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Satchu's Rich Wrap-Up
 
 
Tuesday 17th of November 2020
 
Morning
Africa
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Macro Thoughts
World Of Finance
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Home Thoughts
Africa
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#sunrise @wpbf_sandra
Africa


The Way We Live Now
Misc.



It certainly is a new c21st that we find ourselves in. There is a luminous and Fairy Tale feel to life in quarantine and as you know most fairy tales have an oftentimes dark and dangerous and unspoken undercurrent. 

I sit in my study and its as if my hearing is sharpened. I hear the Breeze, birdsong, Nature in its many forms and the urban background noise which was once the constant accompaniment to daily life has entirely retreated. 



Hannes Kilian, Piccadilly 1955. @Tate
Misc.


Beautiful Sunrise Sunrise Good morning Twitter Malawi @vah_valencia
Africa


The Mara sunrise cannot be described @joshkisamwa
Africa


As mystical as it can get. sunrise above the clouds on Mount Kenya. Peter Elia
Africa


A beautiful, misty morning at Segera Lodge. @petersize10 @JamboMagazine
Africa


„The world is like a Mask dancing. If you want to see it well, you do not stand in one place.“ Chinua Achebe @LiteraryVienna
Africa


Political Reflections
Law & Politics
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The virus is moving at warp speed
Law & Politics


7. 4 million cases were added in the past seven days @TetotRemi
Misc.


27-JUL-2020 :: Drinking the Kool-Aid The exponential moment is still in front of us. #COVID19
Misc.


As well as 60,000 deaths... way more than April's peak @TetotRemi
Misc.


19-OCT-2020 :: Now Is The Winter Of Our Discontent [and its not even Winter]
World Of Finance


Global cases should increase by 50% by year end, meaning 75 million cases..@TetotRemi
Misc.


"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." - Professor Allen Bartlett
Misc.


We can also expect total global deaths to reach 1.5 million by year end...@TetotRemi
Misc.


Year of the Virus
World Of Finance


A virulent plague that “travelled through the air as if on wings, it burned through cities like fire”.
Misc.


19-OCT-2020 :: Whether it is in the First, second, third or fourth wave is an academic Question.
Misc.


Malcolm Gladwell „‟Tipping Point‟‟ moment in an epidemic when a virus reaches critical mass. It‟s the boiling point. It‟s the moment on the graph when the line starts to shoot straight upwards. #nCoV2019
Misc.
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95% so who pronounces 100%? When?
Misc.


JUST IN: Moderna says its coronavirus vaccine is nearly 95% effective @axios
Misc.


Second piece of big vaccine news in 8 days. Moderna's shot showing 94.5% efficacy and importantly does not require the same hyper-cold transport and storage as the BioNTech-Pfizer jab, which needs -75C @thomas_m_wilson
Misc.


mRNA vaccines have never been shown to work in a population. It's a totally experimental drug delivery system. @Arkancideisreal
Misc.


One thing you might want to question, why is the CEO of Moderna selling his stock by the boatloads? @chigrl
World Of Finance


THE VACCINE STORY IS ANOTHER MYTH
Misc.


UBS, for example: "[We now forecast vaccines will] provide immunity to only 7 ½% of the global population by end '21, whereas our [prior] scenario assumes 55%". Now that's a walk-back. @pkedrosky
Misc.


Some major brokerage firms walking back their vaccine estimates in all the vaxphoria. Here's UBS, for example: "[We now forecast vaccines will] provide immunity to only 7 ½% of the global population by end '21, whereas our [prior] scenario assumes 55%". Now that's a walk-back.



.@BarackObama The 2020 60 Minutes interview
Law & Politics
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@BarackObama said the Covid-19 pandemic had “fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they are doing”.
Law & Politics
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A reality TV star botched the response to a global pandemic #COVID19
Law & Politics


How @realDonaldTrump Sold Failure to 70 Million People @TheAtlantic
Law & Politics



At some basic level, Americans do seem to agree that the coronavirus is a major threat. Despite attempts to politicize and divide us on the pandemic, we are at least united in anxiety. 

In September, a survey of almost 4,000 Americans found that only 12 percent disagreed with requiring masks in public. Fully 70 percent wanted the government to do more to protect people, and only 8 percent wanted it to do less.

Since then, though, the government under President Donald Trump has done less. The U.S. has suffered the most documented coronavirus deaths in the world, by far. 

