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Thursday 04th of March 2021
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Morning
Africa
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Register and its all Free.
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You notice that the first term on rhs is the log-gamma function. The derivation is the Fourier series expansion of log-gamma(x), 0
World Of Finance
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08-FEB-2021 :: The Markets Are Wilding
World Of Finance
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Historic Repo Market Insanity: 10Y Treasury Trades At -4% Ahead Of Monster Short Squeeze @zerohedge
World Of Finance
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Young leopard in #Tsavo East this morning. I saw hundreds of Buffalo, scores of elephant, kudu, hippo, hartebeest, birds, tawny grass, swathes of green - between Malindi and Manyani. @TheHorseCure
Africa
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Young leopard in #Tsavo East this morning. I saw hundreds of Buffalo, scores of elephant, kudu, hippo, hartebeest, birds, tawny grass, swathes of green - but just one car in 4 hours on superb roads between Malindi and Manyani
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Wild White Flowers Tsavo East
Africa
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It doesn't get more beautiful than this. Tsavo East National Park @SheldrickTrust
Africa
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Hello from Tsavo East National Park! Photo by Bobby Reese @kenyapics
Africa
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Old Tsavo Station at dusk. @cooksipgo
Africa
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Elephants Tsavo West @finchhattons You hear them first. [Video Clip]
Africa
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A late evening encounter with Elephants at Mzima Springs Tsavo West @Finchhattons [15 min Video]
Africa
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Political Reflections
Law & Politics
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India was downgraded to “partly free” for the first time since 1997 in an annual ranking of democracies. @DavidInglesTV
Law & Politics
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The accelerated growth was "a fantastically crafted fiction," according to Prasad, Blood and Soil in @narendramodi's India @NewYorker
Law & Politics
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François Heisbourg: «Le coronavirus, c’est un Tchernobyl chinois à la puissance dix» @FHeisbourg @Le_Figaro VOX H/T @gdemaneuf
Law & Politics
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LE FIGARO. - Un an après la propagation planétaire du coronavirus, qui a déjà fait 2,5 millions de morts et provoqué une crise économique majeure, tout le monde semble avoir oublié l’origine chinoise du virus. Comment se fait-il que personne ne demande de comptes à Pékin?
François HEISBOURG. - Parce qu’on a laissé la Chine bâtir son narratif, celui d’une gestion triomphale du virus, qui tranche avec la décadence supposée de l’Occident - sans lui apporter la moindre contradiction.
En laissant s’installer ce discours, en nous abstenant de toute réaction, on a permis à la Chine d’être quitte de la question de sa responsabilité initiale.
LE FIGARO. - A year after the global spread of the coronavirus, which has already claimed 2.5 million lives and caused a major economic crisis, everyone seems to have forgotten the Chinese origin of the virus. How is it that nobody asks Beijing to account? François HEISBOURG. -
Because we let China build its narrative, that of a triumphant management of the virus, which contrasts with the supposed decadence of the West - without bringing it the slightest contradiction.
By allowing this rhetoric to settle in, by abstaining from any reaction, China has been freed from the question of its initial responsibility.
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"The debate on the origin of the virus remains completely open, fundamental and potentially explosive. Open because we still don't know anything about how it was born. [cont] @FHeisbourg @gdemaneuf
Law & Politics
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Fundamental because you have to know how it happened to prevent things from happening again. @gdemaneuf
Law & Politics
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And potentially explosive because, if China is at fault, the communist power will be indicted, inside and outside the country. [cont]
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''All the narrative of the ideal management of the pandemic will fall suddenly. If Beijing had communicated from the start, the story would have been digested. But China has acted as if it has something to hide." @gdemaneuf
Law & Politics
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There is no natural Pathway for the Evolution of COVID19.
Misc.
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‘’Zoonotic’’ origin was one that was accelerated in the Laboratory.
Misc.
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It is remarkable that the Propaganda is still being propagated more than a year later.
Misc.
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Today only the Paid for Propagandists and Virologists and WHO will argue that there is a ''zoonotic'' origin for COVID19.
It is remarkable that the Propaganda is still being propagated more than a year later.
There is no natural Pathway for the Evolution of COVID19.
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01-MAR-2020 :: The Origin of the #CoronaVirus #COVID19
Misc.
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“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.”― Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow
“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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Algorithmic Master [Blaster] and Sun Tzu Maestro
Law & Politics
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''The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting''
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Whoever Controls The Narrative Controls The World
Law & Politics
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Virilio maintains that the global village has created hyperterrorism as its "integral accident" (just as derailment is the integral accident of a train). eager to exploit the audiovisual impact of real-time mass communication
The Pentagon is (remember Saddam's statue being toppled?), but unfortunately so are the terrorists.
