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Thursday 22nd of October 2020
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Some great action witnessed by our team today! Watch to the end! @EwasoLions
Africa
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Sarajevo @BosnianHistory
Misc.
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This is a 1984 photo of businesses along Munyu Road in downtown Nairobi. @HistoryKE
Africa
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You felt the land taking you back to something that was familiar, something you had known at some time but had forgotten or ignored
Africa
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Just a reminder this iconic Reuters picture (many have used it but @dylanmpix took it) @GuyReuters
Africa
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The Dolomites @earth
Tourism, Travel & Transport
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Political Reflections
Law & Politics
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Walk by the Wall Mosul, Iraq @newlinesmag @AliBaroodi
Law & Politics
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There’s an Iraqi saying that translates as: “Walk by the wall.” It means stay off radar. Keep out of trouble. But when you grow up in Iraq, as I have, trouble has a way of finding you.
Such was the case in early June 2014. It was exam time at the University of Mosul, where I still teach.
I remember that day as a Thursday because it was my designated weekday for a long lunch, complete with tea and shisha, at a close friend’s house (I shall call him Ahmad).
But that Thursday, there was nothing usual about our weekly get-together. Ahmad called me on the phone and warned, “It is not safe in my neighborhood”—a reference to West Mosul. A curfew had been announced, and thousands of people were rushing home.
Mosul fell to ISIS a few days later, on June 10. I remember on that day how state TV broadcast cartoons and other irrelevant programs, just like it had done years earlier during the 2003 U.S. invasion.
Except this time, of course, the invaders were fighting a new kind of war.
We learned the news in bits and pieces. First, there was the “strategic retreat” by Iraqi forces from our city. Then, there were thousands of people who became displaced from their homes.
They were mainly from Tamooz, Rifeaee, and Najar. Mosques started making urgent calls to host the displaced.
When I opened the front door of my house, I saw huge plumes of smoke looming on the horizon. The church bells fell silent, and the altars were swiftly turned into courts where people would be lashed for violations of ISIS laws, like smoking cigarettes.
It was a sad affair. The city’s identity was stripped away, along with the diversity of my neighbors.
Professors and friends were promptly expelled by ISIS, their properties confiscated. Our melting pot was emptied of its historical content.
I was born and raised in Mosul, and I came of age in the 1990s. My father had been forced into early retirement from teaching because he refused to join Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party.
My late mother taught primary school. We struggled financially. Back then, Iraqis jokingly measured their salaries in the number of eggs it could buy. My mother’s salary was one pack — 30 eggs — per month.
I remember once asking her: Why were her colleagues better paid than she was when she had more experience and higher qualifications? She gave no answer and left me to wonder.
Later I understood that she had suffered the consequences of not joining Saddam’s Baath Party.
Membership in the party did not automatically improve lives, and indeed many Baathists suffered as the rest of us did, but refusal to join it would be regarded as a political statement.
This was not a conversation we could freely have at home. There were many taboo questions I could not ask, such as this one: If we were truly victorious in the 1991 war, as Saddam claimed we were, then how come foreign warplanes kept flying overhead all the way until the 2003 invasion?
We could not ask this, nor were there any answers, but what was clear was a noticeable rise in militarism.
In the late 1990s, when I was in high school, the government briefly mandated that all students wear military khakis.
Our schoolyard turned into an indoctrination ground for the Baath Party, which in those days offered nothing more than the glorification of Saddam Hussein.
Even my primary school headmistress touted militarism. She carried a Kalashnikov and gave three salute shots on the Day of the Martyr.
Yet Iraq was on the verge of death. Food scarcity was hitting the people hard. Malnutrition was rife. It felt as if the world was tightening its noose around us as it attempted to strangle Saddam and his regime with sanctions. The result was in fact the opposite.
Saddam grew more arrogant and brutal toward the people. He threw big birthday bashes for himself every April 28.
He rode in gilded carriages and displayed ostentatious wealth in public halls, surrounding himself with hundreds of carefully chosen children from all over Iraq to greet “Our Immortal Leader.”
All this while ordinary Iraqis struggled to put food on their table. To humiliate us further, Saddam would give people crumbs through government food-ration cards.
One time my aunt opened a sack of flour and found a label with the drawing of a sheep’s head on it. Our rationed food was in fact cattle feed.
During my sophomore year in college, the situation grew more tense. The United States was campaigning to strip Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction, and Iraq kept denying having them.
This tension reached our classrooms, and our university started busing us downtown to protest against “the Anglo-American evil intentions.”
Baathist professors demanded that we dress in military fatigues and receive military training, and they repeated old stories about victories that sounded about as real as our supposed victory in 1991.
