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Wednesday 17th of June 2020
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93 percent of the world’s economies are now in #recession due to the coronavirus, according to the World Bank’s flagship “Global Economics Prospects” report. @USFunds
World Of Finance
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24-FEB-2020 :: a “V- shaped” recovery #COVID19 [is a FANTASY]
World Of Finance
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24-FEB-2020 :: "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." - Professor Allen Bartlett
World Of Finance
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Home Thoughts
Africa
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'It was magical to watch him calmly sitting there, soaking up the evening light.' @David_Yarrow @cntraveller
Tourism, Travel & Transport
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Σιφνέικο , Αντίπαρος Θεολόγος Καλάργυρος @eigglezaki
Tourism, Travel & Transport
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06-APR-2020 :: The Way We Live Now
World Of Finance
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T86 - A handsome Tiger in #Ranthambhore, photographed against the backdrop of the so-called Hunting Palace. @Jayanth_Sharma
Tourism, Travel & Transport
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"A lion's silhouette at sunrise." - 'Sunrise with the King' taken by Yaron Schmid in aid of The Angama Foundation while staying at Enkewa Mara Camp @greatestmara
Tourism, Travel & Transport
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"Chongo, one of the 6 male lions that dominate the reserve, stares down a pair of hyena approaching his kill." - 'Dawn Fire' taken by William Fortescue @greatestmara
Tourism, Travel & Transport
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A luminous and Fairy Tale feel to life
Misc.
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Rwenzori Mountain in the Pearl of Africa. a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in western Uganda. @LoveNagawa
Africa
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“The businessman bought at ten and was happy to get out at twelve; the mathematician saw his ten rise to eighteen, but didn’t sell because he wanted to double his ten to twenty.”
Africa
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Just weeks after the stock market crashed in 1929, President Herbert Hoover assured the country that things were already “back to normal,” Liaquat Ahamed writes in Lords of Finance https://j.mp/39DEhpw
Five months later, in March 1930, Hoover said the worst would be over “during the next 60 days.”
When that period ended, he said, “We have passed the worst.”
Eventually, Ahamed writes, “when the facts refused to obey Hoover’s forecasts, he started to make them up.”
Government agencies were pressed to issue false data. Officials resigned rather than do so, including the chief of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
And we all know how that turned out: The Great Depression.
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@RealdonaldTrump H/T @DanScavino
Law & Politics
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02-JUN-2020 :: Fast Forward
World Of Finance
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Well done Marcus Rashford @VPatelFX
World Of Finance
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Political Reflections
Law & Politics
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That is hardly an ideal environment for constructive, collective self-examination, and some polities may remain irrational longer than they can remain solvent. @ForeignAffairs @FukuyamaFrancis
Law & Politics
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Heavy armed gang members, and riots are out in the streets of #Dijon in #France today, shooting their rifles and pistols up in the air has made many civilians scared. @Sotiridi1
Law & Politics
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If you come to France, you need to visit Dijon, capitale of the moutarde @ChallandRomain
Law & Politics
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I would argue that Civil unrest levels are now globally at unprecedented levels that COVID19 was a circuit breaker
Law & Politics
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Beijing accuses India of crossing border, 'attacking Chinese personnel' @AFP
Law & Politics
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This is what the terrain looks like there @Comparativist
Law & Politics
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As we are hearing that no shots were fired in these clashes along the #China-#India border region this seems like the deaths and injuries have been as a result of hand to hand combat between Chinese and Indian troops. @StephenMcDonell
Law & Politics
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02-JUN-2020 :: Fast Forward it has come to a Put Up or Shut Up moment Matters India Taiwan South China Sea et al.
Law & Politics
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BREAKING: Army to hold press conf at 2 pm. Reports of 3 soldiers killed in Galwan clash with Chinese. First LAC combat casualties since 1975. @ajaishukla
Law & Politics
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Time for the govt to come clean and stop lying about "disengagement" and "mutual withdrawal". A national crisis is no time for deception
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Xi Jinping has @narendramodi surrounded from the Plateau to Gwadar to the Hambantota Port
Law & Politics
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Amit Shah, Modi's deputy, Party's social-media networks were an unstoppable force. "Do you understand what I'm saying?" he said. "We are capable of delivering any message we want to the public - whether sweet or sour, true or fake."