The Trump administration has continued to downplay and ignore the virus as its spread has accelerated in almost every region of the country. 

On Wednesday, the U.S. shattered the world record for daily coronavirus cases by topping 100,000 for the first time—only to break the record again each subsequent day until a Saturday high of 128,000. 

Field hospitals and makeshift morgues are appearing around the country. Daily death counts have risen to more than 1,000.


It may have been reasonable to expect, then, that the leadership vacuum at the core of these numbers would decide the presidential election. Polling indicated extensive support for former Vice President Joe Biden, which buoyed speculation that the vote tallies might amount to a decisive repudiation of Trump’s disastrous handling of the coronavirus. 

The president has variously lied by his own admission, denied the severity of the disease, and promised false cures, all as the death toll shot into the hundreds of thousands.

Yet no repudiation came. Biden won decisively, but more than 70 million Americans still voted for Trump. That’s more than those who voted for him in the 2016 election, and roughly seven people for every person who has been infected by the coronavirus that Trump has repeatedly said would disappear. 

Most Americans are undoubtedly aware of the pandemic. One exit poll found that the virus was the most important issue guiding more than 40 percent of voters. 

But somehow, 80 percent of Republican voters said they believe that the virus is at least “somewhat under control” in the same week that cases reached record numbers. 

The virus alone clearly did not scare an overwhelming number of people away from voting for Trump.


Deciphering what happened in this election will surely involve a grueling postmortem within the Democratic Party. 

Trump’s enduring popularity clearly has much to do with factors beyond the pandemic. Much of what he said and did as president was thinly veiled white supremacy, misogyny, race-baiting, and class warfare. 

But Trump’s vacuous promises about the virus were more than self-serving, disingenuous, and deadly; they were also convincing and appealing to many people. 

Understanding why will be crucial to America’s pandemic response even after Trump is out of office.  

The narratives and tactics Trump used to persuade people to trust him as a sole beacon of truth—amid a sea of corrupt, lying scientists and doctors—draw on those of cult leaders, self-proclaimed healers, and wellness charlatans as much as those of authoritarian demagogues

They have proved effective over centuries. In 1927, the British physician A. J. Clark lamented the proliferation of “quackery” in the medical profession. The term was once simply synonymous with fraud. 

“The fact that this term has come to signify, in popular usage, a pretender to medical knowledge indicates very clearly that there is something about the cure of disease that particularly attracts both delusion and imposture,” Clark wrote

That is, when we are sick or threatened by disease, we seem to be uniquely susceptible to scams.

At the time, scientists and engineers had just begun to apply the discovery of electrons to medicine. Some researchers expanded on the recent, accidental invention of the medical X-ray image, working to make the process safe and accurate. 

Medical imaging would steadily revolutionize the practice of medicine. But opportunists like the physician Albert Abrams jumped to capitalize on the hype. Abrams claimed that realigning electrons could cure almost any ailment. 

He began selling expensive electrical inverter devices—with names like the “Radioclast,” “Dynomizer,” and “Oscilloclast”—to sick people

He promised that by shocking the body or running radio waves through it, his devices could treat people without the need for other doctors. He alone could diagnose disease using only one drop of blood.


Abrams fooled intelligent, otherwise skeptical people. Among them, the journalist Upton Sinclair wrote with apparent earnestness about Abrams’s unique ability to diagnose and cure people of “bovine syphilis.” 

Though his claims were decried by scientists like Clark, to the sick and desperate, the appeal of an oddly named electron-altering device came more from a survival instinct than a rational thought process. 

If anything, Abrams’s outsider status gave his claims a certain allure. 

As Clark wrote, the quintessential quack starts as a “renegade against authority” and often ends up “establishing a dogmatic faith even more absurd than the orthodox traditions he tried to explode.” 

The quack is nothing if not a prophet: He promises access to a truth that no one else has. Unlike all the slow, doom-and-gloom scientists, he can make your problem go away now.


The psychology of this appeal is just as pertinent today as it was a century ago. Beyond the continued sale of electron-realignment devices, a booming wellness industry runs on the same premise of antiestablishment hope combined with soaring promises. 

Sellers depend on information asymmetry, wherein it’s hard for consumers to know if a product is effective, but very easy to believe that it is

If someone tries to sell you a car that doesn’t have wheels, you know it. If someone tries to sell you a secret vitamin that’s going to prolong your life, you just have to trust him (or not).