One time, I could not resist. “If we were so victorious, what are those 150,000 foreign soldiers doing in the Gulf? I don’t think they are on vacation,” I said. I relaxed, but his fury was palpable.
Outside our classrooms, there were trenches being dug, apparently in preparation for some long and exhausting war. Ordinary folks were terrified. People began stuffing their pantries with non-perishable food.
Downtown Mosul became deserted. Saddam upped the religious undertone of his regime and created an environment conducive to radicals.
In my neighborhood, some young men were enthusiastic about joining the army and fighting the “invaders,” even though the army was filled with soldiers without enough food to eat.
Young, able-bodied men were reduced to begging at mosques because they could not afford the fare for a ticket home. Such was the state of Saddam’s army, the one he had used to oppress our people.
There was a brief U.S. attack on Dec. 16, 1998, dubbed by the Clinton administration as Operation Desert Fox, with the aim of warning Saddam and forcing him to cooperate with the United Nations’ weapons inspectors.
But this operation only made Saddam more belligerent toward the Iraqi people. He started using “sacred causes” as an excuse for his tyranny. He was going “to liberate Jerusalem,” he said, and “drive away the Zionists.” I always thought it ironic that Baghdad fell while Saddam was obsessed with liberating Jerusalem.
In 2014, after Mosul fell to ISIS, I grew anxious and didn’t know what to do. At some point, I decided to immerse myself in the one thing that had always given me solace: photography.
I had always shot my most intimate photographs while riding through town on my bicycle, exploring new places and the stories behind them.
Bike tours, I called them. And they became even more urgent when I lived under ISIS: they kept me sane and connected to Mosul.
But the tours were not easy. For one thing, ISIS forbade cameras except for their own photographers, so I did not dare take mine in public, instead using my cell phone to discreetly snap photos.
Also, riding a bicycle through town came with its own set of hindrances. The notorious ISIS Hisba — vice police — enforced mandatory prayer at the mosque five times a day, so I could not be out during those times.
ISIS also installed huge TV screens all over Mosul to show off their military exploits, fighting skills and conquests, and I was always trying to avoid those images.
ISIS also held executions in public spaces and encouraged young folk to attend. When passing through those places, I would pedal harder to avoid seeing the blood.
One time, after I sped through a horrid public execution, I arrived at Ahmad’s place feeling shaken. “I survived an execution party, my friend. I survived a brutal public beheading,” I told him, trying to catch my breath.
He calmed me down and offered me his special coffee blend. That day we smoked one cigarette after another and lamented the brutality of the self-proclaimed “Caliph.”
To lighten our mood, we did something “illegal” under ISIS rule: We watched a movie! It was a Sean Connery movie, and it lifted our spirits.
Then Ahmad tried to console me: “It will be over, my friend, but only God knows how much it is going to cost us,” he said.
At what cost indeed, I was left to wonder. Like everyone in Mosul under ISIS, I was worried for my own safety.
My house was filled with things considered contraband, punishable by death. My bookshelves held a copy of the Holy Quran alongside the Bible.
Within the privacy of my walls I listened to music, and on the walls hung embroidered paintings.
I also had countless photos stored on my laptop, including of my own neighborhood while under coalition bombings, and of Mosul under ISIS.
All this would have been enough to doom me to a brutal fate in an ISIS dungeon.
In July 2016, the situation became worse. The big jail that was Mosul grew even more fortified. Smugglers were no longer able to sneak people out of the “Caliphate,” and they were charging exorbitant prices for those willing to take the risk.
For the first time, internet access was totally forbidden, and violators faced dire consequences.
I started to feel more and more like a prisoner. I used to wait until dark to go to my building’s rooftop and crouch in a corner to search for a cell phone signal. I called friends who had escaped out of the “Caliphate,” and they consoled me with promises of a reunion.
“Soon,” they would say, “we will hold a happy reunion on our beloved campus.”
When I was a student at the University of Mosul in the early 2000s, I remember taking pride in the fact that I lived in a city of color; a true mosaic.
There were girls dressed in golden gowns, and people dressed in folkloric costumes. We celebrated with music and books and art galleries and symposiums.
I hardly saw women wearing the headscarf prior to Saddam’s hypocritical Islamization campaign. We used to walk home carrying books and candy.
Then one day, we woke up to the shock and awe of the Second Gulf War. Iraqi national TV aired enthusiastic chants and songs glorifying Saddam and the ever “victorious” army.
The official media in Iraq had always been unreliable. When the regime fell, that very TV channel started airing cartoons and unrelated content while Al Jazeera Live — which we accessed through the Syrian TV that aired it — showed real events, and those were very sad and difficult to watch.
