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Thursday 11th of March 2021
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Morning
Africa
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Register and its all Free.
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US House gives final OK to Pres Biden $1.9T Covid aid plan @WSJ
World Of Finance
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09-NOV-2020 :: The one consistent Theme is The Print Shop
World Of Finance
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The World is pirouetting on the pinhead of the Yield of the US 10 YR
World Of Finance
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Giacometti 'Walking Man' #sculpture
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It's Time To Do The Twist Again @zerohedge
World Of Finance
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“Come on let’s twist again, Like we did last summer!
Yeaaah, let’s twist again, Like we did last year!”
– Chubby Checker
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08-MAR-2021 :: Lights Must Never Go Out So a Response will surely come and whether its YCC or another Operation Twist I don’t know.
World Of Finance
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The market has now fully priced in a Fed rate hike next year. @SoberLook [This is a Sell]
World Of Finance
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08-FEB-2021 :: The Markets Are Wilding
World Of Finance
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Anybody can be decisive during a panic It takes a strong Man to act during a Boom. VS NAIPAUL 08-FEB-2021 :: The Markets Are Wilding
World Of Finance
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“The businessman bought at ten and was happy to get out at twelve; the mathematician saw his ten rise to eighteen, but didn’t sell because he wanted to double his ten to twenty.”
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This is what I call the "commodification of the Apocalypse" at its purest, so either drink the "Pandemic Chill" or read AFTER THE APOCALYPSE - enjoy the inevitable! @HorvatSrecko
Misc.
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Don DeLillo wrote "Everything is barely weeks. Everything is days. We have minutes to live." The Way we live now #COVID19
Misc.
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We're the last billionth of a second in the evolution of matter. DON DELILLO, Point Omega
Misc.
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Nabta Playa: The world's first astronomical site was built in Africa and is older than Stonehenge Astronomy
Africa
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This 7,000-year-old stone circle tracked the summer solstice and the arrival of the annual monsoon season. It's also the oldest known astronomical site on Earth.
Located in Africa, Nabta Playa stands some 700 miles south of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.
It was built more than 7,000 years ago, making Nabta Playa the oldest stone circle in the world — and possibly Earth’s oldest astronomical observatory.
It was constructed by a cattle worshiping cult of nomadic people to mark the summer solstice and the arrival of the monsoons.
“Here is human beings’ first attempt to make some serious connection with the heavens," J. McKim Malville, a professor emeritus at the University of Colorado and archaeoastronomy expert, tells Astronomy.
He discovered that the stone circle once aligned to Arcturus, Sirius and Alpha Centauri. There were also stones that seemed to correspond to the constellation Orion.
By tracing back Arcturus’ movements across the night sky, they proposed that the star would have matched up with Nabta Playa’s stone circle around 4800 B.C.
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Sunrise Polana @serenahotels Maputo 30 JUL 12 :: The Polana The Jewel in the @SerenaHotels Crown
Africa
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Sunrise in Durban @dawadzn
Africa
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The morning haze over Mt Longonot catch the sunrise hues as the Great Rift Valley below sleeps in shadow @Gateru
Africa
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Political Reflections
Law & Politics
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Xi Jinping is both Sun Tzu ‘'The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting'' And hard edged at the same time.
Law & Politics
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He has brought Hong Kong to heel, he is prowling around Taiwan like a Lion prowled around our Tent one night in the Tsavo, he has marched 400 kms into Indian Territory and Narendra ‘’Benito’’ Modi has said nary a word.
Xi has taken calculated risks.
The muscular and multi-faceted nature of Chinese Power is seen in its handling of COVID19
.@FHeisbourg François Heisbourg: «Le coronavirus, c’est un Tchernobyl chinois à la puissance dix»
First, they staged their "exemplary handling" of the pandemic in a very loud manner, in order to avoid interest in the regime.
And then they severely punished countries that demanded an impartial international investigation, made up of the best experts. Australia, which had insisted on the need for transparency, was imposed economic sanctions and a block on its imports.
The debate on the origin of the virus remains totally open, fundamental and potentially explosive.
Controlling the COVID19 Narrative, suppressing the Enquiry, parlaying the situation into one of singular advantage marks a singular moment and
Xi Jinping has exhibited Chinese dominance over multiple theatres from the Home Front, the International Media Domain, the ‘’Scientific’’ domain over which he has achieved complete ownership and where any dissenting view is characterized as a ‘’conspiracy theory’’
It remains a remarkable achievement.