The same impulse drives contemporary art, says Virilio, and he often returns to Stockhausen's incendiary remark that 9/11 was "the greatest work of art ever".
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Cildo Meireles's Babel @Tate
Misc.
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'More Dangerous And More Widespread': Conspiracy Theories Spread Faster Than Ever @NPR
Law & Politics
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Millions of people watched the moon landing live on TV in 1969. But more than 50 years later, Bonnie Garland still isn't buying it.
"I personally do not believe that man has ever been out of the atmosphere," says Garland, a self-described housewife from Tucson, Ariz.
Garland also is skeptical that the Sept. 11 attacks were carried out by 19 al-Qaeda terrorists – even though they were.
That poll found that nearly one in 10 respondents don't believe humans actually landed on the moon.
Bogus conspiracy theories like this have always been a part of U.S. history.
Only now, experts say they're spreading faster and wider than ever before – accelerated by social media, encouraged by former President Trump, and weaponized in a way not seen before in American history.
Followers of this baseless QAnon conspiracy believe that Trump will vanquish a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophile elites who secretly run the country in a cataclysmic event known as "the Storm."
"Social media tends to drive the fringe to the mainstream," Donovan says.
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What a difference 2 weeks makes. @EricTopol
Misc.
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Conclusions
We are exiting the trough and turning higher.
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If you have a "normal" pandemic that is fading, but "variants" that [are] surging, the combined total can look like a flat, manageable situation. @spignal
Misc.
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Conclusions
I expect the below captioned P.1 Lineage to be dominant in 8-12 weeks notwithstanding the Focus on SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1.1.7
My Thesis is based on the ultra hyperconnectedness of the c21st World.
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A lineage first identified in Brazil with variants of biological significance E484K, N501Y and K417T, described in a recent virological post: here. P.1 lineage is an alias of lineage B.1.1.28.1
Misc.
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Figure 6 | P.1 count per continent
Misc.
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We all know by now ''viruses exhibit non-linear and exponential characteristics'
Misc.
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"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." - Professor Allen Bartlett
Misc.
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Neutralizing antibody (nAb) studies (here, from vaccinated sera) indicate 75-100 fold reduction in neutralization, suggesting that immune evasion is at least partially contributing to increased spread of variant. @DiseaseEcology
Misc.
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The ''warp speed'' Vaccine Roll Out is chasing the coat Tails of the Virus.
Misc.
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Scientists who support silencing opposing voices are actually priests. @naval
Misc.
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We are at peak vaccine euphoria
Misc.
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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 1.2053
Dollar Index 90.98
Japan Yen 107.144
Swiss Franc 0.9195
Pound 1.3953
Aussie 0.7808
India Rupee 72.7005
South Korea Won 1124.409
Brazil Real 5.6201
Egypt Pound 15.6798
South Africa Rand 15.05
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Dollar Index Chart INO 90.98
World Currencies
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Euro versus the Dollar Chart @FXPIPTITAN 1.2053
World Currencies
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In most tech sectors, global leaders in field capture wide share of market, but competition for spots #2 and #3 is now fierce - Stragglers outside the top three are usually being left in the dust @AgatheDemarais
World Currencies
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The Platform Economy
World Of Finance
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“The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behaviour crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire”- Malcolm Gladwell
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Commodity Markets at a Glance WSJ
Commodities
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#Gold keeps falling as Treasury yields rise and ETF rout deepens. Gold ETFs holdings had the 12th straight day of declines Tuesday, the longest losing streak since Dec2016, acc to data compiled by Bloomberg. @Schuldensuehner
Commodities
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Conclusions
We are exiting te bearish Phase which went on longer and probed deeper than I expected
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Title: Bar, Las Vegas, Nevada Artist: Robert Frank
Misc.
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Crude Oil Chart INO 61.86
Commodities
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SHANGHAI STAINLESS STEEL FUTURES DOWN 6% HITTING LIMIT DOWN @Fxhedgers
Commodities
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Covid-19 Variant in Brazil Overwhelms Local Hospitals, Hits Younger Patients @WSJ.
Emerging Markets
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Brazil’s daily death toll from the disease rose to its highest level yet this week, pushing the country’s total number of Covid-19 fatalities past a quarter of a million.
On Tuesday, Brazil reported a record 1,641 Covid fatalities. Neighbor Peru is struggling to curb a second wave of infections.