We huddled around our radios and listened to BBC Arabic and Monte Carlo, our trusted media outlets.
My father listened to the news, silently hoping that the 35 years of Saddam’s oppression would soon be over. This is indeed a loaded question for many Iraqis: Did we want the U.S. invasion? Aren’t we grateful to be rid of Saddam? I would say what the Iraqi people always wanted is this: To have a decent life, an opportunity to put food on the table and live in dignity, with or without Saddam.
After the invasion, my family and I watched footage of the statue of Saddam in the heart of Baghdad being torn down. “Was this for real?” we thought.
Could it be true that Saddam’s 7 million troops — the supposedly invincible Quds Army — vanished overnight? And what about the “elite” Republican Guard?
Was Iraq always this ill-defended? Indeed, my country was like a hungry lion that had lost its prowess during the 13 years of sanctions and economic blockade.
A few days later, we awoke to the sight of U.S. troops and Humvees in our streets in Mosul. But if anyone thought this would usher in a new era, they were partially wrong.
In the early days, the 101st Airborne was friendly and helpful, and the people of Mosul offered them tea and cookies.
Consumer goods started flooding our markets, and people rushed out to buy electronics and satellite receivers to watch more channels on TV.
There were emergency payments to Iraqi government employees, and quickly the circulation of U.S. dollars — which had been forbidden throughout the 1990s — eased people’s hardships.
International newspapers started showing up on newsstands. Bookstores started openly selling literature that was banned under Saddam.
People could express themselves freely. We would flourish, we thought. There was plenty of food to eat, too, and for a while we were overcome by a sense of boundless optimism. Alas, it did not last.
While U.S. troops took over our city, looters took over every government facility, leaving nothing un-stolen.
Within hours of the U.S. arrival, I saw people carrying away chairs and desks, loading small cars with refrigerators and air conditioners.
At university, my classroom was vandalized. Offices were burnt; doors were taken off their hinges and stolen.
Such setbacks seemed to go unpublicized while American corporations eagerly staked their claim to our economy.
After our short honeymoon with U.S. forces, and a brief respite from Saddam, we became an occupied country, exposed to exploitation and humiliation.
I stuck to the old Iraqi adage: Walk by the wall. All I wanted to do was focus on my education and dream of the new era that I had hoped was on the horizon for us.
What loomed on the horizon, however, was shady terrorist groups and roadside bombs. Life in Iraq would once again become difficult and it would get scarier with the rise of ISIS.
In 2016, when the anti-ISIS war was imminent, the people of Mosul did what we already knew to do under the threat of war: We rushed to the market and bought as many provisions as we could afford.
Some people sold their jewelry for food. Others began to dig artesian water wells in preparation for water shortages.
That year, October came with news of an imminent attack, a Zero Hour. I continued to visit Ahmad in West Mosul, and together we followed the news very closely, drinking his special blend of coffee and chain-smoking to calm our nerves.
Local and Iraqi media reports — ever so optimistic — promised that ISIS would fall “within a few days,” that we would retake Mosul in a week. But the threat of battle continued for months, and Zero Hour kept eluding us.
In November, the leaves began to fall and, finally, so did the anti-ISIS bombs. I wanted my friend to move to my side of the city for safety, but he needed to remain close to his family.
We braced ourselves for a prolonged and bloody battle. Ahmad told me he was expecting the worst type of destruction; he had already gone through our city and bid it farewell. But I tried to stay hopeful.
On Nov. 17, I went for a bike ride to visit Ahmad in West Mosul. By then we had been partially liberated from ISIS after a fierce battle led by coalition forces.
Few cars were in the street due to a fuel shortage, and the remaining ISIS troops were in a full panic. They had set up more checkpoints and started holding more public executions, perhaps to raise the level of terror among us and deter us from helping Iraqi forces.
Heavy plumes of smoke were rising to one side as I pedaled faster across one of the city’s bridges. My friend had warned that the coalition forces were about to bomb the city’s five bridges in an attempt to paralyze ISIS forces.
Suddenly my eyes fell on a burnt-out car. There was something like an orange shine in the middle of the black metal.
“Oh, no,” I thought, not wanting to believe my eyes. It was an executed man chained to an ISIS vehicle that had been torched in an airstrike.
I looked at his bruised face and orange, bloodied, jail uniform and was reminded of a body that I had seen in 2005, when Mosul was under the unofficial rule of an armed al Qaeda-affiliated group. (Both ISIS and its predecessor used to display corpses of their victims in public.)
Back then, that sight had upset me so much that I dropped out of school for a while.
On Jan. 8, 2017, our three-year ISIS nightmare was nearly over. The black flags were torn down from their masts and burned. I could shave and use my camera in public.
