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‘The news channel reports on a massive outbreak of wilding in in the city's most prestigious commercial district.’

@elonmusk I am become meme, Destroyer of shorts

So here we are pirouetting atop the most expensive market in history.

The 'Buffett Indicator' has hit an All-Time High. Global stocks now worth equal to 122.4% of global GDP.

They fancied themselves free, wrote Camus, ―and no one will ever be free so long as there are pestilences.

We've updated our preprint on the transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 VOC 202012/01, aka B.1.1.7, with new statistical and modelling methods. 

Headline: we estimate VOC is 43–82% more transmissible than preexisting variants.

Lets now turn back to the markets

However this is less a story around increasing demand but one of better supply discipline and management.

Gold took a hit

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse

A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,

Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.

Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo

Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,

Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question ...

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”

Let us go and make our visit.

 R (Total =#COVID +#VARIANTS) ( blue column) therefore increases the total number of cases will increase even FASTER THAN AN EXPONENTIAL CURVE!

One by one, the chatroom participants took the digital microphone as thousands quietly listened in.

A Chinese man said he did not know whether to believe the widespread reports of concentration camps for Muslims in the far western region of Xinjiang. 

Then a Uighur woman spoke up, calmly explaining that she was certain of the camps’ existence because her relatives had been among those interned. 

A man from Taiwan chimed in to urge understanding on all sides, while another from Hong Kong praised the woman for her courage in coming forward.

It was a rare moment of cross-border dialogue with people on the mainland of China, who are usually separated from the rest of the online world by the Great Firewall. 

For a short time, they found an open forum on the social media app, Clubhouse, to discuss contentious topics, free from the usual constraints of the country’s tightly controlled internet.

By Monday evening, the inevitable happened: The Chinese censors moved in. Many mainland users reported receiving error messages when they tried to use the platform. Some said they could only access the app by tunneling through the digital border using a VPN, or virtual private network. 

Within hours, more than a thousand users had tuned in to hear a discussion about the ban in a chatroom titled “Walled off, so now what?” 

Searches for “Clubhouse” on the popular Chinese social media platform Weibo were blocked.

To many users in mainland China, it was a brief window into an unfettered social media. 

Under China’s leader, Xi Jinping, the government has been ramping up its efforts to assert near-total digital control over what its citizens read and say online. 

Government-paid commenters and nationalist trolls frequently flood Chinese social media with propaganda and vitriolic messages that make it difficult to have open, public discussions about topics deemed sensitive by the government.

That‘s right, we, We the People, for [as I have previously said] how can we let ourselves ―survive no better than swine; fawn upon the power-holders like curs; and live in vile filth like maggots?

Euro 1.2079

Dollar Index 90.724

Japan Yen 104.77

Swiss Franc 0.8957

Pound 1.3783

Aussie 0.7720

India Rupee 72.893

South Korea Won 1116.545

Brazil Real 5.366

Egypt Pound 15.625

South Africa Rand 14.841

Officially it could help promote the notion that the #UAE is no longer involved in #Yemen in the eyes of the #Biden admin.

In practice, it would be useful for the #UAE to look like it is distancing itself from #Tigray.

Active Cases 27.347% below Record high Print of 520,000 in January 

active #Covid19 cases record 520,000 was in January 2021 @NKCAfrica

Conclusions

Big Exponential Slide in South Africa Case Load 

South Africa's Eastern Cape must have one of the very worst Covid fatality outcomes this year for anywhere on earth, adjusted for age. Median age in the province is 24. Excess deaths now running at 0.46% of the population (not of people who've had Covid, the whole population)

Ebola Zaire is a slate-wiper in humans. It killed eighty- eight per cent of the people it infected. Apart from rabies and the human immunodeficiency virus, H.I.V., which causes aids, this was the highest rate of mortality that has been recorded for a human virus. 

Ebola was spread mainly among family members, through contact with bodily fluids and blood. Many of the people in Africa who came down with Ebola had handled Ebola-infected cadavers. It seems that one of Ebola’s paths wends to the living from the dead.

After buying more mines and banks, the mogul could become the country's top gold buyer

Business kingpin Kudakwashe Tagwirei, under United States sanctions since August, aims to expand his commanding stake in Zimbabwe's gold industry – and could end up taking control of the country's sole gold refinery and marketer, Africa Confidential understands. 