Law & Politics
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The Indian economy is in a mess, mass unemployment, Escalation from China, killing of our soldiers, a pandemic that is out of control. This is India at its weakest ever, thanks to @PMOIndia @RanaAyyub
Law & Politics
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The Indian economy is in a mess, mass unemployment, Escalation from China, killing of our soldiers, a pandemic that is out of control. And a Prime Minister who can only flex his muscles on innocent student protestors. This is India at its weakest ever, thanks to @PMOIndia
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South Korea released the following footage by the military of the explosion at the inter-Korean office. @disclosetv
Law & Politics
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North Korea says liaison office 'tragically ruined with a terrific explosion' at 2:50 p.m. @disclosetv
Law & Politics
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Her Brother is no more, and that certainly was not him the last time. She is in charge. 12-FEB-2018 :: Kim Jong-un unleashed his secret weapon on the world, that secret weapon being his sister Kim Yo Jong
Law & Politics
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Kim Jong-Il began his career as head of state’s propaganda and agitation department its clear that Kim Yo Jong who holds same role
Law & Politics
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The Opening Shot of Kim Jong Un surrounded by a Phalanx of North Korean Officials [later replayed as Chairman Kim sat in his Presidential Vehicle surrounded by his Ninja bodyguards] was almost as good as the opening Sequence in PT Anderson's Boogie Nights
Law & Politics
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12-FEB-2018 :: What we saw unfold in Pyeongchang marks a significant and iconic moment for the Mount Paektu Bloodline
Law & Politics
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Kim Jong-un unleashed his secret weapon on the world, that secret weapon being his sister Kim Yo Jong, who evidently bamboozled South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in.
“I wish I can see you in Pyongyang at an early date,” Kim Yo Jong told Mr Moon.
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It would be hilarious if she just went, phew, there are going to be some changes around here now, and turned NK into an anarcho-bohemian techno-rave state. Post-pandemic global party in New Free North Korea @scottburke777
Law & Politics
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30-APR-2018 :: "A new history starts now. An age of peace, from the starting point of history."
Law & Politics
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The Events that took place on Friday at the truce village of Panmunjom and during the Inter-Korean Summit were breathtaking for the Hollywood Optics. The Opening Shot of Kim Jong Un surrounded by a Phalanx of North Korean Officials [later replayed as Chairman Kim sat in his Presidential Vehicle surrounded by his Ninja bodyguards] was almost as good as the opening Sequence in PT Anderson's Boogie Nights [Steadicam operator Andy Shuttleworth]. This was Cinema of the highest level which is no surprise when You consider that Kim Jong-Il the Father was obsessed with Cinema and amassed arguably the world’s largest personal film collection: over 20,000 bootlegged 35mm screening copies. Kim Jong-Il also had a penchant for Hennessy Paradis cognac and for two years in the mid-1990s, he was the world's largest buyer of Hennessy Paradis cognac, importing up to $800,000 of the stuff a year. Kim Jong-Il began his career as the head of the state’s propaganda and agitation department and its clear that Kim Jong-Un's sister Kim Yo Jong who holds the same role and evidently handles all the optics, is a chip off the old Block. Friday was tip-top Geopolitical Optics. Mike Pompeo, the newly minted US Secretary of State [His predecessor was fired via Twitter] had visited Pyongyang the previous week and pronounced; that the young North Korean leader was "a smart guy who's doing his homework"
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Korean DMZ: 12 jogging bodyguards escort Kim Jong-un's limo
Law & Politics
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29-11-2010 FAR away in distant lands lies the Hermit Kingdom They all have had tiny little hands like the Elves in the Elves and the Shoemaker.
Law & Politics
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They all have had tiny little hands like the Elves in the Elves and the Shoemaker. And this country has nuclear weapons and on its border with its neighbour South Korea sit 25,000 American soldiers.
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Coronavirus could infect human brain and replicate, US study shows #COVID19 @FinancialTimes
Misc.
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US scientists have found the first direct evidence that coronavirus could infect the human brain and replicate inside its cells, heightening concern about the disease’s poorly understood neurological symptoms.