With trepidation, I snuck into our living room and looked out the window. On the horizon I saw the Iraqi flag flying on a mast. “Victory!” I wanted to shout at the top of my voice.
I wanted to rush and tell the good news to my family. But still unsure if more trouble was coming, I returned to my family in silence, teary eyed, and uttered with some difficulty: “It’s over! They’re gone!”
Outside our front door we found Iraq waiting for our embrace. Members of the elite Iraqi counterterrorism forces were there, looking at us and smiling, joyful and victorious.
One of them asked me for the “famous Mosuli tea,” and I scrambled to oblige his request. I returned with two pots of tea and we chatted and laughed, then he told me to hide elsewhere as they were expecting a retaliatory mortar attack from ISIS. The battle was not yet over.
Two days passed before the last of the fighting ended and it was safe for me to return home. I walked through dead bodies of ISIS fighters, and sifted through the terrible memories that they had inflicted upon us.
My house was no longer livable; shrapnel had left huge holes in the walls. It was cold and empty. The cats ate my brother’s pigeons, leaving only feathers. There was no water. The streets had rocket craters five meters deep.
But when I saw my neighbors, we hugged and cried, grateful to be alive and happy to see each other.
We started to rebuild. We dug a well and found water for our daily needs after the city’s infrastructure had been destroyed. I rebuilt my house.
In March, at university, my students and I resumed our classes, picking up where we had left off, at the exams.
Some of the students came from newly liberated areas in West Mosul, where the fighting continued for a while longer. My students were tired and horrified.
Some told me they had to dig and retrieve scores of dead people in their neighborhoods. We could not yet return to our beloved campus, so we held classes at a site outside Mosul.
In late May 2017, we finally returned to campus. The Iraqi military corps of engineers had cleared it of ordnance, but we still found our beloved university devastated.
The smell and soot of the burnt buildings was barely tolerable. Almost 70 percent of the infrastructure was either demolished or damaged.
The university central library, which used to shelve over a million books, was turned into a heap of rubble and ash by airstrikes. ISIS had made sure to pour petrol on every building and scorch it.
I received calls from my students who volunteered to help restore the buildings that were salvageable. Students and professors rolled up their sleeves and worked as a team to make life possible again.
Mosul was removing the dust of war. All this was happening while the war was still raging.
Finally, after three years, my faculty at the university — the Department of Translation — was ready to resume classes.
My first day back was an emotional reunion, especially when I saw the desks reoccupied and the refurbished buildings buzzing with excited students.
We started with a conversational class led by my students. They shared stories of the dark times we had survived and expressed hope for a better future.
At one point, someone knocked on the door. It was new students. They, too, were survivors. We applauded and rejoiced to see them in our midst.
Some of them would later lament to me that a number of their peers had joined the terrorist group. It was disappointing news, but we no longer had to whisper news in fear.
We could speak of ISIS as the reviled topic of conversation that it was.
More than three years have passed since then and today I find myself wondering once again what the future may hold for Iraq.
We are still struggling against old problems: corruption, nepotism and ineffectual governance.
Many civil servants have not been paid salaries for months (including me and my fellow teachers). I do not want to fall into despair, but I still want to walk by the wall.
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The day Mosul fell to ISIS, taken near my home on June 10, 2014/ @newlinesmag @AliBaroodi
Law & Politics
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ISIS flag replaced the Iraqi flag, taken July 14, 2014/ @newlinesmag @AliBaroodi
Law & Politics
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A petrol station struck by coalition forces on Dec. 29, 2015, taken secretly from my cell phone/ @newlinesmag @AliBaroodi
Law & Politics
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Mosul Train Station, which endured extensive damage during ISIS rule and the subsequent anti-ISIS coalition airstrikes/ @newlinesmag @AliBaroodi
Law & Politics
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22-JUN-2020 :: Whoever Controls The Narrative Controls The World
Law & Politics
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And because we know exist in a stream of consciousness World which is constantly accelerating at a dizzying speed, My Mind back flipped to another toppling that of a Statue of Saddam Hussein in Firdos Square in Baghdad in 2003.
‘Free Iraq’, Firdos Square, Baghdad. © Photograph by Goran Tomasevic, Reuters/ Landov, Newsweek , 9 April 2003. Reuters.
In the 1960s, Daniel J. Boorstin identified a new category of media spectacle that he called "pseudo-events," which were created to be reported on.
However, it was later learned that the scene was closely managed by a US Colonel and PSYOP (Psychological Operations) team who cordoned off the square, allowed a relatively small group of Iraqi émigrés to gather around the statue, and then used armored vehicles and steel cables to pull the statue down for the cheering Iraqi group (Fahmy, 2007; Griffin, 2008)
And it all left me wondering Who exactly is controlling the Console?