The new variant, known as P.1, is 1.4 to 2.2 times more contagious than versions of the virus previously found in Brazil, and 25% to 61% more capable of reinfecting people who had been infected by an earlier strain, according to a study released Tuesday.
“We’re facing a dramatic situation here—the health systems of many states in Brazil are already in collapse and others will be in the next few days,” said Eliseu Waldman, an epidemiologist at the University of São Paulo.
“The virus is behaving differently,” said Rosa Lopez, a doctor in the intensive-care unit at Lima’s Guillermo Almenara Irigoyen Hospital. “It’s really aggressive…the situation is very difficult, really terrible.”
The Amazonian strain, P.1, emerged in the Brazilian city of Manaus late last year and quickly caught the attention of Brazilian and international scientists who raced to map its spread.
The variant’s large number of mutations to the spike protein, which helps the virus penetrate cells, have caused particular concern.
“We’re in the worst moment. I wouldn’t be surprised if P.1 is all over Brazil by now,” said Felipe Naveca, a researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation who has studied the new strain.
He estimated that Brazil is already home to hundreds of new Covid-19 variants, although P.1. is the most worrying so far, he said.
However, researchers are still at a loss as to why more young people appear to be falling ill and if P.1 is more deadly, or just more contagious.
A study led by Mr. Naveca released last week showed that in some cases the P.1 strain carried a viral load about 10 times higher than the initial versions of the virus that were circulating in Brazil for most of the pandemic.
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10-MAY-2020 :: #COVID19 and the Spillover Moment ―Brazil is the global epicenter of the coronavirus
Emerging Markets
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.@jairbolsonaro ''Brazilians aren‘t infected by anything, even when they fall into a sewer''
“It‟s tragic surrealism ... I can‟t stop thinking about Gabriel García Márquez when I think about the situation Manaus is facing.” Guardian
Viruses are in essence non linear exponential and multiplicative and COVID19 has ‟escape velocity‟ in Brazil.
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PRE-PRINT: emerging #SARSCoV2 variant of concern (VOC) P.1 lineage is growing rapidly in Brazil @MRC_Outbreak
Emerging Markets
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More transmissible
More likely to evade protective immunity
Enhanced global genomic surveillance of VOC critical to accelerate pandemic responsiveness
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PRE-PRINT: emerging #SARSCoV2 variant of concern (VOC) P.1 lineage is growing rapidly in Brazil CADDE-CENTRE
Misc.
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CADDE preprint. A SARS-CoV-2 lineage of concern is growing rapidly in Manaus and across Brazil. @CaddeProject
Misc.
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Using a combination of genomic and epidemiological data, we characterise the emergence and altered characteristics of this new variant, P.1.
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Using a modelling approach, we find that P.1 is likely more transmissible & also likely has some ability to evade protective immunity from previous infection. @CaddeProject
Misc.
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What’s happening in Brazil is a precursor of what may happen to all of us soon. @fibke
Africa
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Turning to Africa The Spinning Top The real challenge is the Economic Emergency.
Africa
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Private sector credit extension growth in #Namibia droops to record low in January – a sign of continued slow economic growth at the start of 2021. @NKCAfrica
Africa
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“Tanzania’s Real GDP growth rate fell from 5.8 percent in 2019 to an estimated 2 percent in 2020.” @WBTanzania
Africa
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“#Tanzania’s economic outlook remains highly uncertain while the shock of the pandemic is expected to slow poverty reduction. Given this uncertainty, we expect real GDP growth for 2021 to fall in the range of 3 to 5.3%” – Mara Warwick @WBTanzania
Africa
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Merkel pronounced “You cannot fight the pandemic with lies and disinformation...the limits of Populism are being laid bare.”
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Father Charles Kitima, General Secretary of the Tanzania Episcopal Conference (TEC), has said in the last two months more than 25 Priests and 60 Catholic Nuns have died of 'hard-to-breathe challenges'. @TanzaniaUpdates
Africa
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Denialism never works. The truth will out. @geoffreyyork
Africa
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@MagufuliJP #COVID19 was equivalent to “Satan” and that it would naturally be defeated with prayer, since “Satan cannot reside in the body of Christ.” 27-JUL-2020 :: Drinking the Kool-Aid
Africa
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The politicians who mismanaged the pandemic committed "social murder" and must be held accountable, writes @bmj_latest @KamranAbbasi @EricTopol
Africa
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The African @jairbolsonaro is of course @MagufuliJP
Africa
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Now reading WORLD BANK Tanzania Economic Update. “We told the government, time and again, the route you’re taking is going to lead to trouble” @fatma_karume
Africa
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There is something Karmic about COVID19
Africa
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Update on the number of new #covid19 cases and deaths reported in #Africa. Yesterday, there were 7,708 new cases and 363 new deaths. @BeautifyData
Africa
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319,782 Active COVID-19 Cases in Africa @BeautifyData
Africa
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-38.50% % below 520,000 record high from January 2021
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Active #Covid19 cases record 520,000 was in January 2021 @NKCAfrica
Africa
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Africa is currently reporting a million new infections about every 55 days and has reported more than 3,955,000 since the pandemic began @ReutersGraphics
Africa
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Togo & Sao Tome and Principe at peak Somalia 93% Botswana 83%
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The reproduction number (R) of SARS-CoV-2 in South Africa has been increasing and is now 0.9 @lrossouw
Africa
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It remains below 1 though so the epidemic is not growing yet but the rate of decline of cases is slowing.