President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Reserve Bank governor John Mangudya are working on a plan to break up Fidelity Printers and Refiners, the arm of the central bank that is officially the ultimate buyer of all Zimbabwe's gold.

Fidelity has been much criticised for delaying US dollar payments to licensed gold exporters. As the illegal gold trade, sponsored by politically backed gangs, spirals out of control, the state-owned company has been losing out, depriving the government of hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue.

Gold smuggling is booming in Zimbabwe with consignments worth over US$1.5 billion last year shipped, often hand-carried by politically connected people, to Dubai and India, according to International Crisis Group and other research organisations. 

But official gold exports through Fidelity fell by almost a quarter to some $800 million last year, according to Reserve Bank figures.

US sanctions have had little effect on Tagwirei's commercial ambitions and his influence on the government, which has lost some of its leading members such as Foreign Minister Sibusiso Moyo to the coronavirus.

The US Treasury says that Tagwirei – known as 'Queen Bee' because of the political and financial power he wields – has used his relationship with Mnangagwa 'to grow his business empire dramatically and rake in millions of U.S. dollars'. 

Last year, an audio recording was leaked in which Tagwirei said he was behind the sacking of the country's Energy Minister Fortune Chasi, having warned him not to 'ask too many questions about contracts for fuel supplies' (AC Vol 61 No 17, Inside the state capture project).

Tagwirei has long had a commanding position in Zimbabwe's $100m-a-month fuel import market, and owns major stakes in banking, telecoms and the country's largest platinum mines. 

But it is unclear how much he controls in his own right and to what extent is holding stakes on behalf of top political and military figures.

Should Tagwirei gain control of Fidelity Printers and Refiners, he would become the leading force in the country's main foreign exchange earner, the gold industry.

Fidelity's gold purchases amounted to $700m in the first ten months of last year, and its refinery has an annual capacity of 50 tonnes.

Fidelity has agents buying on its behalf from artisanal and small-scale miners around the country.

The Reserve Bank is planning to unbundle Fidelity into two business entities – a gold refining unit and a printing and coin minting business. 

Although it will retain the printing business, the central bank announced that it will offer a 60% stake in the gold refinery and marketing arm to large-scale gold producers, major gold buying agents and small-scale producers through their associations. 

A three-year average delivery of gold to Fidelity will be used by the RBZ to determine its offer to the various players.

The Reserve Bank has not explained the period over which the three-year average would be worked out, but a mining industry source said this would be calibrated to ensure Tagwirei scoops a sizeable interest in Fidelity. 

The source said Tagwirei and associates in his company Sotic International have been pushing for a model similar to South Africa's Rand Refinery, which is owned by major gold mining companies. 

They were the proponents of the unbundling exercise, the source said, and have been using their influence on the state and its institutions to get a grip on the plant. 

Tagwirei has been on a buying spree of mining assets in the country, using Sotic or its wholly owned subsidiary Landela Mining Ventures. 

This included Sotic's 2019 purchase of a 74.73% stake in Bindura Nickel Corporation from Asa Resources, and Landela's acquisition of one of Zimbabwe's biggest gold mines, Freda Rebecca.   

Freda Rebecca was licensed as a gold buyer by Fidelity in June last year. The mining firm has stitched up a lucrative gold-buying funding arrangement with the largest commercial bank in the country, CBZ Holdings, reported to be 30%-owned by a Tagwirei company (AC Vol 60 No 18, Cash at the generals' command). 

Freda Rebecca aims to buy a tonne of gold every month for the next three years under the arrangement – equivalent to over 60% of the 19 tonnes that Zimbabwe officially purchased last year. 

Landela also bought Shamva gold mine, with capacity to produce 21,000 ounces (0.6 tonnes) a year, from Mzi Khumalo's Metallon last year. 

Khumalo's operations in Zimbabwe were hobbled by a politically charged dispute with the government, allowing Landela to step in at an advantageous price.

Landela is targeting six more mines, including four that had been mothballed by the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation, with a capacity to produce at least 85,000 ounces (2.4 tonnes) a year, according to Sotic CEO David Brown, who is also Landela's CEO and former chief executive of South African mining company Impala Platinum.