Is this Statue toppling business a Gladwellian and metastatic type Event?
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Saddam Hussein's Last Words: "To the Hell that is Iraq!?" The execution fell during Eid ul-Adha, a holy day for Muslims.
Law & Politics
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The date of the execution is perhaps one of the most compromising signals that the execution was indeed a psychological operation (PSYOP)
Several individuals say several times: "To Hell [hell-fire]!" [This can be translated as "Go to Hell!"]
Saddam Hussein mockingly replies/asks: "To the hell that is Iraq!?"
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Globally, daily cases continue to increase, now averaging 380,000 new daily cases...@TetotRemi
Misc.
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27-JUL-2020 :: Drinking the Kool-Aid The exponential moment is still in front of us. #COVID19
World Of Finance
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We have added 2.6 million new cases in the past seven days #COVID19 @TetotRemi
Misc.
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The rise of confirmed cases in Europe is very rapid. @MaxCRoser
Misc.
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– This is showing the 7-day rolling average. Over the last week 138,500 cases were confirmed every day.
– The doubling time of confirmed cases for Europe as a whole is two weeks.
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There is now a huge gap between European daily cases and daily deaths. If the gap were to somewhat close, there would likely be increased pressure on hospitals again, if not then maybe the risks around Covid-19 will need to be reassessed..@TetotRemi
Misc.
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NEW: UK reports nearly 27,000 new coronavirus cases, by far the biggest one-day increase on record @BNODesk
Misc.
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- New cases: 26,688
- Positivity rate: 9.5% (+1.3)
- In hospital: 7,420 (+521)
- In ICU: 693 (+39)
- New deaths: 191
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Increase in Daily COVID-19 cases past two weeks #Cyprus: 4.63x #Switzerland: 3.94x #Azerbaijan: 3.54x #Italy: 3.23x #Poland: 3.21x #Slovenia: 3.17x #Belgium: 3.02x #Croatia: 2.76x #Bulgaria: 2.76x #Kenya: 2.25x @jmlukens
Misc.
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Avg daily growth rate #Botswana: 14.02% #Tunisia: 7.40% #Slovenia: 6.22% #Georgia: 6.04% #Slovakia: 5.63% #Czechia: 5.57% #Jordan: 5.22% #Switzerland: 5.19% #Poland: 4.92% #Belgium: 4.56% @jmlukens
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Year of the Virus
World Of Finance
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If you're pinning your hopes on a Covid vaccine, here's a dose of realism @guardian
Misc.
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For those holding on to hope of an imminent Covid-19 vaccine, the news this weekend that the first could be rolled out as early as “just after Christmas” will have likely lifted the spirits.
The UK’s deputy chief medical officer, Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, reportedly told MPs a vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca could be ready for deployment in January, while Sir Jeremy Farrar, Sage scientific advisory group member and a director of the Wellcome Trust, has said at least one of a portfolio of UK vaccines could be ready by spring.
Much has been said about how the world will return to normal when a vaccine is widely available. But that really won’t be true. It is important that we are realistic about what vaccines can and can’t do.
Vaccines protect individuals against disease and hopefully also against infection, but no vaccine is 100% effective.
To know what proportion of a community would be immune after a vaccination programme is a numbers game – we must multiply the proportion of a population vaccinated by how effective the vaccine is.
The UK currently has among the highest national coverage of flu vaccine in the world, vaccinating around 75% of the over-65s against flu every year; most countries either do worse or have no vaccination programmes for older people.
It is reasonable to expect that this level of coverage could be achieved for a Covid-19 vaccine in that age group in the UK.
Therefore, if the Covid-19 vaccine is 75% effective – meaning that 75% of those vaccinated become immune – then we would actually only protect 56% of that target population (75% of 75%). This would not be enough to stop the virus circulating.
Almost half of our highest risk group would remain susceptible, and we won’t know who they are. Relaxing social distancing rules when facing those risks seems a bit like Russian roulette.
Now let’s look at people younger than 65 in medical risk groups. In a good year, the UK vaccinates 50% of them against flu. That means just over a third of them are going to be protected (50% of 75%).
Just to make matters worse, regulators such as the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency have said that they would accept a 50% lower level for efficacy for candidate Covid-19 vaccines.
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No-one has ever produced a safe and effective vaccine against a coronavirus. Birger Sørensen, Angus Dalgleish & Andres Susrud
Misc.
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THE VACCINE STORY IS ANOTHER MYTH
What if, as I fear, there will never be a vaccine.
I was involved in the early stages of identifying the HIV virus as the cause of Aids.
