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Tuesday 24th of November 2020
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Good morning @mcm_ct
Misc.
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I have been watching True Detective Rustin Cohle from True Detective says, "Time is a flat circle. Everything we have done or will do we will do over and over and over again- forever."
Misc.
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VIDEO: in the midst of a pandemic, a clandestine party brings together more than 300 young people for one night. The tickets for this event called 'I want to break free' were bought for 15 euros via an internet platform @AFP
Misc.
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VIDEO: In a residential area of the 13th arrondissement of Paris, in the midst of a pandemic, a clandestine party brings together more than 300 young people for one night. The tickets for this event called 'I want to break free' were bought for 15 euros via an internet platform
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There is something Karmic in this #COVID19
Misc.
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The unspoiled beaches in Lake Turkana, a beautiful oasis in the desert. Photos by Shil @letsDiscoverke
Africa
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A Luminous and Fairy Tale feel
Misc.
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“A Rufous Naped Lark caught flying into the setting sun.” - ’Icarus’ taken by Arnaud Legrand @GreatestMara
Africa
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''You felt the land taking you back to what was there a hundred years ago, to what had been there always.”
Africa
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The sunrise over the Central African Republic casts a halo of gold around a man navigating calm waters @hallaboutafrica
Africa
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Icarus heading for the sunset above Devil’s Dyke tonight @MagicBrighton
Misc.
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Heavenly glow in the Amboseli. Photo by Harman Singh Heer #sundayvibes @kenyapics
Africa
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*GSA INFORMS BIDEN THAT ADMIN. READY TO BEGIN TRANSITION: CNN @rosemontseneca
Law & Politics
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The American Electoral System has emerged unscathed and in fact looks robust.
Law & Politics
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TRUMP SAYS HIS LEGAL TEAM RUN BY GIULIANI IS COMPROMISED OF FOOLS AND IS MAKING HIM LOOK BAD - CNBC @Fxhedgers
Law & Politics
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The Trump Vladislav Surkov Talking Points which of course always feature George Soros are strangely ineffective and a little like a receding tide
Law & Politics
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“You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away - a man is not a piece of fruit.”
Law & Politics
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Chinese anti-submarine military aircraft enters #Taiwan ADIZ @TaiwanNews886
Law & Politics
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The Spinning Top ''The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting''
Law & Politics
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The Single biggest Issue remains how Biden engages with the Algorithmic Master [Blaster] and Sun Tzu Maestro
''The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting''
Xi salami-sliced his way into a deeply forward position during the Obama Administration and in 2020 snaffled up Hong Kong, marched 400 kilometers into Indian Territory and the Straw Man Narendra Modi has not even uttered a word and Xi might even decide to roll over Taiwan during this Interregnum
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5 US spy planes fly south of Taiwan ahead of admiral's visit @TaiwanNews886
Law & Politics
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7 US military aircraft spotted flying along southern edge of Taiwan's ADIZ
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According to Prof Jin, the Chinese had used a microwave weapon against the Indians. It had targeted them with high-frequency electro-magnetic pulses that heated up the body, causing irritation and pain.
Law & Politics
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Op-Ed: COVID-19 may be teaching the world a dangerous lesson: Diseases can be ideal weapons @latimes @CLParthemore @AndyWeberNCB
Law & Politics
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The devastation COVID-19 has wrought on the U.S. population is staggering. Yet the risks it poses to our national security are also chilling: Diseases are, in many terrible ways, ideal weapons.
Many high-level national security leaders have contracted the virus, including the president.
In October most of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and two other high-level military leaders were in quarantine after coming in contact with the vice commandant of the Coast Guard, who tested positive for the disease. A number of White House aides have been infected.
COVID-19 has struck more than 90,000 Department of Defense personnel and their dependents.
The world has a centuries-long and sad history of deliberate use of diseases in conflict that reaches back to at least 14th century BC when the Hittites sent poisoned animals to their enemies.
From the first century onward many militaries tried to spread diseases during conflict using corpses and infected materials like blankets.
The Cold War saw new and frightening feats in the development of biological weapons including by the United States.
One major Soviet site could produce 300 metric tons of anthrax agent for use in conflict — more than enough to kill everyone on the planet if deployed effectively.
In the late 20th century, the tide turned, for a time. The Biological Weapons Convention extended international law against bioweapons beginning in the 1970s.