Of course, the c21st World is not bipolar but the relationship between the US and China remains the overwhelming question.
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The Disinformation Dragon Spamouflage dragon, wolf warriors, 50 cent army - meet the players in China’s new information offensive - @BBCRadio4 @BBCMonitoring H/T @krassitwigg
Africa
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Data from #Covid19 worldwide on March 10: + 473,140 cases in 24 hours @CovidTracker_fr
Misc.
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Data from #Covid19 worldwide on March 10: + 473,140 cases in 24 hours, or 118,031,771 in total + 9,614 deaths in 24 hours, i.e. 2,620,622 in total
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Global R slips back over 1.0; the 20-day average continues up as Brazil³ is only days away from the India² total. @video4me
Misc.
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And sure the numbers slid for around 6 consecutive weeks but they have bottomed out of late.
Misc.
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Brazil has exceeded its all-time COVID deaths per day for three days in a row now. @greg_travis
Misc.
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Brazil's Covid variant is an 'atomic bomb' that could reinfect the world @MailOnline
Misc.
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'This information is an atomic bomb' Dr Roberto Kraenkel, a biological mathematician with the Covid-19 Brazil Observatory, told the Washington Post.
'I'm surprised by the levels [of variants] found. The media isn't getting what this means. All of the variants of concern are more transmissible...and this means an accelerated phase of the epidemic. A disaster.'
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My concern is that Brazil which was the epicenter of the Virus in May 2020 is once again a Precursor and a Harbinger
Misc.
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And sure the numbers slid for around 6 consecutive weeks but they have bottomed out of late.
“I see a huge storm forming in Brazil.” Denise Garrett, vice president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute in Washington
The bottom line: P.1 is 2.5 times more transmissible than the wild-type B lineage. And way more transmissible than B.1.1.7. @bollemdb @obscovid19br
? s=20
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." - Professor Allen Bartlett
Exponential growth unlike any other that we have seen. Brazil is a global threat @bollemdb
Model-based evaluation of transmissibility and reinfection for the P.1 variant of the SARS-CoV-2
The variant of concern (VOC) P.1 emerged in the Amazonas state (Brazil) and was sequenced for the first time on 6-Jan- 2021 by the Japanese National Institute of Infectious Diseases.
It contains a constellation of mutations, ten of them in the spike protein.
The P.1 variant shares mutations such as E484K, K417T, and N501Y and a deletion in the orf1b protein (del11288-11296 (3675-3677 SGF)) with other VOCs previously detected in the United Kingdom and South Africa (B.1.1.7 and the B.1.351, respectively).
Prevalence of P.1 increased sharply from 0% in November 2020 to 73% in January 2021 and in less than 2 months replaced previous lineages (4).
The estimated relative transmissibility of P.1 is 2.5 (95% CI: 2.3-2.8) times higher than the infection rate of the wild variant, while the reinfection probability due to the new variant is 6.4% (95% CI: 5.7 - 7.1%).
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
We all know by now ''viruses exhibit non-linear and exponential characteristics'
COVID19 Historic Peaks Deaths a day @brodjustice
? s=20
This week, as Brazil reported back-to-back record deaths from the virus, Bolsonaro welcomed allies for a lunch in Brasilia. http://j.mp/2PCqgnH
The largely maskless group feasted on typical dishes, including beans with sausage and collard greens, plus a whole roast pig.
The following day, the president raged against governors for creating panic in the population.
"You didn't stay home, you didn't cower," Bolsonaro told a crowd of supporters on Thursday.
"We have to face our fears. No more fussiness, no more whining. Are people going to cry forever?"
States with such rulers can get “seized by senility and the chronic disease from which [they] can hardly ever rid [themselves], for which [they] can find no cure”
Ibn Khaldun explained the intrinsic relationship between political leadership and the management of pandemics in the pre-colonial period in his book Muqaddimah
Historically, such pandemics had the capacity to overtake “the dynasties at the time of their senility, when they had reached the limit of their duration” and, in the process, challenged their “power and curtailed their [rulers’] influence...”
Rulers who are only concerned with the well-being of their “inner circle and their parties” are an incurable “disease”.