The same holds if someone tells you that an invisible virus is going to disappear. Trump’s primary approach to the pandemic has been to tell people what they would like to be true

He has promised, repeatedly: Everything will go back to normal; everyone will have amazing treatments; there will be a vaccine very soon; the disease isn’t that serious, anyway. 

The fact that these are conflicting claims—not to mention patently false—can only partly detract from their allure. 

To avoid scrutiny, quacks use misdirection. In textbook form, Trump consistently pointed to another threat that, by comparison, made the actual threat (the virus) seem smaller: 

Stopping the coronavirus would kill jobs. This is a false dichotomy. The two issues are conjoined. Economies collapse when going outside is dangerous; they thrive when people not only feel safe, but actually are safe.

Like any competent quack, Trump focuses on a winning vibe, not a factual case. He positions himself as an alternative to “the scientists” and “the doctors” such that followers have to choose between trusting them or him. 

This process, in extreme forms, leads to what some psychologists refer to as identity fusion. William Swann, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, coined the term in 2009 while studying theories of individual identity. 

Once fused with a group or leader, he noticed, followers seem tied to them in such a way that things are true because the leader said them. 

Dystopian as that may seem, it can be a coping mechanism: Orienting your sense of truth around a person can be more comforting than doing so around a nebulous, uncertain, or otherwise threatening reality

Fusion is not appealing because it makes sense; it is appealing because it alleviates the cognitive and emotional burden of thinking.

The phenomenon transcends ideological bounds. We all fuse our identities in some ways. If you are a diehard Red Sox fan, you are almost certainly going to stay a fan, even as the roster completely turns over. 

The stakes escalate with political allegiances, and can lead people to vote against their own interests. 

When Americans are polled about individual elements of the Affordable Care Act, the health-care law put in place by President Barack Obama, for example, they approve of them. 

Medicare, which the law slightly expanded, is one of the most highly favorable programs among people of both parties. Yet Trump campaigned on repealing the ACA.



The freedom from scrutiny Trump now enjoys from many of his followers is reflected in an ignorance even of where he stands on the pandemic. 

In the survey of 4,000 Americans, 81 percent of Trump voters who believed that masks should be required also believed that Trump agrees. He has not supported a mask mandate, and has barely even endorsed their voluntary use.

Nothing is novel about the effectiveness of Trump’s approach. Scrutinizing and understanding its universal elements may help mitigate its damage as the pandemic continues. 

People’s needs for support and stability are real, and for many voters, Biden apparently failed to offer a meaningful way to meet those needs. 

While campaigning, he promised interventions like mask mandates and pledged to “follow the science,” while telling people we’ll need to hunker down for a brutal winter. 

All of this is true and sound. If Biden follows through on this, he will save many thousands of lives. 

But even A. J. Clark would have been unsurprised that so many people chose the charlatan. 

Biden promised rigor, perseverance, and a triumph of reason. When opting to follow a quack, though, as Clark wrote, “Reason is not involved in the process.” The draw is the personality of the healer, and “subsequent success is ensured by mass suggestion.”

If the nation’s public-health and scientific communities assume that the appeal of a quack was some transient aberration—something that will end when Trump is out of office, and that can be remedied with yet more facts—then the Biden administration will fail to reach millions of Americans, no matter how soundly it recites statistics. 

Its warnings and mandates will go unheeded and become fodder for charismatic outsiders who tell people what they want to hear.

There are ways to serve as a confident, optimistic leader without making up nonsensical promises. Hope can be conferred with promises to take care of people, and to be there for them. 

Reassurance can be offered by guaranteeing that no one will go into debt because they had to go to the hospital, and that people will have paid sick leave and job security so they can stay at home when necessary. 

If the public-health community does not do more to give people hope and reassurance in the face of this disaster, it will see people defect to those who will—even when they know the promises are too good to be true.



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22-MAR-2020 :: To watch the Daily Briefing is to understand that the Control Machine has a Novice, a hubristic Ignoramus in charge of the Console
Law & Politics



The Daily White House Briefing

A reality TV star botched the response to a global pandemic and now we are all imprisoned in our homes and forced to watch him daily. @JenaFriedman


It is a monstrous Joke of sycophancy.