Countries cooperated to dismantle Cold War bioweapons programs, including the U.S. collaborating with independent Kazakhstan beginning in the 1990s to eliminate the Soviet anthrax weapons facility.
Yet even before the COVID-19 pandemic, progress against such weapons had eroded. Norms against weapons of mass destruction — usually classified to include nuclear, chemical, biological and radiological weapons — were already growing weaker.
In the last decade, Syria, Russia and North Korea repeatedly used chemical weapons.
Last summer, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a Soviet-era nerve agent.
North Korea’s nuclear weapons testing has driven further proliferation concerns.
The United States and Russia are fueling a new nuclear arms race with their respective investments in new nuclear capabilities, and China, India and Pakistan are expanding their arsenals.
These trends could be eclipsed if COVID-19 teaches the world the dangerous lesson that biological weapons are worthy investments.
Here’s what leaders of nations considering biological weapons could be learning. Weaponizing disease could allow them to infiltrate military assets and infect the highest-level leaders of powerful nations.
They could cripple economies in a matter of months. They could drive significant disinformation and confusion if countries have to worry that every new outbreak could be an intentional attack.
Unfortunately, the current pandemic shows that easily transmissible diseases may be ideal biological weapons if the aim is to infect as many people as possible, even if that approach endangers the aggressors’ own population.
Diseases also make for cheaper weapons of mass effect than nuclear weapons. There is great fear that post-pandemic, bad actors will view biological weapons as a cost-effective path to disruption and power. U.S. national security agencies are already studying this concern.
While getting the current pandemic under control, the Biden administration should aim to deter biological weapons by stripping them of their potential for causing such devastating damage.
The United States could do this by creating a system of enhanced preparedness, early warning and rapid response so strong that any infectious diseases that emerge — regardless of whether they stem from nature or a deliberate attack — can be detected and stopped before triggering large-scale outbreaks.
Such a system is technologically feasible. It also could drive significant economic growth if the U.S. devises a strong disease-defense system before other countries do.
Some of the necessary elements are already in place in response to COVID-19. After China posted the coronavirus’ genetic sequence in January, it took only days for companies to use it to build prototype diagnostics, treatments and vaccines.
The United States has started expanding technologies that allow quick design and manufacture of therapeutics and vaccines when novel viruses emerge, regardless of the specific pathogen.
The speed has quickened on vaccine development during the COVID-19 era — drugmaker Pfizer just announced promising data that could make its vaccine one of the earliest to market in the U.S.
We are seeing how the economy can flex to address a biological crisis, including in academic and private labs shifting their assets to ramp up testing.
Wherever possible, the billions of dollars the country invests in COVID-19 responses should be designed to become part of this preparedness and rapid-response ecosystem.
For example, it appears that some of the new government-funded vaccine development and manufacturing methods will succeed; the U.S. must maintain and expand these capabilities.
This will be critical to persuading those tempted to use biological weapons not to go down that path.
The Pentagon also needs to make dealing with potential biological threats a top priority. America’s defense enterprise includes world-class military medicine experts, brilliant scientists and infrastructure to develop, test and deploy the systems needed to prevent or address biological attacks.
Optimizing defense spending against biological threats is a critical complement to augmenting resources for civilian health agencies.
There are simple truths that must guide the Biden team in the months ahead. Even if the administration does all it can to end the pandemic, COVID-19 will make biological weapons seem more attractive than they have been in decades.
And the nation will not be secure without creating early-warning and rapid-response systems that halt all biological threats early and effectively.
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The coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2, shown in purple, infects a cell, colored in green. (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) @latimes
Misc.
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The virus may be the most dangerous adversary America has ever faced. It's like the US was invaded. Tweeted @balajis #COVID19
Misc.
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''The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting''
Law & Politics
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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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It is impossible to ignore the introduction of a PRRA insert between S1 and S2: it sticks out like a splinter. This insert creates the furin cleavage site
Misc.
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US Senate Appropriations Committee report "the Chinese government continues to recruit NIH-funded researchers to steal intellectual property, cheat the peer-review system, establish shadow laboratories in China." @TheSeeker268
Law & Politics
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US Senate Appropriations Committee report for FY 2021 | Foreign Threats to Research: "the Chinese government continues to recruit NIH-funded researchers to steal intellectual property, cheat the peer-review system, establish shadow laboratories in China."