Two of the mines, Metallon-owned Mazowe and Redwing, are 'as good as in the bag', according to two sources familiar with discussions. 

Metallon was forced to put most of its mines under care and maintenance after failing to get 'proper compensation' from Fidelity for its gold production. 

Between 2016 and 2019, the company lost $82m, and sued for a $132m claim for lack of profit during the period.

Considering that Landela also assumed Metallon's liability in the acquisition of its mines, an industry source speculated that the claim on Fidelity could also be transferred to the new mine owners, who may leverage that for a higher stake in the gold refinery.

It was Sotic again that was handed the military's stake in a $4 billion platinum joint venture with Russian investors. 

Mining executives said the deal was 'unimaginable', and suspect that Sotic may simply have acted as a cover for the army, whose involvement was scaring investors away. 

The military, through Zimbabwe Defence Industries, under US sanctions, and the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC), together held 30% of the joint venture, known as Great Dyke Investments, also headed by Brown (AC Vol 61 No 19, Heavy Russian metal). 

In December, Mnangagwa disclosed that a new, hitherto unknown entity, Kuvimba Mining House, had become the new owner of Sotic and Landela's gold and platinum assets. It is once again Brown who is in charge of Kuvimba. 

The government is a 65% shareholder in the new entity, with the remaining 35% belonging to another mysterious company Quorus, registered in Mauritius, where information on ownership is kept secret. 'Tagwirei is not part of that vehicle. 

The speculation is unfortunate,' said Brown. Brown and Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube have not explained how privately held assets, bought using offshore capital, suddenly belonged to the state.

There is no explanation for the latest move, mining sector executives say, other than that the government is now trying to distance Tagwirei from the investments because of the US sanctions.

FUEL, MINES AND BANKS – THE TAGWIREI METHOD

Kudakwashe Tagwirei has built up his wealth in large part through a long-standing partnership with major commodities trader Trafigura, which has been trying to distance its operations from him as he faces international commercial and political sanctions. 

Yet Tagwirei retains his sway in President Emmerson Mnangagwa's government, as it is rocked by the coronavirus pandemic (AC Vol 61 No 5, Oil, guns and politics).

Zimbabwe, currently a pariah on international money markets, has been unable to secure funding from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the African Development Bank due to arrears to the latter two. 

Mnangagwa's plans to repay these debts and re-establish relations with international lenders have floundered, leaving Zimbabwe to rely largely on other lenders, mainly Afreximbank, owned by member states of the AfDB (AC Vol 61 No 25, The state’s parallel economy).

Tagwirei has been an opaque source of funds to Zanu-PF politicians and projects, including the Command Agriculture programme, which has consumed some US$2 billion of state resources without credible accounting.

In 2019, Tagwirei was reported, via an entity under his direct control, to have purchased a 30% stake in CBZ Holdings, the country's biggest lender. 

Officials at  the bank, conscious of the implications of such a stake for its US dollar business, insist that Tagwirei has no managerial or policy role in the bank nor have they linked any of the bank's shareholders to entities controlled by him.

Nigeria’s government disagrees with the International Monetary Fund’s recommendations that it further marks down its currency that’s more than 18% overvalued to ease external imbalances, the Washington-based lender said.

President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration sees currency pressures stemming from global outflows caused by the coronavirus pandemic and believes another depreciation would add to double-digit inflation, according to the IMF’s Article IV report for the country that was published Monday.

The disagreement underscores the policy challenges for the administration that has resisted growing calls from some businesses and state governors hurt by an artificially overvalued currency to liberalize the exchange rate. 

It also conflicts with market expectations for further devaluations after the central bank cut the value of the naira by nearly a quarter last year when oil prices collapsed during the pandemic.

Authorities should immediately get rid of the premium paid on the parallel currency market and clear a dollar backlog that has hurt policy credibility, the IMF said. 

It also called for the unification of the various exchange rates and the removal of restrictions on access to hard currency for some imports.

The IMF’s recommendation is gradual but clear and multi-step exchange-rate reforms, “so that everybody knows where Nigeria’s going, which is often more important than what you do in terms of devaluation,” Jesmin Rahman, the lender’s mission chief to Nigeria, said in an interview before the release of the report.