I remember drugs companies back then saying there would be a vaccine within around 18 months.
Some 37 years on, we are still waiting. Prof ANGUS DALGLEISH @MailOnline
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See the light green band? T403 is never ever seen in any other Sarbecoviruses @flavinkins
Misc.
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The difference between the top and the bottom is that HeLa was used for the top and HEK293T was used for the bottom. The main difference was the Integrins in HeLa is more highly expressed than HEK293T. See the light green band? T403 is never ever seen in any other Sarbecoviruses
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‘’Zoonotic’’ origin was one that was accelerated in the Laboratory.
Misc.
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There is also a non negligible possibility that #COVID19 was deliberately released
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19-OCT-2020 :: Now Is The Winter Of Our Discontent
World Of Finance
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“Now is the winter of our discontent” is the opening of a speech by William Shakespeare from Richard III.
It was also used to describe the profound industrial unrest that took place in 1978—9 in the United Kingdom.
Prime Minister Callaghan was asked by a reporter "What is your general approach, in view of the mounting chaos in the country at the moment?" and replied:
Well, that's a judgment that you are making. I promise you that if you look at it from outside, and perhaps you're taking rather a parochial view at the moment, I don't think that other people in the world would share the view that there is mounting chaos.
The next day's edition of The Sun headlined its story "Crisis? What crisis?"
And brings me back to how the World is circular and
Ecclesiastes 1:2-11 2 Vanity[a] of vanities, says the Preacher
Vanity[a] of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
and hastens[b] to the place where it rises.
What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already
in the ages before us.
There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance
of later things[d] yet to be
among those who come after.
Ibn Khaldun sought to explain the intrinsic relationship between political leadership and the management of pandemics in the pre-colonial period in his book Muqaddimah
Historically, such pandemics had the capacity to overtake “the dynasties at the time of their senility, when they had reached the limit of their duration” and, in the process, challenged their “power and curtailed their [rulers’] influence...”
Rulers who are only concerned with the well-being of their “inner circle and their parties” are an incurable “disease”.
States with such rulers can get “seized by senility and the chronic disease from which [they] can hardly ever rid [themselves], for which [they] can find no cure”
And here we are
#COVID19
The Virus clocked a record 400,000+ cases 3 times last week.
Whether it is in the First, second, third or fourth wave is an academic Question.
What we know is that #COVID19 [is] unlike the flow of capital [and that] this virus seeks proliferation, not profit, and has, therefore, inadvertently, to some extent, reversed the direction of the flow.
Arundhati Roy: ‘The pandemic is a portal’ – The Open Question is a Portal to whence.
I listened to the soothing platitudes of the IMF and the World Bank and now those August Institutions have ditched Talk of a ‘’V’’ shaped recovery but still hold fast to a Quaalude level Snap Back next year.
Quaaludes ‘’promote relaxation, sleepiness and sometimes a feeling of euphoria. It causes a drop in blood pressure and slows the pulse rate. These properties are the reason why it was initially thought to be a useful sedative and anxiolytic It became a recreational drug due to its euphoric effect’’
They are dreaming
We are spinning deeper into negative interest rate territory
ALL G7 CURVES 0-10 WILL BE NEGATIVE IN 2021
BUT WILL THAT BE ENOUGH TO TRIGGER A RECOVERY OR WILL IT PRESAGE A SLUMP?
The virus is not correlated to endogenous market dynamics but is an exogenous uncertainty that remains unresolved #COVID19
No-one has ever produced a safe and effective vaccine against a coronavirus. Birger Sørensen, Angus Dalgleish & Andres Susrud
THE VACCINE STORY IS ANOTHER MYTH
What if, as I fear, there will never be a vaccine. I was involved in the early stages of identifying the HIV virus as the cause of Aids. I remember drugs companies back then saying there would be a vaccine within around 18 months. Some 37 years on, we are still waiting. Prof ANGUS DALGLEISH @MailOnline
WILL XI ROLL THE DICE OVER TAIWAN?
Chinese military beefs up coastal forces as it prepares for possible invasion of Taiwan @SCMPNews
Conclusions
BUY GOLD
BUY WHISKEY
BUY SHORT STERLING
BUY DIGITISATION
BUY EURO [COUNTERINTUITIVE I KNOW]
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International Markets
World Of Finance
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British public borrowing is on course to reach a record 372 billion pounds this financial year, according to forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility, equivalent to 18.9% of gross domestic product, the most since World War Two. @Reuters
World Of Finance
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Ratings agency Moody’s downgraded Britain’s sovereign credit rating on Friday to the same level as Belgium’s and the Czech Republic’s, warning that Britain “effectively has no fiscal anchor”.