Thomas Hartung and colleagues at Johns Hopkins University made the discovery after adding low levels of Sars-Cov-2, the virus responsible for Covid-19, to tiny neuronal balls known as mini-brains that are grown from human stem cells.
The researchers found the virus infected neurons in the mini-brains via the ACE2 human protein that is known to be an important entry point for Sars-Cov-2.
The virus then multiplied within the neurons; within three days the number of copies had increased at least tenfold.
More than a third of coronavirus victims who were hospitalised in the Chinese city exhibited neurological symptoms, including dizziness, headache and seizures.
However, it has never been clear whether the virus affects the brain and nerve cells directly or whether such symptoms are a secondary result caused by damage to the patients’ immune and cardiovascular systems.
For instance, it is not known whether a loss of the sense of smell, a common symptom of the virus, is a result of direct infection of olfactory neurons or a side-effect of infection in other cells involved in olfaction.
If Sars-Cov-2 can attack the human brain, it has to get past the blood-brain barrier that shields the organ against many viruses and chemicals and often prevents infections.
Although the Johns Hopkins mini-brains show some features of a human brain, including electrical activity and communications between neurons, they lack other features, including the blood-brain barrier.
“Whether or not the Sars-Cov-2 virus passes this barrier has yet to be shown,” Prof Hartung said, “but it is known that severe inflammations, such as observed in Covid-19 patients, make the barrier disintegrate.”
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Although the Johns Hopkins mini-brains show some features of a human brain, they lack other features, including the blood-brain barrier © Lena Smirnova, Johns Hopkins University @FinancialTimes
Misc.
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The Origin of the #CoronaVirus #COVID19
Misc.
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The spike glycoprotein of the new coronavirus 2019-nCoV contains a furin-like cleavage site absent in CoV of the same clade
Misc.
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We identified a peculiar furin-like cleavage site in the Spike protein of the 2019-nCoV, lacking in the other SARS-like CoVs.
In this article, we discuss the possible functional consequences of this cleavage site in the viral cycle, pathogenicity and its potential implication in the development of antivirals.
Based on its genome sequence, 2019-nCoV belongs to lineage b of Betacoronavirus (Fig. 1A), which also includes the SARS-CoV and bat CoV ZXC21, the latter and CoV ZC45 being the closest to 2019-nCoV. 2019-nCoV shares ~76% amino acid sequence identity in the Spike (S)-protein sequence with SARS-CoV and 80% with CoV ZXC21 (Chan et al., 2020).
In this article, we focus on a specific furin-like protease recognition pattern present in the vicinity of one of the maturation sites of the S protein (Fig. 1B) that may have significant functional implications for virus entry.
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Table 1. Comparative sequences of envelope protein cleavage site(s) in coronaviruses (above) and in other RNA viruses (below). Empty boxes: no consensus motif detected..
Misc.
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Fig. 2. Schematic representation of the human 2019-nCoV S-protein with a focus on the putative maturation sites. The domains were previously characterized in SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV: Signal peptide (SP), N-terminal domain (NTD), receptor-binding domain (RBD), fusion peptide (FP), internal fusion peptide (IFP), heptad repeat 1/2 (HR1/2), and the transmembrane domain (TM). The SP, S1↓S2 and S2′ cleavage sites are indicated by arrows. The sequence of different CoV S1/S2 and S2′ cleavage sites were aligned using Multalin webserver (http://multalin.toulouse.inra.fr/multalin/) with manual adjustments and the figure prepared using ESPript 3 (http://espript.ibcp.fr/ESPript/ESPript/) presenting the secondary structure of SARS-CoV S-protein at the bottom of the alignment (PDB 5X58) (Yuan et al., 2017). Insertion of furin like cleavage site is surrounded by a black frame. Red asterisks indicate the presence of a canonical furin-like cleavage motif at the S1/S2 site. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)
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What we know about #SARSCoV2 transmission, as graphically depicted by @Mikepeeljourno and @jburnmurdoch @FinancialTimes @EricTopol
Misc.