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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
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“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. ”
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COVID is Trump's Kool-Aid… he tells his followers to ignore CDC guidance. To believe him above all else. To not fear death. To trust his every word. To die for their cause. @williamlegate
Law & Politics
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27-JUL-2020 :: Drinking the Kool-Aid
Law & Politics
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The USA COVID death toll run-rate is now *1 per minute.* @StevenTDennis
Misc.
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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
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67,221 new deaths were reported this week, making it the deadliest week of the pandemic - WHO @BNODesk
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The virus is moving at warp speed
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16-FEB-2020 :: ''viruses exhibit non-linear and exponential characteristics' #COVID19
Misc.
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19-OCT-2020 :: Now Is The Winter Of Our Discontent
World Of Finance
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A virulent plague that “travelled through the air as if on wings, it burned through cities like fire”.
Misc.
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Salvation through vaccination would be dangled like a cat toy in front of fearful populations, each vaccine proving futile @MichalePSenger
Law & Politics
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My new vaccine will not prevent you from being sick but will give you a >99% of survival probabilitiy provided you are under 60. @DavidBCollum
Misc.
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Will covid-19 vaccines save lives? Current trials aren’t designed to tell us @bmj_latest
Misc.
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The world has bet the farm on vaccines as the solution to the pandemic, but the trials are not focused on answering the questions many might assume they are. Peter Doshi reports
As phase III trials of covid-19 vaccines reach their target enrolments, officials have been trying to project calm.
The US coronavirus czar Anthony Fauci and the Food and Drug Administration leadership have offered public assurances that established procedures will be followed.1234
Only a “safe and effective” vaccine will be approved, they say, and nine vaccine manufacturers issued a rare joint statement pledging not to prematurely seek regulatory review.5
But what will it mean exactly when a vaccine is declared “effective”? To the public this seems fairly obvious.
“The primary goal of a covid-19 vaccine is to keep people from getting very sick and dying,” a National Public Radio broadcast said bluntly.6
Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said, “Ideally, you want an antiviral vaccine to do two things . . . first, reduce the likelihood you will get severely ill and go to the hospital, and two, prevent infection and therefore interrupt disease transmission.”7
Yet the current phase III trials are not actually set up to prove either (table 1). None of the trials currently under way are designed to detect a reduction in any serious outcome such as hospital admissions, use of intensive care, or deaths. Nor are the vaccines being studied to determine whether they can interrupt transmission of the virus.
In a September interview Medscape editor in chief Eric Topol pondered what counts as a recorded “event” in the vaccine trials. “We’re not talking about just a PCR [polymerase chain reaction test]-positive mild infection. It has to be moderate to severe illness to qualify as an event, correct?” he asked.8
“That’s right,” concurred his guest, Paul Offit, a vaccinologist who sits on the FDA advisory committee that may ultimately recommend the vaccines for licence or emergency use authorisation.
But that’s not right. In all the ongoing phase III trials for which details have been released, laboratory confirmed infections even with only mild symptoms qualify as meeting the primary endpoint definition.9101112
In Pfizer and Moderna’s trials, for example, people with only a cough and positive laboratory test would bring those trials one event closer to their completion.
(If AstraZeneca’s ongoing UK trial is designed similarly to its “paused” US trial for which the company has released details, a cough and fever with positive PCR test would suffice.)
Part of the reason may be numbers. Severe illness requiring hospital admission, which happens in only a small fraction of symptomatic covid-19 cases, would be unlikely to occur in significant numbers in trials.
Data published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in late April reported a symptomatic case hospitalisation ratio of 3.4% overall, varying from 1.7% in 0-49 year olds and 4.5% in 50-64 year olds to 7.4% in those 65 and over.13
Because most people with symptomatic covid-19 experience only mild symptoms,even trials involving 30 000 or more patients would turn up relatively few cases of severe disease.
In the trials, final efficacy analyses are planned after just 150 to 160 “events,”—that is, a positive indication of symptomatic covid-19, regardless of severity of the illness.
Yet until vaccine manufacturers began to release their study protocols in mid-September, trial registries and other publicly released information did little to dispel the notion that it was severe covid-19 that the trials were assessing.
Moderna, for example, called hospital admissions a “key secondary endpoint” in statements to the media.15
And a press release from the US National Institutes of Health reinforced this impression, stating that Moderna’s trial “aims to study whether the vaccine can prevent severe covid-19” and “seeks to answer if the vaccine can prevent death caused by covid-19.”16
But Tal Zaks, chief medical officer at Moderna, told The BMJ that the company’s trial lacks adequate statistical power to assess those outcomes.