The Tsinghua University professor Xu Zhangrun said this about the CCP

What is thriving, however, is all that ridiculous ―Red Culture & nauseating adulation that system heaps on itself via shameless pro-Party hacks who chirrup hosannahs at every turn

The Professor could equally have been speaking about the Trump White House.

The virus may be the most dangerous adversary America has ever faced. It's like the US was invaded. Tweeted @balajis

The normal defenses fail. It can't be bombed. Bank accounts can't be frozen. Unbreakable morale. No supply chain. Lives off the land. Infinite reinforcements. Fully decentralized.

I wrote a Non Linear and exponential Virus represents the greatest risk to a Control Machine in point of fact #COVID19.




Whoever Controls The Narrative Controls The World
Law & Politics



As he put it, "Men respond as powerfully to fictions as they do to realities [and] in many cases they help to create the very fictions to which they respond."


It certainly feels like the Virus has accelerated The World and that the Centre cannot hold.

President Trump does not have the mental bandwidth – His is a narrow, transactional Game.



The Pandemic and Political Order @ForeignAffairs @FukuyamaFrancis

Another reason for pessimism is that the positive scenarios assume some sort of rational public discourse and social learning. 

Yet the link between technocratic expertise and public policy is weaker today than in the past, when elites held more power.

The democratization of authority spurred by the digital revolution has flattened cognitive hierarchies along with other hierarchies, and political decision-making is now driven by often weaponized babble.

 What @AmbJohnBolton is telling me is Xi played @POTUS all the way especially in the matter of #COVID19




China and the WHO “have been doing this dance for 10 months”, said Gostin. “Now this is like going to a murder scene 10 months later when the site has been scrubbed up completely.” @TheSeeker268
Law & Politics


There are plenty of Merchants of Propaganda in the matter of #COVID19
Law & Politics


Arundhati Roy: ‘The pandemic is a portal’ – The Open Question is a Portal to whence.
Misc.


Biden should start his inaugural speech by saying, “Well, that was weird.” @sadmonsters
Law & Politics


The Spinning Top
World Of Finance
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“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.” ― Origin of the #CoronaVirus #COVID19
Law & Politics



“There's always more to it. This is what history consists of. It is the sum total of the things they aren't telling us.”

“A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on. ”



International Markets
World Of Finance
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Currency Markets at a Glance WSJ
World Currencies



Euro 
1.18562

Dollar Index 92.548

Japan Yen 104.5110

Swiss Franc 0.912605

Pound 1.321470

Aussie 0.731600

India Rupee 74.52035

South Korea Won 1106.475

Brazil Real 5.4163

Egypt Pound 15.639100

South Africa Rand 15.34570

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Dollar Index Chart INO 92.55
World Currencies
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Euro versus the Dollar Chart 1.18562
World Currencies
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Commodity Markets at a Glance WSJ
Commodities
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Gold Chart 1886.50
Commodities
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Brent up 22% off the November lows into this news: Singapore Airlines - Group passenger capacity was down by 89.9% year-on-year @Convertbond
Commodities


Covid-19 and a Sudden Rolling Stop
Misc.


Crude Oil Chart INO 41.62
Minerals, Oil & Energy
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Sub Saharan Africa
Africa
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The analysis of the new Citizens’ Voices section in the #IIAG reveals that Public Perception of Overall Governance registers the lowest score over the decade @Mo_IbrahimFdn
Africa


The analysis of the new Citizens’ Voices section in the #IIAG reveals that Public Perception of Overall Governance registers the lowest score over the decade, with the pace of deterioration nearly doubling within the last five years.



While AU Member States did well early on to slow #COVID19 transmission, we are seeing a worrying uptick in reported cases (~10,000 cases/day), across the continent. @AfricaCDC @JNkengasong
Africa


Turning to Africa we all know by now ''viruses exhibit non-linear and exponential characteristics''
Africa
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Africa #COVID19 avg exponential case growth rate (daily/total) increased to 0.72%. @jmlukens
Africa



COVID-19 avg growth rate (daily/total) for African countries with most avg daily cases

#Morocco: 1.88%

#SouthAfrica: 0.26%

#Tunisia: 1.74%

#Kenya: 1.66%

#Algeria: 1.23%



#COVID19 Africa September 28 5,915 Daily Infections November 13 14,541 Daily Infections @ReutersGraphics
Africa