Financial markets have repeatedly shrugged off these warnings, though, and 10-year government borrowing costs of around 0.2% are only slightly above an all-time low struck at the start of the pandemic.
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Currency Markets at a Glance WSJ
World Currencies
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Euro 1.185475
Dollar Index 92.697
Japan Yen 104.6340
Swiss Franc 0.90584
Pound 1.314955
Aussie 0.71071
India Rupee 73.6682
South Korea Won 1133.295
Brazil Real 5.6094
Egypt Pound 15.698050
South Africa Rand 16.30400
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27-JUL-2020 :: Drinking the Kool-Aid Conclusions Conclusions $DXY < 90.00
World Of Finance
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The US Dollar in context: - Trade-weighted Dollar Index: Flat - Emerging Market currencies -9.9% - DXY (vs EUR and JPY) -4.8% @dlacalle_IA
World Currencies
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27-JUL-2020 :: Drinking the Kool-Aid Conclusions Euro 1.25
World Of Finance
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Euro versus the Dollar Chart @FXPIPTITAN 1.1855
World Currencies
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The British Pound is up the most in six months today as confidence in a #Brexit deal rises. #GBP @jsblokland 1.3145
World Currencies
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Its a bitcoin kind of day. The monthly log chart with regression lines is really something to behold. One of the nicest, post powerful chart patterns I've ever seen... #BITCOIN @RaoulGMI 12,800
World Of Finance
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27 NOV 17 :: Bitcoin "Wow! What a Ride!" [Redux?]
World Of Finance
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Let me leave you with Hunter S. Thompson, “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!”
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Commodity Markets at a Glance WSJ
Commodities
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27-JUL-2020 :: Drinking the Kool-Aid Conclusions Gold $2,200+
Commodities
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Gold 6 month INO 1917.50
Commodities
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Crude #oil drops below USD 40. @jsblokland 40.05
Commodities
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A continued drop in Equatorial sea surface temperatures point to a La Niña event that may stretch into spring 2021. @Ole_S_Hansen
Food, Climate & Agriculture
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The #grains sector, up 10% in Oct. cont. to be supported by the risk of a weather related tightening in supplies. Worries that has triggered increased #wheat demand from traditional buyers in North Africa, the Middle East and also China. @Ole_S_Hans
Food, Climate & Agriculture
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#Lagos under 24-hour lockdown @timcocks
Africa
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10 NOV 14 : African youth demographic {many characterise this as a 'demographic dividend"} - which for Beautiful Blaise turned into a demographic terminator
Africa
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Martin Aglo, a law student from Benin, told Reuters: “After the Arab Spring, this is the Black Spring”.
We need to ask ourselves; how many people can incumbent shoot stone cold dead in such a situation – 100, 1,000, 10,000?
This is another point: there is a threshold beyond which the incumbent can’t go. Where that threshold lies will be discovered in the throes of the event.
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#Nigeria: After soldiers opened fire at a crowd of protesters in Lagos last night, the authorities should immediately withdraw the military from the streets @hrw @ida_sawyer
Africa
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#Nigeria: After soldiers opened fire at a crowd of protesters in Lagos last night, the authorities should immediately withdraw the military from the streets+identify and prosecute officers responsible for or complicit in any excessive use of force against peaceful protesters @hrw
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Nigeria has an analogue President in a digital age. @RonakGopaldas
Law & Politics
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21 OCT 19 :: "The New Economy of Anger"
World Of Finance
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Nose-diving economic opportunity is creating tinder-dry conditions.
People have been pushed to the edge and are taking to the streets.
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 Phenomenon is spreading like wildfire in large part because of the tinder dry conditions underfoot.
Prolonged stand-offs eviscerate economies, reducing opportunities and accelerate the negative feedback loop.
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Policeman killed in Guinea violence after election results show Conde leading @Reuters
Law & Politics
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CONAKRY (Reuters) - A policeman was killed in Guinea’s capital Conakry on Wednesday during clashes with opposition supporters who burned barricades in the streets after initial results from Sunday’s presidential election showed President Alpha Conde in the lead.
Supporters of Conde’s main rival Cellou Dalein Diallo set alight piles of old furniture and burned tyres in some opposition neighbourhoods of Conakry on Wednesday. Police dispersed protesters with tear gas.
“Clashes broke out on the Prince’s Road. A policeman was killed,” Security Minister Damantang Albert Camara told Reuters, referring to a major throughfare in Conakry that runs through opposition strongholds. It was at least the sixth death reported in violence since the election.
Diallo has claimed victory in the vote based on his campaign’s tallies.