States with such rulers can get “seized by senility and the chronic disease from which [they] can hardly ever rid [themselves], for which [they] can find no cure”
I expect th P.1 Lineage to be dominant worldwide 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.
Therefore, I would be tempering my COVID19 optimism and holding my horses which introduces interesting dynamics into the markets.
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And the belief in Vaccine Efficacy is now bumping at euphoric levels. Folks I followed on Twitter for their epidemiological excellence now simply recite Vaccine / Inoculation data like a liturgy.
Misc.
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And sure the numbers slid for around 6 consecutive weeks but they have bottomed out of late.
Its not clear what % of the suppression was due to the ‘’hard’’ lockdowns [non pharmaceutical intervention] and what % was due to the vaccinnes.
We will discover the answer imminently.
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“Why should current Covid-19 vaccines not be used for mass vaccination during a pandemic?” Geert Vanden Bossche, PhD, DVM H/T @amicocolorido
Misc.
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Instead of thinking about variants as instances (one genetic type) we need to think about them as a "space of possibilities" @yaneerbaryam
Misc.
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Each variant is a cloud of different possibilities due to mutations.
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@Naval said Scientists who support silencing opposing voices are actually priests. And the belief in Vaccine Efficacy is now bumping at euphoric levels.
Misc.
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As soon as people who are vaccinated meet, they are selecting for the most vaccine evading type. @yaneerbaryam
Misc.
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Laboratory studies that only use one clonal type, do not necessarily reveal the effectiveness of antibodies that are generated by a vaccine.
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The ''warp speed'' Vaccine Roll Out is chasing the coat Tails of the Virus.
Misc.
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International Markets
World Of Finance
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Morgan Stanley yesterday raised its 2021 forecast for U.S. economic growth to 7.3% from 6.5%, a pace unsurpassed since the Korean War boom in 1951. @lisaabramowicz1
World Of Finance
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“It seems like every week, we get another reason to lift the forecast.”
Conclusions
A Sugar Rush
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The lights must never go out,The music must always play
World Of Finance
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Currency Markets at a Glance WSJ
World Currencies
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Euro 1.1946
Dollar Index 91.713
Japan Yen 108.60
Swiss Franc 0.9277
Pound 1.3936
Aussie 0.77712
India Rupee 72.68
South Korea Won 1133.19
Brazil Real 5.6725
Egypt Pound 15.7617
South Africa Rand 14.9294
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Dollar Index Chart INO 91.717
World Currencies
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Euro versus the Dollar Chart 1.1944
World Currencies
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$GME 50% decline intraday in less than 30 min. @TheStalwart
World Currencies
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Title: Bar, Las Vegas, Nevada Artist: Robert Frank
Misc.
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A @DeutscheBank survey of retail investors found that about $150 billion, or 37% of the direct payments, could flow into stocks. @lisaabramowicz1
World Currencies
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Commodity Markets at a Glance WSJ
Commodities
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Gold @DTAPCAP 1739.00
Commodities
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Crude Oil Chart INO 64.87
Commodities
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Sub Saharan Africa
Africa
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.@SecBlinken condemns 'ethnic cleansing' in Ethiopia's Tigray @AFP
Africa
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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday described violence in Ethiopia's Tigray region as "ethnic cleansing" as he pressed for an investigation and the exit of Eritrean troops.
Testifying before Congress, Blinken said he wanted the region to see security forces "that will not abuse the human rights of the people of Tigray or commit acts of ethnic cleansing which we've seen in western Tigray."
"That has to stop. We also need full accountability," Blinken said in response to a question at the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
"We have, as you know, forces from Eritrea over there, and we have forces from an adjoining region, Amhara, that are there. They need to come out."