@OurWorldInData Latest positive rates in Africa: Morocco: 23.2% Kinshasa DRC: 15.6% Kenya: 14.6% South Africa: 8.9% Ethiopia: 8.7% Uganda: 8.2% Mozambique: 7.9% Nigeria: 4.8%
Africa


EC average almost at 1 000 now and looks set to keep going up WC starting to follow the EC curve, probably expected since there's a lot of movement between EC & WC @sugan2503
Africa


THE MACRON DOCTRINE "The third great European project, is the shift in perspective with respect to Africa and the reinvention of the Afro-European axis. . . . Europe will not succeed if Africa does not succeed." @michaeltanchum
Africa


In case anyone cares, Africa is kind of on fire. Dictators have been using Covid to cover up oppression of their people and now a civil war is brewing in Ethiopia. @NimkoAli
Africa


So G7 leaders (not you China) can you please get your acts together and stop ignoring the crisis on the continent.



Why Ethiopia is spiralling out of control by Alex de Waal of ⁦@WorldPeaceFdtn
Africa





Ethiopia appears to be fast approaching civil war. 

Fighting between forces loyal to the federal government headed by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) has claimed hundreds of lives and is threatening to rip the country apart.

While battles rage on the ground, the two sides are also fighting a war of words. Each is trying to rally their people and also to convince the world that they have the moral high ground.

The government in Addis Ababa and the TPLF accuse one another of firing the first shots. Mr Abiy has said that army officers were murdered in cold blood.



The Tigrayan leader Debretsion Gebremichael says there was a co-ordinated attack by Ethiopian special forces and troops from neighbouring Eritrea.

Until there is an independent investigation, the rival stories remain allegations without evidence, which are being used to whip up hostile sentiments.

The two sides see Ethiopia's history totally differently.

Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown in a revolution in 1974. A military junta known as the Derg seized power.


⁩It inflicted the infamous "Red Terror", when tens of thousands of young people were murdered by the military regime, and a prolonged civil war against insurgents across the country.


The Tigrayans remember those as years of darkness, when daily bombing raids by air force jets forced them to move only at night. In one terrible air raid in 1988 on the town of Hausien, 1,800 marketgoers died and the smoke and dust from the bombardment literally turned a bright day as dark as midnight.

A coalition led by the TPLF, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) defeated the military government in 1991.

On the day they took power, the EPRDF leader Meles Zenawi, a Tigrayan, said that his number one goal was for Ethiopians to be able to eat three meals a day.



Over the EPRDF's 27 years in power the child mortality rate fell from about one in five to one in 20.

Famine was banished. Large-scale civil war was ended.

But Ethiopia did not see democracy. Prime Minister Abiy and his followers call these "27 years of darkness".

A rising generation of young people felt silenced and shut out of political participation.

They argue that a clique of Tigrayans dominated politics, the army and the economy for their own benefit.


Abiy Ahmed, an ethnic Oromo, was swept to power on a wave of discontent. The EPRDF chose him as party leader - and hence prime minister - in 2018.

He rapidly liberalised politics. He dissolved the EPRDF coalition and set up a new party - the Prosperity Party.

These moves won him popular acclaim. His critics acidly remarked "to dismantle is not to build".

Mr Abiy made peace with Eritrea, for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, and became a close confidante of President Isaias Afwerki, despite the Eritrean leader's long-stated aim of dismantling Ethiopia, beginning with its army.



Mr Abiy is a devout Pentecostalist and often speaks as though his mandate is from God.

His writings, including his PhD summary, read like self-help business school manuals. He has supreme confidence that dynamic, self-assured active leadership generates its own reality.

Without doubt he has massive support among the Amharas in Addis Ababa and the Amhara region. But neither he nor his new party have faced any electoral test.

'Ditch the constitution'

Yet Mr Abiy says that the TPLF crossed a red line when it held regional elections in September.

The federal government had not authorised those elections and the Prosperity Party was not able to contest.



The TPLF counters that national elections had been scheduled for earlier in the year and repeatedly postponed - partly because of Covid-19 - and that the government's term had expired without a firm date for a poll. 

They say that theirs is the only regional government with a mandate from the voters.

The political battleground is Ethiopia's constitution.

The country has a federal system in which the major ethnic groups administer their own regions.



This was adopted in 1994 shortly after the EPRDF took power. Mr Abiy wants to do away with it.