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We all know by now ''viruses exhibit non-linear and exponential characteristics'
Africa
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Latest @MRCza Excess Deaths report out. 1 700 excess deaths in the week 21-27 February, bringing the total to 145 000 (or 244 / 100 000 population). @tomtom_m
Africa
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Based on this (further details in the supplementary report), we estimate that 85-95% of excess deaths to date in South Africa are attributable to Covid. Based on this week's numbers, this means 123k- 138k Covid deaths. @tomtom_m
Africa
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Or a population level Covid mortality of 205-230 per 100 000.
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They fancied themselves free, wrote Camus, ―and no one will ever be free so long as there are pestilences.
Africa
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In this respect, our townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; in other words, they were humanists: they disbelieved in pestilences.
A pestilence isn't a thing made to man's measure; therefore we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away.
But it doesn't always pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away, and the humanists first of all, because they have taken no precautions
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Ethiopia May Scrap Telecom License Sale if Offers Are Too Low @bpolitics
Africa
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Ethiopia has a set amount it expects to receive from the part-privatization of the country’s telecommunications industry and could scrap the process if bidders don’t meet the target.
Three independent teams have calculated the value of two new licenses that would compete with state monopoly Ethio Telecom, Eyob Tekalign, the state minister responsible for the privatization process, told reporters.
That has given the government an amount it’s looking to raise from the sale, he said, without giving figures.
“If we get the value we expect from the bidding process, we will go ahead,” he said. “If not, we will have another look.”
His comments mark the first time an Ethiopian politician has publicly cast doubt over the much-anticipated liberalization of the telecom industry, a move that would jeopardize a broader privatization plan announced by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in mid-2018.
The strategy had a range of goals: to shore up reserves of much-needed foreign exchange, pay down state debt, improve telecom service and create jobs.
International telecom operators have long coveted a foothold in Ethiopia, which has a population of more than 100 million and is seen as one of the world’s last major untapped markets.
Interested parties include Vodafone Group Plc and its two African partners, Vodacom Group Ltd. and Safaricom Ltd., as well as MTN Group Ltd. and Orange SA.
Alongside the two new licenses, a minority stake in Ethio Telecom is also up for sale.
The government had looked to wrap up the process by early 2020, but regulatory complexities, the coronavirus pandemic and the prospect of now-postponed elections delayed proceedings.
Potential bidders also expressed concern about the exclusion of private tower operators in the process, and the potential for mobile-money licenses.
International tower companies won’t be allowed to take part, Eyob confirmed this week, saying wireless operators can lease existing state-owned masts for the time being.
“We shouldn’t have infrastructure that we have spent billions on going to waste,” he said.
Eyob also sought to address concerns that Ethio Telecom would be given preferential treatment in the newly part-privatized industry, after reports in local media that only the incumbent would be allowed to offer mobile-money services.
The ability to offer payments through phones is seen as crucial to bidders, given its importance as a revenue stream in parts of Africa with limited banking infrastructure.
The government and regulator would “provide an equal playing field,” Eyob said, without being specific.
That said, Ethiopia’s current laws don’t allow for foreign companies to participate in the financial sector, which would include mobile money.
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South Africa All Share Bloomberg
Africa
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Dollar versus Rand Chart INO 15.048
Africa
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Egypt Pound versus The Dollar Chart INO 15.66
Africa
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Among EMs, the deviation of inflation from target is widest in Nigeria and Turkey. @ZiadMDaoud
Africa
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Ghana Stock Exchange Composite Index Bloomberg
Africa
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Kenya PMI fell to 50.9 in February of 2021 from 53.2 in January @ouma_timothy
Kenyan Economy
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Sanlam Kenya Plc - Statement to Shareholders (Profit Warning Announcement) @tradingroomke
Kenyan Economy
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Sanlam Kenya Plc share price data
Kenyan Economy
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Elephants or avocados: a Kenyan dilemma @Reuters
Africa
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KIMANA, Kenya, March 3 (Reuters) - The majestic sight of elephants roaming beneath Mount Kilimanjaro has long lured throngs of wildlife-lovers to Amboseli National Park on Kenya’s border with Tanzania.