“The trial is precluded from judging [hospital admissions], based on what is a reasonable size and duration to serve the public good here,” he said.
Hospital admissions and deaths from covid-19 are simply too uncommon in the population being studied for an effective vaccine to demonstrate statistically significant differences in a trial of 30 000 people.
The same is true of its ability to save lives or prevent transmission: the trials are not designed to find out.
Zaks said, “Would I like to know that this prevents mortality? Sure, because I believe it does. I just don’t think it’s feasible within the timeframe [of the trial]—too many would die waiting for the results before we ever knew that.”
What about Hotez’s second criterion, interrupting virus transmission, which some experts have argued17 should be the most important test in phase III studies?
“Our trial will not demonstrate prevention of transmission,” Zaks said, “because in order to do that you have to swab people twice a week for very long periods, and that becomes operationally untenable.”
He repeatedly emphasised these “operational realities” of running a vaccine trial.
“Every trial design, especially phase III, is always a balancing act between different needs,” he said.
“If you wanted to have an answer on an endpoint that happens at a frequency of one 10th or one fifth the frequency of the primary endpoint, you would need a trial that is either 5 or 10 times larger or you’d need a trial that is 5 or 10 times longer to collect those events. Neither of these, I think, are acceptable in the current public need for knowing expeditiously that a vaccine works.”
Zaks added, “A 30 000 [participant] trial is already a fairly large trial. If you’re asking for a 300 000 trial then you need to talk to the people who are paying for it, because now you’re talking about not a $500m to $1bn trial, you’re talking about something 10 times the size. And I think the public purse and operational capabilities and capacities we have are rightly spent not betting the farm on one vaccine but, as Operation Warp Speed [the US government’s covid-19 vaccine plan] is trying to do, making sure that we’re funding several vaccines in parallel.”
Still, it’s fair to say that most of the general public assumes that the whole point of the current trials, besides testing safety (box 1), is to see whether the vaccine can prevent bad outcomes. “How do you reconcile that?” The BMJ asked Zaks.
There were contaminated polio vaccines in 1955, cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome in recipients of flu vaccines in 1976, and narcolepsy linked to one brand of influenza vaccine in 2009.1819
“Finding severe rare adverse events will require the study of tens of thousands of patients, but this requirement will not be met by early adoption of a product that has not completed its full trial evaluation,” Harvard drug policy researchers Jerry Avorn and Aaron Kesselheim recently wrote in JAMA.20
Covid-19 vaccine trials are currently designed to tabulate final efficacy results once 150 to 160 trial participants develop symptomatic covid-19—and most trials have specified at least one interim analysis allowing for the trials to end with even fewer data accrued.
Medscape’s Eric Topol has been a vocal critic of the trials’ many interim analyses. “These numbers seem totally out of line with what would be considered stopping rules,” he says. “I mean, you’re talking about giving a vaccine with any of these programmes to tens of millions of people. And you’re going to base that on 100 events?”8
Great uncertainty remains over how long a randomised trial of a vaccine will be allowed to proceed. If efficacy is declared, one possibility is that the thousands of volunteers who received a saline placebo would be offered the active vaccine, in effect ending the period of randomised follow-up.
Such a move would have far reaching implications for our understanding of vaccines’ benefits and harms, rendering uncertain our knowledge of whether the vaccines can reduce the risk of serious covid-19 disease and precluding any further ability to compare adverse events in the experimental versus the placebo arm.
“It’ll be a decision we’ll have to take at that time. We have not committed one way or another,” Moderna’s Tal Zaks told The BMJ.
“It will be a decision where FDA and NIH will also weigh in. And it will be probably a very difficult decision, because you will be weighing the benefit to the public in continuing to understand the longer term safety by keeping people on placebo and the expectation of the people who have received placebo to be crossed over now that it has been proved effective.”
“Very simply,” he replied. “Number one, we have a bad outcome as our endpoint. It’s covid-19 disease.” Moderna, like Pfizer and Janssen, has designed its study to detect a relative risk reduction of at least 30% in participants developing laboratory confirmed covid-19, consistent with FDA and international guidance.2122
Number two, Zaks pointed to influenza vaccines, saying they protect against severe disease better than mild disease. To Moderna, it’s the same for covid-19: if its vaccine is shown to reduce symptomatic covid-19, it will be confident it also protects against serious outcomes.