Uniquely, Ethiopia's regional states have a right to self-determination.

The spirit of this provision was that if there were to be a democratic collapse at the centre, a region could go its own way.

This was demanded not just by the Tigrayans, but by leaders from other historically marginalised groups, including the Oromo - Ethiopia's largest ethnic group.



The TPLF has not demanded separation. But the logic of today's confrontation is leading them down that path.

TPLF political domination was resented by many Oromos and other ethnic groups in southern Ethiopia. But all of them treasured the self-government articles in the constitution.

Indeed, one of these groups - the Sidama - voted to have their own federal state last year.

'Rule or ruin'

This year, Mr Abiy has turned against the Oromo youth movement that brought him to power.

After the killing of the Oromo singer Hachalu Hundessa, more than 150 people died in riots and Mr Abiy clamped down and imprisoned upwards of 10,000 people.



Among them are Jawar Mohamed, founder of the Oromo Media Network, who faces terrorism charges. Another is veteran opposition leader Lidetu Ayalew who remains in prison despite a court ordering his release.

Armed gangs calling themselves the Oromo Liberation Army killed more than 50 Amhara villagers in Wollega district two weeks ago.

Mr Abiy blamed "Ethiopia's enemies" determined to "rule or ruin the country" - code words for the TPLF.



His power base is among a mostly Amhara political elite that wants to abolish the federal system in favour of a unitary government system.

There are many good reasons to criticise ethnic federalism, but Ethiopia's diverse groups have made it clear that - well armed and politically aware - they cannot be ruled against their will.

Reports from the war front indicate a massacre of Amhara civilians. Reports from Addis Ababa and other towns tell of the mass round-up and internment of Tigrayans.

Government forces have imposed a news blackout on Tigray. They are also mounting a total blockade on the region, halting supplies of humanitarian aid.



The TPLF says it has captured Eritrean troops who invaded Tigray.

Mr Abiy's declared war aim is to impose federal control on Tigray.

No observer of Ethiopia believes that is possible. Eritrea's president, who some believe may have been involved in the planning of the Tigray invasion, has not spoken.

Ethiopia's conflict is escalating out of control by the day.

This will probably cost tens of thousands of lives. And as the government's own 2002 national security white paper foresaw: "The prospect of disintegration cannot be totally ruled out."





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Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer
Africa
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A fiendishly complicated task fending off the centripetal forces which are tearing Ethiopia apart
Africa


02-JUL-2018 :: He said “The ppl of Tigray are still begging for a drop of water; TPLF (the party) is not the people of Tigray”.
Africa


20 JAN 20 :: The Intrusion of Middle Powers
Africa


William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: "Cry 'Havoc!', and let slip the dogs of war."
Africa
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Tigray crisis: ‘They know how to fight and they can do it ’til the end’ @RAbdiAnalyst @FT.
Africa
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#Angola #JoaoLourenco #Protests @trtworld Angola braces for fresh anti-government demonstrations
Africa
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Turning to Africa The Spinning Top
Africa





Democracy from Tanzania to Zimbabwe to Cameroon has been shredded.

We are getting closer and closer to the Virilian Tipping Point

“The revolutionary contingent attains its ideal form not in the place of production, but in the street''

Political leadership in most cases completely gerontocratic will use violence to cling onto Power but any Early Warning System would be warning a Tsunami is coming

10 NOV 14 : African youth demographic {many characterise this as a 'demographic dividend"} - which for Beautiful Blaise turned into a demographic terminator


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.

The Event is no longer over the Horizon.

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Refugees are fleeing to #Sudan. @shen_shiwei
Africa


Top 10 Investors in Ethiopia | all in the top 10 today (Chart is from 2017) @michaeltanchum
Africa


Moody’s sovereign analyst Kelvin Dalrymple comments on the credit implications of the situation in #Ethiopia's northern #Tigray region @moodysafrica
Africa


Zambia’s debt crisis casts a long, global shadow @FT
Africa




Sovereign bankruptcies are a collision of finance, economics, law and geopolitics. Zambia is a perfect example.

The African copper producer stumbled into the coronavirus crisis in bad shape, having borrowed $12bn from international creditors. It has now become the latest country to default on its debts, after talks with its creditors hit an impasse. 

Ecuador, Lebanon, Belize, Suriname and — naturally — Argentina have already defaulted, restructured or are in the process of restructuring their debts in 2020

For comparison, there were only three full sovereign defaults in the global financial crisis, Goldman Sachs analysts noted in a recent report. 