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There seems indeed to be an escalation in the making between #Ethiopia and #Sudan.....@KjetilTronvoll
Africa
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GRAPHIC FOOTAGE @Dave_Fikre
Africa
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‘The genie out of the bottle’ @AfricanBizMag
Africa
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Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer
Africa
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A fiendishly complicated task fending off the centripetal forces which are tearing Ethiopia apart
Africa
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The question now is whether the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front can sustain a prolonged guerrilla war @TheEconomist
Africa
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Or alternatively @TheEconomist whether @PMEthiopia can sustain an occupation given that one suspects there are equally restive regions
Africa
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Turning to Africa the Spinning Top
Africa
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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
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311,794 Active COVID-19 Cases in Africa @BeautifyData
Africa
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-40.03% % 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 60 days and has reported more than 4,023,000 since the pandemic began @ReutersGraphics
Africa
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Guinea Ivory Coast and Cameroon at Peak
Cameroon reports its largest number of new COVID-19 infections since the start of the pandemic: 3,200
Ethiopia reports highest number of new infections since August
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We all know by now ''viruses exhibit non-linear and exponential characteristics'
Africa
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Africa numbers were driven by exponential surge and then exponential collapse of South African numbers and it still remains a mystery how South Africa numbers collapsed without vaccine intervention.
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The marked descent and if you can elaborate on the B.1.351 mediated reinfections that occurred in South Africa? @EricTopol
Africa
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Testing data shows a rapid and sustained decline in proportions testing positive too @tomtom_m
Africa
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Drinking the Kool-Aid #COVID19
Africa
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Zambian Covid-19 Cases May Have Been 92 Times More Than Reported @business
Africa
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Coronavirus cases in Zambia from March to July may have been 92 times higher than official statistics showed, according to estimates from a study published in the Lancet Global Health journal.
Researchers tested people for infection in six districts across the southern African nation in July, and used the results to estimate a total of 454,708 cases for the period. That compared with the government’s official number of 4,917 infections.
The study suggests the pandemic affected many African nations far worse than was reported, largely because of a low level of testing.
A Nigerian survey found that almost one in four of the 21 million people living in Lagos may have been infected with the disease, well above the estimate of about 160,000 for the whole country.
Still, most of the cases in Zambia were asymptomatic and hospitals in the country weren’t under strain during the period of the study.
That could be because of Zambia’s young population, according to the report, dated March 9.
The research was carried out during the first wave of the outbreak in Zambia, when recorded cases were relatively low.
Like most countries in the region, the subsequent wave spurred by a variant first identified in South Africa, was worse.
Zambia, which has officially recorded about 83,000 infections and 1,137 deaths, is yet to announce plans to vaccinate its population.
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No comment!!! @TunduALissu
Africa
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There is something Karmic in this #COVID19
Africa
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The man who sold you denialism and quackery, and risked the lives of ordinary Tanzanians and his colleagues, scurried to the best private hospital he could find when Covid-19 felled him. @adrianblomfield
Africa
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If true that Magufuli is in Nairobi Hospital, I hope this resonates with Tanzanians: The man who sold you denialism and quackery, and risked the lives of ordinary Tanzanians and his colleagues, scurried to the best private hospital he could find when Covid-19 felled him.
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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 market pricing of #Senegal & #cotedivoire eurobonds tells a story. @emsovdebt
Africa
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Both have lower yields than most African peers, reflecting higher credit ratings, more stable macro, & good growth prospects. They have travelled through the big market moves together
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Past 3.5 years Senegal mostly preferred by mkt. But Ivycst favoured since their 2020 election result, & little more so during recent Senegal protests @emsovdebt
Africa
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But interesting which has slightly higher risk premium. Tends reflect electoral cycles & market perception of political risk.
Past 3.5 years Senegal mostly preferred by mkt. But Ivycst favoured since their 2020 election result, & little more so during recent Senegal protests
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The unrest is the worst in a decade in Senegal, widely seen as one of West Africa’s most stable democracies. @Reuters
Africa
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“We are not asking the people to go and unseat Macky Sall,” said Sonko. “But let’s be clear, the revolution is marching its way to 2024.” @Reuters
Africa
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Blasts that levelled a military camp and the surrounding populated area in Equatorial Guinea at the weekend claimed "far more" lives than the official death toll of 105, Human Rights Watch said
Africa
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Ethio-24 at ~9% yield while Kenya-24 ~3.25% @emsovdebt
Africa
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Ethiopia which was once the Poster child of the African Renaissance
Africa
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.@MeneWamkele Aggressive liberalization of intra-African trade is the one key support route. "This is our stimulus package," he says. @Ramah_Nyang
Africa
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Another Trade Finance Fund Implodes in Echoes of Greensill Barak fund provided loans to borrowers across African nations @markets
Africa
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Barak Fund Management’s $1 billion money pool is preparing to sell its frozen assets in the latest case of implosion at a provider of trade finance.