But the truth is that the science remains far from clear cut, even for influenza vaccines that have been used for decades. Although randomised trials have shown an effect in reducing the risk of symptomatic influenza, such trials have never been conducted in elderly people living in the community to see whether they save lives.
“I feel the same way about minorities,” Offit added. “You can’t convince minority populations to get this vaccine unless they are represented in these trials. Otherwise, they’re going to feel like they’re guinea pigs, and understandably so.”
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Is the CASYQTQTNSPRRAR a good vaccine target? @flavinkins
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*ASTRAZENECA `TRIED TO EMBELLISH' VACCINE DATA, SVB LEERINK SAYS @zerohedge
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*ASTRA VACCINE `WILL NEVER BE LICENSED' IN THE U.S.: SVB LEERINK
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THE VACCINE STORY IS ANOTHER MYTH
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No-one has ever produced a safe and effective vaccine against a coronavirus. Birger Sørensen, Angus Dalgleish & Andres Susrud
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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Also, Bill and Moderna and Pfizer can’t speak to whether the vaccine is associated with “permanent health problems” given that the median follow up time post-vaccine thus far has been 2-3 months @Nomdeplumi1
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"The [WHO] wanted to take more of a leadership role in the vaccine deal making, but the Gates Foundation and global nonprofits said they worried that drugmakers would not cooperate."
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“We’re always talking with @WHO ” @BillGates said. “But a lot of the work here to stop this epidemic has to do with innovation in diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines, which isn’t really their bailiwick.” @reshmagar
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International Markets
World Of Finance
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Currency Markets at a Glance WSJ
World Currencies
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Euro 1.185050
Dollar Index 92.433
Japan Yen 104.4595
Swiss Franc 0.911965
Pound 1.333155
Aussie 0.731520
India Rupee 73.95550
South Korea Won 1109.675
Brazil Real 5.4411
Egypt Pound 15.635888
South Africa Rand 15.38480
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Bloomberg Dollar Index, capital is flowing out of the USA at the fastest pace since April 2018. @Convertbond
World Of Finance
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09-NOV-2020 :: The Spinning Top
World Of Finance
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27-JUL-2020 :: Drinking the Kool-Aid Conclusions $DXY < 90.00
World Of Finance
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DXY taking out the lows for a year on a closing basis @FerroTV 92.433
World Currencies
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27-JUL-2020 :: Drinking the Kool-Aid Conclusions Euro 1.25
World Currencies
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Euro versus the Dollar Chart 1.18505
World Currencies
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Commodity Markets at a Glance WSJ
Commodities
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#Oil is up a whopping 27% this month! @jsblokland 43.53
Commodities
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Confirmed #Covid19 cases in #Africa broke through the 2 million threshold this week, and daily new cases are only 25% below their July peak. @NKCAfrica
Africa
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#NorthAfrica now accounts for almost half of active cases.
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09-NOV-2020 :: The Spinning Top
Africa
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So far Africa has dodged the Virus from a medical perspective though it remains in my view a slow burning Fuse and we all know by now ''viruses exhibit non-linear and exponential characteristics'
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16-FEB-2020 :: ''viruses exhibit non-linear and exponential characteristics' #COVID19
Africa
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Latest positive rates in Africa: Morocco: 22.1% Kenya: 19.2% South Africa: 10.1% Ethiopia: 9% Uganda: 8.7% Mozambique: 6.1% Nigeria: 3.3% Zambia: 0.8% @redouad
Africa
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Turning to Africa The Spinning Top
Africa
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So far Africa has dodged the Virus from a medical perspective though it remains in my view a slow burning Fuse and we all know by now ''viruses exhibit non-linear and exponential characteristics'
The real challenge is the Economic Emergency. The latest Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa projects economic activity in the region to decline by 3.0% in 2020 and recover by 3.1% in 2021. @IMFNews
The IMF is so bright eyed and bushy tailed and I want some of whatever Pills they are popping.
Ethiopia which was once the Poster child of the African Renaissance now has a Nobel Prize Winner whom I am reliably informed
PM Abiy His inner war cabinet includes Evangelicals who are counseling him he is "doing Christ's work"; that his faith is being "tested". @RAbdiAnalyst
@PMEthiopia has launched an unwinnable War on Tigray Province.
