was annulled.
Concern over the prolonged political uncertainty have hit economic growth, with businesses and households feeling the pinch. The government has already cut this year’s economic growth forecast to 5.5 percent from the initial 5.9 percent.
But Aly Khan Satchu, an independent trader and analyst, said he expected the election to go ahead after the court ruled in favour of the minority candidate, ushering in a relief rally afterwards.
“I expect the Oct. 26 election to take place ... We should start to see a recovery at the bourse,” Satchu said.
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09-OCT-2017 :: Politics Landing Blows on Economy @TheStarKenya Kenyan Economy |
What is clear is that the advantage of incumbency in fact accelerates in this Round 2 of the Election. Therefore, I expect the Opposition to boycott the Election entirely. And that the strategy of tension will be maintained via degrading and denigrating the entire process. Market Participants need to model this scenario because this is the direction of travel.
''Essentially Kenya faces a very uncertain 21 days'' @DaMina_Advisors.
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Political Crisis With No Clear End Grinds Down Kenyan Economy Kenyan Economy |
“My clients are afraid of coming into the CBD because the protests can mean you either get tear gassed or robbed,” Njeri, 33, said in an interview. “The human traffic to the shop is almost nothing. We just want to go back to normal.”
“The economy is slowly shutting down as we wait for political issues to be resolved,” Anzetse Were, an independent economist, said by phone from Nairobi. “People are holding onto their money, businesses are suffering and contracts have been delayed. We are in uncharted ground and nobody knows how this will end.”
While the opposition demonstrations haven’t led to major upheaval thus far, “risks of violent unrest may be heightened after Tuesday’s announcement,” said Jared Jeffery, an analyst at NKC African Economics in Paarl, South Africa. “The country is set to remain on edge for months.”
Investor unease is evident in the financial markets. The Nairobi Securities Exchange All Share Index has fallen the most in Africa and is the third-worst performer in the world since the election outcome was declared void on Sept. 1, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The government’s international bonds due in 2024 have also dropped since then, with yields climbing 44 basis points to 6.46 percent.
While businesses can prepare for short-term uncertainty created by the elections, they can’t do much about protracted turmoil and violence, Carole Kariuki, the chief executive officer of the Kenya Private Sector Alliance, a business lobby group, said by phone. Kenya’s future electoral processes need to be truncated to safeguard the economy and business from a repeat of the upheaval, she said.
“What Kenya now needs is a snappy resolution of the election,” said Ronak Gopaldas, a Johannesburg-based Africa strategist at FirstRand Ltd.’s Rand Merchant Bank. “It is getting the exact opposite. Current developments will only serve to puncture the outlook for the country in the short term.”
At her boutique in Nairobi, Njeri can’t afford to wait for the politicians to sort out their differences.
“We have no business now to be honest,” she said
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"The revolutionary contingent attains its ideal form not in the place of production, but in the street'' Kenyan Economy |
The Kenyan parliament passed an amendment on Wednesday to the country’s election laws, saying that if one candidate withdraws from a repeat presidential election, the other one would automatically win.
Paul Virilio, in his book Speed and Politics, says: “ 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.’’
What does it cost to put 500 people on the streets? I venture $10.00 a head max. $5,000.00 versus an economic deterioration of at least 100x is an outstanding example of the efficacy of this asymmetric strategy. Go and compare the street protests in Togo and you will note our street protests belong in the theatre.
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N.S.E Today |
BITCOIN [the premier crypto-currency] smashed through $5,000 and is +73% in less than a month +428% year-to-date and +750% in the last year The Japanese Nikkei 225 is at a 21 year high and the US Equity markets continue to strike record all time highs once or twice a week. The South African All Share whilst lagging the all-conquering Zimbabwe Stock Exchange [more a store of money trade in a possible repeat of 2008] is at a record as well. The World Bank issued its Africa's Pulse, No. 16, October 2017 Report and said Following a sharp slowdown over the past two years, a recovery is underway in Sub-Saharan Africa. Gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the region is expected to strengthen to 2.4 percent in 2017 from 1.3 percent in 2016, slightly below the pace previously projected. Regional per capita output growth is forecast to be negative for the second consecutive year, while investment growth remains low, and productivity growth is falling. Ethiopia is set to be the fastest-growing economy in sub-Saharan Africa this year and next, says the #IMF. Here CS Matiangi banned demos in Nairobi, Kisumu and Mombasa city centres. The Nairobi All Share ticked -0.4255% lower to close at 159.10 a fresh 2 month low. The Nairobi NSE20 eased -4.99 points to close at 36401.14 a fresh 2 and 1/2 month low. I venture 26th will prove a political Guillotine and that the market is trying to base out here. Equity turnover was lacklustre and clocked just 259.839m.
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N.S.E Equities - Agricultural |
Sasini Tea and Coffee was high-ticked +6.00% to close at 26.50 on the grand total of 100 shares.
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N.S.E Equities - Commercial & Services |
Safaricom eased -1.00% to close at 24.75 and traded 6.133m shares worth 153.10m which represented 58.911% of the total volume traded in what was another lacklustre low volume trading session at the NSE. Safaricom is 7.47% below a record closing high of 26.75 reached at the end of August. The price correction has been shallow and a tailwind will take us to new all time highs.
TPS Serena hotels was marked down -7.41% to close at 25.00 on noteworthy volume of 503,400 shares worth 12.598m. TPS Serena is +21.95% in 2017 and is [inversely] correlated to the unfolding political narrative.
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N.S.E Equities - Finance & Investment |
Standard Bank traded 131,700 shares all at 79.50 +3.25% and bucked the Trend. Barclays Bank firmed +1.041% to close at 9.70 and traded 268,600 shares. COOP Bank traded 882,900 shares and closed unchanged at 16.50.
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N.S.E Equities - Industrial & Allied |
KenolKobil eased -3.33% to close at 14.50 on tin trading volume of just 54,100 shares. KenolKobil has corrected -10.769% lower this month and this looks overextended and an attractive Entry Price Point.
ARM closed unchanged at 13.00 [-48.03% in 2017] and traded 2.655m shares. The recent news flow has been accompanied by a marked increase in trading volumes.
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