Every debt crisis is like a snowflake, unique and complex. But of the ones we have seen so far in 2020, the Zambian debacle has the potential to become a template for how many of the rest — and there will be more — will shake out.

In addition to tapping the bond market, Zambia has borrowed more than $3bn from Chinese lenders, such as China ExIm Bank and China Development Bank, according to Standard & Poor’s

But the opacity of these debts and disagreements over how to treat them has made tackling the crisis fiendishly complicated. 



Bondholders do not want take a haircut on their investments while Beijing-based lenders escape untouched

Chinese creditors do not want any debt relief they offer to rescue hedge funds in Mayfair or Connecticut. 

Meanwhile, the IMF cannot agree to a Zambian economic rescue programme without being comfortable that its debts are sustainable. 

The impasse led to a missed bond payment in late October, a grace period to make up the arrears expired last week, and the country now finds itself in financial limbo. 

However, this is not a unique situation. China has lent liberally to many developing countries in recent years but has declined to join the Paris Club, the arena where countries restructure bilateral debts. 

In addition, many Chinese loans have been extended by state-owned financial institutions which makes it hard to judge whether they should be considered bilateral or commercial loans. 

Zambia is also a test case for how amenably bondholders will behave in the inevitable sovereign debt workouts to come. 

In past crises, creditors were largely western banks, who could be gathered into a room and arm-twisted into an accord. 

Nowadays, they are mostly an atomised group of fund managers spread across the world, making negotiations much trickier. 

For the most part — with some notable exceptions — bondholders have tended to take their hits and move on. 

The recent spate of restructurings proceeded relatively smoothly, albeit after a bit of sabre-rattling. 

But there are hints that bondholders are becoming a little less phlegmatic of late. The refusal of Zambia’s creditors to agree to a debt standstill could be a sign of things to come.


The IMF last month proposed some ideas on how to improve the sovereign debt restructuring process. Inspired by a series of unfortunate incidents since its last big review of the topic in 2014, many seem tailor-made to deal with Zambia-like situations. 

Collectively, the proposals constitute the most radical overhaul since the IMF’s failed attempt to establish a pseudo-bankruptcy court for countries two decades ago. 

This died, but it led to the birth of “collective action clauses” in bonds, legal provisions that make them easier to restructure.

In addition to extending the G20’s bilateral debt relief scheme, the IMF wants to strengthen CACs; make them standard in sovereign loans and the debts of government-controlled companies; and introduce clauses that automatically trigger payment standstills when natural catastrophes hammer a vulnerable economy. 


Perhaps most importantly, it wants a more unified approach on dealing with state lenders that is “acceptable both to Paris Club members and others” (cough, China); ensure that they are treated equally with commercial creditors; and bring more sunlight into the process by getting creditors of all stripes to report legitimate debts — hopefully avoiding the issue of undisclosed loans that plagued Zambia’s neighbour Mozambique. 

If a contracts-based, ad hoc approach proves insufficient to deal with the inevitable spate of sovereign debt crises, the IMF has also broached the nuclear option: legislation in the main financial centres of New York and London, and perhaps even a UN Security Council resolution, to shield debtors against aggrieved creditors. 

With the imminent change of White House incumbent, radical proposals like these are now suddenly more feasible. 




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Zambia Bond Price @FT
Africa
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Investors fret over sovereign Bankruptcies in coming years @DavidNdii
Africa


December 9, 2019 Time to Big Up the Dosage of Quaaludes
Africa


Zambian finance minister producing some sharp soundbites about bondholders and the IMF.
Africa


December 9, 2019 They are still popping Quaaludes in Lusaka.
Africa


14-OCT-2019 :: Ozymandias The Canary in the Coal Mine is Zambia.
Africa


Zambia’s finance minister says bondholders brought default upon themselves by refusing to sign confidentiality agreements @business
Africa


Zambia’s finance minister On defaulting:
Africa



“The information they wanted required very elaborate information relating to loans we have with other creditors. The view and position of the other creditors was, OK, you can do it but you must first have a confidentiality agreement with bondholders. As it turned out, they didn’t sign. The position of the Chinese banks is you’re not going to give anybody any information” without the confidentiality agreements in place.