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?
The Event is no longer over the Horizon.
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Tanzania: Repression Mars National Elections Stop, Investigate, and Prosecute Serious Abuses @hrw
Africa
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After election campaigns started in August, the police arbitrarily arrested and detained scores of opposition party leaders and supporters.
In the weeks ahead of the elections, the authorities suspended television and radio stations, censored mobile phone communication, and blocked social media.
On the eve of elections, police fired live ammunition into crowds on the semi-autonomous island archipelago of Zanzibar, killing at least three people.
“The Tanzanian government crackdown on the opposition and the press during the electoral campaign undermined the credibility of the elections,” said Oryem Nyeko, Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch.
“The authorities need to credibly investigate election-related abuses and end continuing repressive practices now.”
In Zanzibar, government security forces and a government-aligned militia group known as the “Mazombi,” or “Zombies,” harassed and beat people prior to and since the elections.
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Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed gave Tigrayan regional forces 72 hours to surrender before the military begins an offensive on the regional capital of Mekelle. @Reuters
Africa
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Crazy day. I’ve covered some nasty conflicts, but the stories here are the worst I’ve heard. More updates and reports from Eastern Sudan soon @_Will_Brown
Africa
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William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: "Cry 'Havoc!', and let slip the dogs of war."
Africa
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Abiy may be writing his own Ethiopian version 'Petals of Blood' @michaeltanchum
Africa
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Ethiopian federal forces were encircling the Tigray region's capital Mekelle at a distance of about 50km (31 miles) on Monday, a government spokesman said, during a push to oust (TPLF). @ReutersAfrica
Africa
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@PMEthiopia has launched an unwinnable War on Tigray Province.
Africa
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Ethiopia which was once the Poster child of the African Renaissance now has a Nobel Prize Winner whom I am reliably informed
PM Abiy His inner war cabinet includes Evangelicals who are counseling him he is "doing Christ's work"; that his faith is being "tested". @RAbdiAnalyst
@PMEthiopia has launched an unwinnable War on Tigray Province.
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Inside a Tigray town scarred by Ethiopian conflict @AFP
Africa
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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
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20 JAN 20 :: The Intrusion of Middle Powers
Africa
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South Africa All Share Bloomberg
Africa
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Dollar versus Rand Chart INO 15.3864
Africa
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Egypt Pound versus The Dollar Chart INO 15.6359
Africa
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Nigeria's parallel market premium has been widening again. @SergiLanauIIF
Africa
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Capital controls helped stabilize reserves but the gap between official and parallel exchange rates tell you more depreciation is probably needed to balance the external accounts under lower oil output.
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5 March 2020 Debt, virus and locusts create a perfect storm for Africa @TheAfricaReport
Africa
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He told Bloomberg, “Debt is not a problem, it’s very bad debt that’s a problem,”.
The point is this.
SSA Countries with no exception that I can think of have gorged on borrowing and balance sheets are maxed out.
Africa’s sovereign issuance in the Eurobond markets totaled $53bn in 2018 and 2019 and total outstanding debt topped $100bn last year.
Debt burdens have increased and affordability has weakened across most of Sub-Saharan Africa, while a shift in debt structures has left some countries more exposed to a financial shock, said Moody’s in November last year.
Very few of the investments made are within spitting distance of providing an ROI [Return on Investment].
Rising debt service ratios are best exemplified by Nigeria where the Government is spending more than half of its revenue servicing its debt.
More than 50% of SSA GDP is produced by South Africa, Nigeria and Angola.
South Africa reported that GDP in Q4 2019 shrank by a massive 1.4%.
Annual growth at 0.2% is the lowest yearly growth since 2009 and the tape is back at GFC times.
The rand which has been in free fall has a lot further to fall in 2020.
And this is before the viral infection.
Nigeria’s oil revenue is cratering and there is $16bn of ”hot money” parked in short term certificates which is all headed for the Exit as we speak. A Currency Devaluation is now predicted and predictable.
South Africa, Nigeria and Angola are poised to dive into deep recession.
East Africa which was a bright spot is facing down a locust invasion which according to the FAO could turn 500x by June.
It is practically biblical.
“If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people;” – 2 Chronicles 7:13-14
This is a perfect storm. Buckle up, and let’s stop popping the Quaaludes.