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International Markets
World Of Finance
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UNCTAD’s World Investment Report 2020 @UNCTAD #UNCTADWIR
International Trade
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Global foreign direct investment (FDI) flows are forecast to decrease by up to 40% in 2020, from their 2019 value of $1.54 trillion, according to UNCTAD’s World Investment Report 2020.
This would bring FDI below $1 trillion for the first time since 2005 (figure 1). In addition, FDI is projected to decrease by a further 5% to 10% in 2021 and to initiate a recovery in 2022, the report says.
“The outlook is highly uncertain. Prospects depend on the duration of the health crisis and on the effectiveness of policies mitigating the pandemic’s economic effects,” said UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi.
“Despite the drastic decline in global FDI flows during the crisis, the international production system will continue to play an important role in economic recovery and development. Global FDI flows will continue to add to the existing FDI stock, which stood at $37 trillion at the end of 2019,” Mr. Zhan added.
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Figure 1: Global FDI infows, 2015–2019 and 2020–2022 forecast @UNCTAD #UNCTADWIR
World Of Finance
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Figure 2: Impact of the pandemic on FDI: transmission mechanisms @UNCTAD #UNCTADWIR
World Of Finance
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What’s certain is that the whole global economy has been hit by an insidious, literally invisible circuit breaker. @asiatimesonline #COVID19
World Of Finance
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UNCTAD’s World Investment Report 2020 @UNCTAD #UNCTADWIR
World Of Finance
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FDI flows to Africa are forecast to fall by 25 to 40 per cent in 2020. The negative trend will be exacerbated by low commodity prices. In 2019, FDI flows to Africa already declined by 10 per cent to $45 billion.
FDI in Latin America and the Caribbean is expected to halve in 2020.
Investment prospects are bleak because the pandemic compounds political turbulence and structural weaknesses in several economies.
These challenges were already reaching an inflection point; the pandemic looks set to tip the scales.
. At their lowest level ($1.2 trillion) then, in 2009, global FDI flows were some $300 billion higher than the bottom of the 2020 forecast.
The expected level of global FDI flows in 2021 would represent a 60 per cent decline since 2015, from $2 trillion to less than $900 billion.
The outlook beyond 2021 is highly uncertain. A U-shaped trajectory, with a recovery of FDI to its pre-crisis trend line before 2022, is possible but only at the upper bound of the expectations.
Economic and geopolitical uncertainty look set to dominate the investment landscape in the medium term.
At the lower bound of the forecast, further stagnation in 2022 will leave the value of global FDI well below the 2019 level.
Immediate impacts: FDI stuck in the lockdown. The physical closure of places of business, manufacturing plants and construction sites to contain the spread of the virus causes immediate delays in the implementation of investment projects.
The exogeneous shock of the pandemic adds to the usual volatility of FDI. The range forecast for FDI through 2020 is between -30 and -40 per cent and for 2021 between -30 and -50 per cent. The main factor that will determine the severity of the drop is the development of the health emergency.
Longer term, developing economies may be further penalized by the trend towards re-shoring or regionalization of international production, which could accelerate in response to the COVID-19 crisis.
Projections indicate that FDI in developing Asia, normally the growth engine of FDI worldwide, will decrease by 30 to 45 per cent.
GDP forecasts for 2020 from the International Monetary Fund (IMF, 2020a), used as an input in UNCTAD’s forecasting model, project a decrease of -5 per cent for Latin America and the Caribbean, against a slight change of +1 and -2 per cent for Asia and Sub- Saharan Africa, respectively.
Over the last 10 years, investments in renewable energy have grown constantly, to make up more than 50 per cent of all investment projects globally in 2019.
However, the share of tech and digital MNEs in the total foreign sales of the top 100 still increased over the same period, from less than 17 per cent to more than 18 per cent, and their share in foreign assets increased from 10 per cent to 11 per cent (attesting to the asset-light nature of their foreign operations)
UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has revised its initial projection of the COVID-19 impact on international tourism arrivals for 2020 from a 20–30 per cent contraction to 60–80 per cent, having noted a 57 per cent drop in March alone and the imposition of travel restrictions in every country around the world.
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The virus is not correlated to endogenous market dynamics but is an an exogenous uncertainty that remains unresolved
Misc.