“The issue of paying bondholders alone is a fundamental issue to the other creditors. If I pay, the moment I pay, the other creditors are going to put dynamite under my legs and blow off my legs. I’m gone. I can’t walk anymore. If I don’t pay the bondholders, my legs will remain intact, but I’ll probably have a shot in the arm, and I’ll be bleeding in the arm. I can walk.”

On talks with the IMF:



“A team is supposed to be coming next month for us to finalize agreement on exactly what specific instrument we are going to use. Is it the extended credit facility, is it a staff-monitored program? All those are the things that we need now to discuss. It’s not like there’s no engagement going on. There’s a lot of talking going on behind the scenes. The director for Africa will be coming most likely next month to continue the process.”

“I said to them imagine being us; a man drowning in a fast-flowing river. And you, the IMF, are standing by the bank with your arms folded and I’m screaming to you, help me, I’m drowning. And then you say to me, oh, we’ll help you when you come out of the water. That’s not helpful.”

On debt transparency:



“Right now, we have given out a lot of information. To the extent that there is not very much left to be hidden, if there was anything to be hidden. There may be challenges around the issue of trust, but the fact of the matter is that the information is available and we will give it.”

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The case for investing in Africa: [Google/IFC e-Conomy Africa 2020 report] @ekmokaya @M_PaulMcNamara
Africa



By 2025,

->Internet economy to contribute ~$180 B to Africa’s economy(5.2% of GDP)

->Urban population to grow by ~190M people 

->60% of the population will be under 24

->Mobile phone users to reach 623m



l’israélien Dan Gertler a adressé un message enregistré aux Congolais. Extrait @soniarolley
Africa


7 JAN 19 :: V.S. Naipaul, in A Bend in the River wrote “It isn’t that there’s no right and wrong here. There’s no right.”
Africa


South Africa All Share Bloomberg
Africa
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Dollar versus Rand Chart INO 15.3496
World Currencies
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Egypt Pound versus The Dollar 3 Month Chart INO 15.65
World Currencies
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Egypt EGX30 Bloomberg
Africa
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Nigeria inflation continued to go up in Oct on rising food prices, now 14.2%. @akcakmak
Africa


Nigeria’s main stock index is up 31% this year, making it the best-performing benchmark among the 93 that Bloomberg tracks globally. It’s set for a fifth month of gains, the longest such winning streak since 2017. @markets
Africa






The frenzy for stocks are accompanied by some flashing warning lights: For instance, the 14-day relative strength index on the Lagos benchmark was at 92 as of Monday morning, well above the level of 70 that signals that gains may be overdone. Last week, the RSI touched the highest since 2006.

The benchmark index has also crossed above its upper Bollinger band, a sign seen by some traders as an invitation to sell.

The Lagos benchmark is trading above its 50-, 100- and 200-day moving averages, and testing technical resistance at 35,903.89. T

hat level represents the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement from its losses since hitting an all-time record in 2018, and could be interpreted as a pivotal point when it comes to signaling long-term trends.


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Nigeria All Share Bloomberg
Africa
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Ghana Stock Exchange Composite Index Bloomberg
Africa
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Kenya
Africa
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Governor @njorogep on the digital rails and COVID-19. @CBKKenya
Kenyan Economy


Kenyan Doctors Threaten Strike as Virus Infections, Deaths Surge @business @eombok
Africa




The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union issued a 21-day strike notice due to “longstanding unresolved issues,” as the number of coronavirus infections and deaths in the East African nation accelerate.

The issues include provision of standard and adequate personal protection equipment, comprehensive medical insurance cover and workman’s compensation, according to a statement on the union’s Twitter account.



“The loss of 30 health care workers, of which 10 are senior specialist doctors, is a great loss to the country in the war against Covid-19,” according to the statement.

Kenya suspended political rallies for 60 days from Nov. 4 as part of measures to curb the spread of the pandemic after a surge in cases followed an easing of restrictions in September. 

The East African nation has 70,245 confirmed infections and 1,269 deaths as of Sunday, according to the health ministry.


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184% Test Positivity Rate but a small sample size KENYA records 559 new Covid-19 cases from a sample size of 3,074 bringing the total to 70,804 @TheStarBreaking
Africa


Year of the Virus
Africa


Kenya Shilling versus The Dollar Live ForexPros 109.27
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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by Aly Khan Satchu (rich.co.ke)
 
 
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