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Ghana Stock Exchange Composite Index Bloomberg
Africa
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US demands right to attack Islamist fighters gaining foothold in Kenya @thetimes @margotkiser
Law & Politics
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America is seeking clearance to launch drone strikes against Islamic militants operating in Kenya, according to Pentagon sources, as part of efforts to counter jihadists’ growing reach into Africa.
While US forces have used drones against targets in Somalia for several years, launched from a base in Djibouti, the plan to extend operations to Kenya reflects the growing threat from Islamic extremists.
The plan would involve both responding to attacks by militants and launching pre-emptive strikes against targets identified by US intelligence.
It was drawn up in response to the killing of three Americans, two civilian contractors and a US army soldier earlier this year in an attack on a small American airbase within the supposedly secure perimeter of a Kenyan naval base on the coast.
At the time US commanders scrambled drones, but in the hours that it took for permission for a strike to be given by the Kenyan authorities the attackers had disappeared.
Responsibility for the attack was claimed by al-Shabaab, an Islamist group that originated in Somalia but has sought to spread to neighbouring states including Kenya and Ethiopia.
Colonel Chris Karns, the US army spokesman for Africa, said the spread of al-Shabaab meant that the US was committed to working not just within Somalia but also elsewhere.
“There is a need to apply consistent international pressure on the terrorist organization and to monitor their activity and presence,” he told The Times.
“We will continue to actively place pressure on their network and work with partners to prevent their spread.”
Once affiliated with al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab has recently aligned itself with Isis, the militant group that has largely been defeated in Syria and Iraq only to re-emerge in Africa.
Isis has seized on an insurgency in northern Mozambique where its fighters are confounding government forces and foreign mercenaries.
Scores of locals, including children, who put up resistance or fled have been beheaded or kidnapped.
Isis-linked militants in Kenya have launched raids into Tanzania while further operations have been staged in the lawless, eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo, including a massive jailbreak and clashes with government forces.
US forces in Somalia have carte blanche from the authorities there to carry out airstrikes, which under the Trump administration increased from 46 in 2018 to 63 in 2019, and 47 so far this year.
US drones operating out of Djibouti have also hit a smaller number of militant targets identified in Libya.
The aircraft would be at the limit of their operating distance if they went after targets in Kenya which lies about 1,000 miles south of the base.
If a drone base were to be set up in Kenya itself, a significant commitment of resources and manpower would be needed to mitigate extremist attacks against US personnel and infrastructure.
Lieutenant-colonel Anton T Semelroth, a Pentagon spokesman, told The Times: “We are constantly evaluating and — where needed — utilising available authorities and capabilities required to provide force protection.”
American drones were deployed to Niger following the 2017 killing of four US servicemen there by local militants although there have been no confirmed strikes launched by these aircraft.
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13-JAN-2020 :: The Manda Bay attack is the first al-Shabab has carried out on a U.S.military installation inside Kenya
Africa
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The Manda Bay attack is the first al-Shabab has carried out on a U.S.military installation inside Kenya Among the aircraft destroyed at the Manda Bay base were manned surveillance planes that collect data across the border in Somalia, as well as over Kenya’s dense Boni forest, Also reportedly destroyed were aircraft operated by U.S. Special Operations Command and modified Havilland Canada Dash-8 spy aircraft, which carries the U.S. civil registration code N8200L. This is a mind bending Jedi Level intrusion and asymmetric warfare coup de grace. The U.S. Africa Command has sent its crack East Africa Response Force to secure the airfield and augment security. This is in fact a big deal.
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TOP IN BUSINESS: Broke Kenya eyes talks on foreign debt cancellation. Find this and more on Tuesday's @BD_Africa
Kenyan Economy
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Kenya Seeks $2.3 Billion Loan From @IMFNews to Help Economic Recovery @economics @malingha
Kenyan Economy
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State also seeks $1 billion to $1.5 billion from World Bank
Finance chief says Kenya yet to decide on G-20 debt initiative
Kenya is seeking a loan of as much as $2.3 billion from the International Monetary Fund under the lender’s extended fund facility.
Talks on a possible 3 1/2-year loan program are expected to conclude early next year, with Kenya eyeing an initial disbursement of about $725 million in the fiscal year that runs through June, National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani said in an interview.
Among objectives of the loan is “continuous support of Kenya’s Covid-19 response,” Yatani said.