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Unlike previous recessions, job losses now are concentrated in services, in things like leisure (restaurants) & hospitality (hotels) @RobinBrooksIIF
World Of Finance
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We're all eating out less, travelling less, etc, so the "new normal" after COVID-19 may have fewer of these jobs & higher structural unemployment.
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22-MAR-2020 :: COVID-19 and a Rolling Sudden Stop
World Of Finance
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Currency Markets At A Glance WSJ
World Currencies
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Euro 1.1285
Dollar Index 96.875
Japan Yen 107.33
Swiss Franc 0.9488
Pound 1.2568
Aussie 0.6899
India Rupee 76.1875
South Korea Won 1214.22
Brazil Real 5.24444
Egypt Pound 16.18
South Africa Rand 17.179
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Dollar Index 3 Month Chart INO 96.875
World Currencies
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Euro versus the Dollar 3 Month Chart 1.1285
World Currencies
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Commodity Markets at a Glance WSJ
Commodities
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Gold 6 month INO 1727.10
Commodities
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Crude Oil 6 Month Chart INO 37.79
Minerals, Oil & Energy
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“We used to have a class that is called a nouveau riche,” said Soha Zaiter, executive manager of the Lebanese Food Bank, a charity. “Now we have a nouveau pauvre, people who used to be middle class.” @martinpatience
Emerging Markets
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'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.'
Law & Politics
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Egypt military ranked 9th strongest globally. -Close to 1m under arms -Air assets over 1,000, including 215 fighter jets -2 aircraft carriers, 7 frigates, 8 submarine @RAbdiCG
Law & Politics
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The general also said that “all the keys to victory are in the hands of Ethiopia” @The_NewArab
Law & Politics
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Zimbabwe’s Inflation Rate Jumps to 785.55% in May @economics
Africa
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Zimbabwe’s annual inflation surged to 785.55% in May from 765.57% in April, according to the National Statistics Agency.
The month-on-month inflation rate in May was 15.13% from April’s 17.64%, the agency said in a statement posted on its official Twitter account.
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The Point I am seeking to make is that There is a correlation between high Inflation and revolutionary conditions, Zimbabwe is a classic example
Africa
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Over 248,000 confirmed #COVID19 cases on the African continent - with more than 113,000 recoveries & 6,600 deaths. @WHOAFRO
Africa
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Africa's confirmed coronavirus cases reached the 100,000-mark in 98 days, then reached 200,000 only 18 days later, the World Health Organization has said @AFP
Africa
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02-MAR-2020 :: The #COVID19 and SSA and the R Word
Africa
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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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10-MAY-2020 :: The worrying development is Transmission Hotspots #COVID19 and the Spillover Moment
Africa
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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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#COVID19 Positive Test Cases @OurWorldInData
Africa
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Judge in Congo President Aide’s Trial Murdered, State Says @BPolitics
Law & Politics
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An autopsy of the body found he suffered a brain hemorrhage after trauma to the head, according to a statement on Twitter that Tunda ya Kasende verified in a message to Bloomberg. There was also a non-lethal dose of an unidentified toxic substance in Yanyi’s body, it said.
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@WorldBank approves $1 billion for health, education in Congo @ReutersAfrica
World Of Finance
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The financing comprises $800 million to support free primary school education and $200 million to improve maternal and child health.
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South Africa All Share Bloomberg
World Of Finance
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Dollar versus Rand 6 Month Chart INO 17.1761
World Currencies
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Egypt Pound versus The Dollar 3 Month Chart INO 16.18
World Currencies
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Egypt EGX30 Bloomberg
World Of Finance
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Nigeria All Share Bloomberg
World Of Finance
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Ghana Stock Exchange Composite Index Bloomberg
World Of Finance
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Make your conclusion on the future of the Kenyan economy based on the fact that the Treasury actually expects the revenue to RISE. @MihrThakar
Kenyan Economy
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Kenya Shilling versus The Dollar Live ForexPros
World Currencies
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Nairobi All Share Bloomberg
N.S.E General
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Nairobi ^NSE20 Bloomberg
N.S.E General
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Every Listed Share can be interrogated here
N.S.E General
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