Inflation in Nigeria reached a three-year high of 15.8% in December and while a 10% currency devaluation could push the rate up by as much as 2.5 percentage points, the impact would be less if the parallel exchange-market rate is already reflected in the prices of imported goods, the IMF said.

The central bank’s financing of the budget deficit must be phased to reduce inflation and higher interest rates may also be needed, the lender said. 

The central bank held its key rate for a second straight meeting in January.

The IMF warned that slow economic growth coupled with high inflation could continue to fan social discontent, which spilled over last year with protests against a police unit accused of torture and assassinations.

A slow rollout of Covid-19 vaccinations in Africa’s most-populous nation could threaten the IMF’s projections for economic growth of 1.5% this year, from an estimated 3.2% contraction in 2020.

“Nigeria has a way to go before ensuring adequate vaccine doses for its population, which will be critical to economic recovery,” said Rahman. 

The IMF expects the economy to return to pre-pandemic levels only next year.

WORKERS at a farm owned by businessman David 'Dawie' Moller reaped an unusual harvest towards the end of last year.

They chanced on a stash of cash buried on Moller's farm in the Gobabis area. 

Moller is a business partner of former Investec Asset Management Namibia (now known as Ninety One) chief James Hatuikulipi. 

Around November, the workers noticed two thick pieces of rope sticking out of the ground.

Curious, they started pulling at the ropes and found it was attached to a suitcase filled with cash.

It was not only farmworkers who allegedly feasted on the money. Sources claim a police officer took some of the money after the matter was reported to the law-enforcement agency.

Moller's farm is at Leonardville, a small village south of Gobabis, in the Omaheke region. 

It is adjacent to a multimillion-dollar farm belonging to Hatuikulipi and former minister of justice Sacky Shanghala.

News about the buried money comes at a time when there is speculation that some of the Fishrot accused withdrew millions of dollars from banks before they were arrested in November 2019.

The money was then allegedly passed on to several confidants who are now paying the accused's bills while they are behind bars awaiting trial. 

The Namibian understands that some of the Fishrot accused allegedly buried N$9 million at a farm in a 25-kg bag.

It's not clear if this is related to the incident at Moller's farm, but the police said they found two holes, one in which money was hidden, and another which was empty.

Police inspector general Sebastian Ndeitunga confirmed to The Namibian on Wednesday last week that an undisclosed amount of cash was found buried on Moller's farm.

Moller is the managing director of D&M Rail Construction, a company co-owned by Hatuikulipi and businessman John Walenga, among others.

“Yes, there is a case like that. I can confirm that it happened at Gobabis, but I do not have enough information now. The Gobabis commissioner will assist you on this,” Ndeitunga said.

Gobabis police station deputy commissioner Chris Kalimbula last Thursday said the money was found buried in a suitcase attached to two lengths of rope.

“Yes the money was found buried on Moller's farm. The station commander of Leornardville informed me about the matter after he was informed that there are many people standing around one spot,” he said.

Kalimbula said they had sent a senior detective to the scene to conduct interviews on the matter. 

“The first investigation then attracted further investigations, and more allegations were tied to the farm owner. It has now been combined with the Anti-Corruption Commission and Nampol's anti-money-laundering division,” he said.

INVESTIGATION ONGOING

Chief inspector Andres Guim said the case is still under investigation.

He said after discovering the money farmworkers took the cash and started spending it around the location. 

“Before we arrived on site to discover what was left, they went to hide their share in the bushes before going around the area to spend it on themselves. They gave some undisclosed amounts to the foreman,” Guim said.

“It is suspected that the farmworkers found money buried in two different holes ... but when we got to the scene, one hole was empty. We did not find anything there,” he said.

He added that Moller said it was his money. 

Guim, who is leading the investigation, said: “Our investigation has so far found that some farmworkers gave lump sums of money to their families and friends.

“One gentleman in particular assisted his mother with N$50 000 for a family funeral. What was discovered by us is only N$28 600.”

According to him, unusual spending by the farmworkers was reported to the police by a member of the public. 

“Workers were buying alcohol and items costing thousands and thousands [of dollars]. People around the area started talking, and the workers told them they had to hide their share in the bushes,” Guim said.