“We are also looking at areas of reduced debt vulnerabilities through a revenue-driven fiscal consolidation.”
Yatani wants to raise and conserve funds as part of a plan to support sub-Saharan Africa’s third-largest economy after the pandemic hit public revenue and further clouded plans for fiscal consolidation.
Funding constraints have forced the government to scale back on some projects under President Uhuru Kenyatta’s so-called Big Four agenda to boost housing, manufacturing, health care and farming, according to Yatani.
The National Treasury expects economic expansion this year will be under 1%, compared with growth of 5.4% in 2019.
Separately, the government is holding talks with the World Bank for a development policy operation, or DPO, loan of about $1 billion to $1.5 billion.
“We hope toward the end of the financial year, around May, June to even access part of the disbursement” from the World Bank, Yatani said.
“It will all depend on a number of factors including our ability to mange within the fiscal framework.”
Kenya is also still weighing the pros and cons of participating in the Group of 20 leading economies’ Debt Service Suspension Initiative.
It’s aimed at allowing low-income countries to concentrate resources on fighting the pandemic.
Kenya has been hesitant to participate on the grounds that pausing payments could potentially hurt it given the nation’s debt mix.
“We have not yet made any formal application to join this arrangement,” Yatani said. “We are still studying the effect it’s going to have on the economy. We are going to make this decision in the course of time based on our own domestic situation.”
If Kenya goes ahead with the G-20 deal, it may conserve about 70 billion shillings ($640 million) to 75 billion shillings, according to Yatani.
“We have no intention at the moment to renegotiate any debt,” Yatani said when asked about possibly reviewing terms of external debt under a longer term arrangement.
“We are looking at other alternatives. We are cutting on the number of expenditures to fit within the fiscal framework.”
The IMF in May approved $739 million for Kenya under the rapid credit facility to help the nation deal with the virus fallout.
In the same month, Kenya received $1 billion from the World Bank, which followed the lender’s approval of a $750 million package for the country last year.
The IMF’s new program will also help address weaknesses in state-owned enterprises that were exacerbated by the virus shock.
The government is doing a financial evaluation of as many as nine state companies, including Kenya Airways Plc, Kenya Power and Kenya Electricity Generating Co.
The state may provide “extraordinary support in line with the fiscal framework that we have, including injecting resources,” Yatani said. The study will include debt evaluation and governance of the companies, he said.
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December 9, 2019 Time to Big Up the Dosage of Quaaludes
Africa
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14-OCT-2019 :: Ozymandias
Africa
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It seems to me that we are at a pivot moment and we can keep regurgitating the same old Mantras like a stuck record and if we do that this turns Ozymandias
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare. The lone and level sands stretch far away
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Debt eats 58pc of taxes in 4 months @BD_Africa
Africa
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.@MoodysInvSvc on #Kenya. 'Provided the temporary debt service suspension does not include private creditors, the liquidity relief from DSSI will support Kenya’s credit quality by reducing government's external debt repayments and liquidity pressures.'
Kenyan Economy
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Carbacid Investments Plc - Snapshot of the Audited Group Results for the period ended 31st July 2020. @tradingroomke
N.S.E Equities - Industrial & Allied
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Carbacid has declared a dividend of Kes 0.70 per share, books closure on January 09, 2021.
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Carbacid Investments Ltd. reports FY Earnings EPS +22.115% share price data
N.S.E Equities - Industrial & Allied
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Par Value: 5/-
Closing Price: 8.52
Total Shares Issued: 254851988.00
Market Capitalization: 2,171,338,938
EPS: 1.27
PE:
Full Year Results through 31st July 2020
FY Turnover 682.878m versus 630.500m +8%
FY Operating Profit 424.211m versus 400.269m
FY Other Income 230.759m versus 203.666m
Revaluation of Equity Investments [38.850m] versus [54.938m]
FY Profit Before Taxation 324.654m versus 264.589m
FY EPS 1.27 versus 1.04
Final Dividend 70cents a share
Conclusions
very decent results + a Dividend Yield of 8.215%
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Paying 178M in dividend, same as last year and good times ahead with Covid vaccine storage. Remember Centum offered to buy a controlling stake in Carbacid for 350M in 2009? @bankelele
N.S.E Equities - Industrial & Allied
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Kenya Shilling versus The Dollar Live ForexPros 109.60
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 Equities - Industrial & Allied
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