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Boyarkin blames the protests mainly on “outside forces” and has nothing but praise for Conde. “I consider him a savior for Guinea.”
Africa
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The natural resource curse in Cabo Delgado @mailandguardian
Africa
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Oil deposits, liquefied natural gas fields and gemstones, projected in 2010 to be worth billions, have culminated in a shift in the political and social climate in neglected Cabo Delgado.
Extremist insurgents, which some have claimed are linked to Islamic State, are operating with a sophistication and weaponry that have not previously been seen in the country.
Their exact demands and political and economic ideology are currently unknown. Some have argued that there is no evidence of a direct link to Islamic State and that this narrative is being driven by the Mozambican state and the multinationals, because it is likely to bolster powerful external forces to mobilise against the insurgency.
According to the United Nations, more than 300 000 people have been displaced, while more than 2 000 civilians have been killed.
Experts say the violence, which has left villages abandoned as many flee to safety, cannot solely be linked to the Islamic State.
Zenaida Machado, Angola and Mozambique researcher in the Africa division at Human Rights Watch, says the needs of the people living in the affected areas must be prioritised over profit.
“The richest resource that Mozambique has is not the gas, oil or rubies, it’s the people. There is no point in defending multinationals and all the wealth that they are bringing when those villages will be completely abandoned either because the residents have died, or because they ran away,” she said.
Cabo Delgado, like the rest of the country, has a high unemployment rate. There were a number of young artisanal miners working in the area before multinational corporations swooped in.
Youths who needed jobs were kicked out and became vulnerable to the insurgency, and the external drive to make them join it has grown since.
Machado says the insurgents are able to operate in the province because they are able to exploit local political discontent.
“When people find themselves hopeless, with no one to help them and nowhere to hide, there is the idea of if you can’t beat them, rather join them. And there is also the kidnapping element, where young men and young boys are kidnapped to join the insurgents. We had a situation of young men being massacred a few months back for refusing to join,” she said.
If anything has been done to protect the people living in the affected areas, it has not yet been felt or seen.
People are afraid of sleeping in their homes, opting to spend nights in the bush so that they can spot imminent danger, flee and escape.
“Families are having to walk long distances to get to accommodation… People are running away from the violence and seeking refuge in Covid-19 hotspots because those are the only safe areas for them to be,” said Machado.
Énio Viegas Filipe Chingotuane, head of the department of peace and security at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Maputo, says no single theory can meaningfully explain the origin of Cabo Delgado’s violent extremism.
“Only a mixed explanation can bring us close to the real motives, causes and reason for the uprising,” he said.
Chingotuane says Mozambique is a fragile state from every point of view and there are many factors that lure extremists, particularly in the marginalised Cabo Delgado, which he says can be called “an ungoverned territory”.
On Sunday 4 October, Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi said he would continue strengthening the military intervention capacity of the defence and security forces so that they can respond “more effectively to terrorist attacks”.
He was speaking at Praça dos Heróis (Heroes’ Square) in Maputo
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A destroyed house is seen in the village of Aldeia da Paz in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique. Organised attacks by insurgents are forcing residents to flee the strife-torn province. (Marco Longari/ AFP)
Africa
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Samora Machel Praca de Independencia #Maputo
Africa
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Pemba Island from the Sky Indian Ocean
Africa
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S&P Cuts Zambia to Default After Eurobond Payment Missed @markets
Africa
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S&P Global Ratings Services cut its assessment of Zambia’s debt to selective default after the southern African nation said it couldn’t meet payments and skipped a coupon on its Eurobonds last week.
The ratings company didn’t wait for the 30-day grace period after the missed coupon payment to expire.
This is the latest blow to Zambia, which is trying to convince bondholders to give it a six-month interest payment holiday while it drafts debt restructuring plans.
S&P forecast that the nation will remain in default at least through the six months.
“We view the nonpayment of debt service and the statement that the government will not make debt service payments as a default on its commercial debt obligations,” the company said in a statement Wednesday.
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14-OCT-2019 :: Ozymandias The Canary in the Coal Mine is Zambia.
Africa
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South Africa All Share Bloomberg
Africa
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Dollar versus Rand Chart INO 16.3264
World Currencies
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Egypt Pound versus The Dollar Chart 15.7001
World Currencies
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Ghana Stock Exchange Composite Index Bloomberg
Africa
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#AddisAbeba, #Ethiopia @Allehone
Africa
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To our people of Lira town, I am very sorry for not stopping to greet you. While I am happy for the love, I want to warn you that it is very dangerous for you to gather without measures especially in the presence of the COVID-19. Please stay safe. @Kagut
Africa
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Kenya Shilling versus The Dollar Live ForexPros 108.85
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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