Yet the free movement of some 2,000 Amboseli elephants, along with two dozen other wildlife species plus cows owned by local Maasai people, may be under threat - from avocados.
Kenyan agricultural company KiliAvo Fresh Ltd, which has farms near Amboseli on nearly 175 acres of land, is building nurseries and preparing to grow the fruit, whose popularity is growing worldwide due to its high nutritional value.
Conservationists are aghast.
They say the plans and an electric fence on the farm will block the crucial Kimana Wildlife Corridor where elephants move between Amboseli, the Tsavo and Chyulu Hills parks, and strangle one of the region’s most beloved and important safari parks.
In a dispute illustrating the global tussle for shrinking resources from Africa to the Amazon, KiliAvo said it obtained the land legally then received government approval in mid-2020 to begin work after presenting an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).
“Local people here all know the project and they are happy because it’s another source of employment and of making their land have value,” KiliAvo shareholder and farm manager Jeremiah Salaash told Reuters.
However, the National Environment Management Agency ordered work halted last September and said it wanted to revoke the EIA.
KiliAvo has challenged that in Kenya’s environmental tribunal, where the case is pending, according to CM Advocates LLP, the law firm representing them.
The agency’s acting director general Mamo Mamo told Reuters it initially approved the EIA because of the project’s endorsement by the Amboseli Ecosystem Trust, a coalition that includes community groups and government representatives, but changed its position when the Trust withdrew approval.
FRUIT EXPORTS V TOURIST CASH
With ideal conditions for growing the fruit, Kenya’s avocado export revenues surged 33% to 14 billion Kenyan shillings (about $127 million) in the year to October 2020, government data shows.
As impressive as that growth rate is, such money pales in comparison to tourism, which raked in $1.6 billion in 2019.
Squeezing the elephants could hit their population, conservationists say, harming a national heritage and also prejudicing the tourism trade so many people depend on.
“We can’t just say to the elephants: ‘Would you mind not going that way because we have decided that we are going to do stuff here?’” said Vicki Fishlock, a scientist working for the Amboseli Elephant Trust group.
“Blockage of the corridor would surely kill the sanctuary as it depends on the animals migrating from Amboseli,” added Samuel Kaanki, who chairs an association of 342 Maasai owning 20,500 acres where elephants browse, breed and migrate.
He said the elephants, if blocked by farms like KiliAvo’s or others, would seek alternative routes: “This would ... result in massive human-wildlife conflicts.”
KiliAvo’s lawyers said the farm was actually 17 km (11 miles) away from Amboseli in an area designated for farming.
Further, the company had employed 300 local residents, provided training and technology, proposed improving fresh water facilities and helped renovate a school, CM Advocates LLP said.
“Our Client continues to be the victim of constant and relentless harassment and mischaracterization of their project for ulterior motives,” it said in an email to Reuters. “Our Client is actually a victim of witch-hunt and opportunism.”
Another conservation group, Big Life Foundation, has footage from October of four gazelles apparently stuck on one side of the fence, trying to get through. It also said the fence was damaged at least three times last month by elephants.
“If they are trapped in one place, populations will collapse,” said Ernest Lenkoina, human-elephant conflict mitigation project manager at Big Life.
“In the end, both the Maasai way of life here and the sight of elephants browsing beneath Mount Kilimanjaro could be gone forever.”
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Elephants 1st September 2013 Amboseli Kenya
Africa
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An Ostrich in the Foreground Elephants in the Background #Amboseli #Kenya
Africa
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Strangler Fig Tree in the Chyulu Hills Forest @finchhattons
Africa
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Zero-rating of cash transfers below KShs 1,000 led to a significant increase in #mobilemoney usage by 114% in 2020. @FSDKe
Africa
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Between April & September, the number of mobile money accounts increased by more than 6% or 3.6 million new accounts
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The Way We Live Now
Africa
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Kenya Shilling versus The Dollar Live ForexPros 109.70
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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Return on Equity (ROE) vs Price to Book for 8 Banks Listed at the Nairobi Stock Exchange [@NSE_PLC]: @MwangoCapital
N.S.E Equities - Finance & Investment
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Every Listed Share Can Be Interrogated Here
N.S.E General
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