The Mauritius-based fund is seeking investor approval to move ahead with a restructuring plan that involves spinning off illiquid holdings into separate vehicles for clients who want to hold on to their assets, according to documents sent to investors last month and seen by Bloomberg.
The move follows the fund’s decision a year ago to freeze its money pool as some investments became trapped in a series of hard-to-sell assets across the continent of Africa.
The firm “has not seen any significant improvement in the liquidity position of the funds and as such has had to proactively manage the risk components linked to the mismatch between the liquidity of the underlying assets and the liquidity offered to investors,” Barak told clients in the proposal document.
Barak’s troubles are a reminder of how plowing money into higher-yielding yet hard-to-sell assets can hurt investors when they want their money back quickly, a danger exacerbated by the global pandemic as prices began tumbling across financial markets last year.
They also come at a time of growing scrutiny toward trade finance companies. London-based Greensill Capital, among the biggest such independent firms, was left fighting for survival this month as investors cut ties over concerns about the creditworthiness of its borrowers, and Credit Suisse Group AG moved to wind down a $10 billion group of supply chain finance funds linked to financier Lex Greensill because of valuation concerns.
Barak’s auditor, PwC, resigned last year before completing the 2019 audit of the fund.
A spokesman declined to comment when contacted by Bloomberg on Wednesday. PwC was replaced by Macintyre Hudson, the document shows.
A Johannesburg, South Africa-based spokesman for Barak declined to comment.
Barak, founded by Jean Craven and Prieur du Plessis, launched its flagship Structured Trade Finance Fund with $300,000 in 2009.
The fund grew to manage in excess of $1 billion by 2018 as banks retreated from the sector, prompting cash-strapped businesses to seek alternative sources of finance.
Barak was one such provider. The fund extended loans to about 150 borrowers, disbursed $4 billion and in the process provided a steady return to investors with not a single down month until the pandemic began ripping through financial markets a year ago.
On April 6 last year, the fund froze all subscriptions and redemptions because of “valuation uncertainty.”
Last month, the firm told clients that the investment objectives of the funds it ran were no longer “reasonably achievable” and asked its board to maintain the suspension and proceed with liquidation, according to the document, which details the extent of the fund’s exposure to assets so illiquid that they may take years to sell.
The fund previously allowed investors to take money out every quarter.
The fund’s current exposure is spread over 97 borrowers in transactions including working-capital financing, according to the restructuring document.
As much as 54% of its assets are deemed illiquid, with the heaviest concentration in sectors such as coal mining, consumer goods and fertilizer production in countries from South Africa to Kenya and Congo, the document shows.
The firm has provisioned $184 million -- about a fifth of its assets -- for potential losses against liquid and illiquid investments.
It has also sought investors’ permission to hire an undisclosed advisory firm managing $300 billion to help oversee the process.
Clients opting for liquidation will get their cash back when the firm is able to sell holdings.
Those remaining invested will get allocations in a relatively liquid part of the fund, which will continue to put money into the private debt market, and a “side-pocket” created to park illiquid holdings.
“We understand the path to recovery will be challenging,” Barak said in the client document.
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South Africa All Share Bloomberg
Africa
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Dollar versus Rand Chart INO 14.9446
Africa
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Egypt Pound versus The Dollar Chart INO 15.7369
Africa
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Ghana Stock Exchange Composite Index Bloomberg
Africa
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Pleased our Economic Partnership Agreement has passed through both Kenya and United Kingdom Parliament. We look forward to the exchange of ratification instruments soon. @JaneMarriottUK
Kenyan Economy
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We are distressingly scaling the heights of the red zone today being highest at 14% positivity rate for #COVID19KE @DrAhmedKalebi
Africa
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Kenya reports 713 new Covid-19 cases, the HIGHEST SINCE 5th Dec 2020. Today's test hit rate of 13.6% is the HIGHEST SINCE 27th Nov 2020 Serious & critical cases back to Dec 2020 levels. @MihrThakar
Africa
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Kenya Shilling versus The Dollar Live ForexPros 109.65
Kenyan Economy
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Nairobi All Share Bloomberg
N.S.E General
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Nairobi ^NSE20 Bloomberg
N.S.E General
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Every Listed Share Can Be Interrogated Here
N.S.E General
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