Welcome to RICH.CO.KE - Satchu's Wrapup

Satchu's Rich Wrap-Up

Friday 23rd of April 2021

Afternoon

Africa

Macro Thoughts

World Of Finance

"As a macro investor, my job for 30 years was to anticipate changes in the economic trends that were not expected by others - and therefore not yet reflected in securities prices". Stanley Druckenmiller

World Of Finance

08-FEB-2021 :: The Markets Are Wilding

World Of Finance

Title: Bar, Las Vegas, Nevada Artist: Robert Frank

Misc.

The lights must never go out, The music must always play

Misc.

“Derivatives,” Alvin said. “I don’t speculate about the future, I trade it.” @NewYorker

Misc.

And they were cross‑linked and interwoven and resold in large bundles, “future on future,” Alvin said, handing me a paper towel.

“Forget about the forces of the free market, my friend. Commodity prices no longer refer to any value, past or present—they’re just ghosts from the future.”

Conclusions

The Consensus View appears to be that the Global economy is going to accelerate big time and that its going to BOOM! I beg to differ

08-MAR-2021 :: The World is pirouetting on the pinhead of the Yield of the US 10 YR The lights must never go out The music must always play

Misc.

Giacometti 'Walking Man'

Misc.

28-MAR-2021 :: I expect UST 10 YEAR YIELDS TO TARGET 1.45%

World Of Finance

Home Thoughts

Africa

Sunrise over Lake Malawi at the close of last year's festival. Photo by @JoseemeRollin @LakeofStars

Africa

Luminous and Fairy Tale

Misc.

The Specials - Do Nothing (2015 Remaster)

Misc.

Ecclesiastes 1:2-11 2 Vanity[a] of vanities, says the Preacher

Misc.

Vanity[a] of vanities, says the Preacher,

vanity of vanities! All is vanity.

A generation goes, and a generation comes,

but the earth remains forever.

The sun rises, and the sun goes down,

and hastens[b] to the place where it rises.

What has been is what will be,

and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there a thing of which it is said,

“See, this is new”?

It has been already

in the ages before us.

There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance

of later things[d] yet to be

among those who come after.

"Time is a flat circle. Everything we have done or will do we will do over and over and over again- forever."

Misc.

Road like this takes your soul and set you free. The #kalahari @Thapelo_kgopz

Misc.

"Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road" - Jack Kerouac

Misc.

Sunrise walk up the Nguruman escarpment, with views of the plains, Mt Shompole and Loita hills. @shetweezy

Africa

Octavio Paz. @princessekateri

Misc.

“In my body you search the mountain

for the sun buried in its forest.

In your body I search for the boat

adrift in the middle of the night.”

Octavio Paz The Street

Misc.

Here is a long and silent street.

I walk in blackness and I stumble and fall

and rise, and I walk blind, my feet

trampling the silent stones and the dry leaves.

Someone behind me also tramples, stones, leaves:

if I slow down, he slows;

if I run, he runs I turn : nobody.

Everything dark and doorless,

only my steps aware of me,

I turning and turning among these corners

which lead forever to the street

where nobody waits for, nobody follows me,

where I pursue a man who stumbles

and rises and says when he sees me : nobody.

Political Reflections

Law & Politics

The Syrian missile exploded in mid-air, sending fragments crashing down, with pieces landing in the community of Ashalim, some 40 kilometers from the nuclear reactor in Dimona @TimesofIsrael

Law & Politics

“There was no intention of hitting the nuclear reactor in Dimona,” Zilberman told reporters.

Conclusions

A Message in a Missile

Dimona nuclear reactor, Israel. Satellite image of secret nuclear research facility in the Negev desert, Israel.

Law & Politics

06-JAN-2020 :: The Escalation of 'Shadow War'

Law & Politics

874,381 new coronavirus cases reported in 24 hours, the biggest one-day increase since the pandemic began, and 14,033 new deaths - WHO @BNODesk

Misc.

A virulent plague that “travelled through the air as if on wings, it burned through cities like fire”. The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

Misc.

#COVID19 #thirdwave has surpassed the #secondwave in daily reported cases. @AsjadNaqvi

Misc.

In #India cases are exploding with the new #B1617 variant and capacity constraints might hit soon. It is now 40% of global cases.

28-MAR-2021 :: We are once again entering an exponential escape velocity Phase #COVID19

Misc.

The Virus remains an exogenous uncertainty that is still not resolved though all the virologists who have metastasized into vaccinologists will have you believe its all sunlit uplands from here.

Glorious sunrise at the Borana conservancy @nickdimbleby @JamboMagazine

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

Misc.

Brazil 45,178 #COVID19 cases yesterday most in South America but below 60,185/day avg down -4% past 2wks. Argentina 23,945 and Colombia 16,843 avg cases/day up >50% past 2wks. @jmlukens

Misc.

22 April #COVID19 snapshot: 👉332320 new cases, 2256 deaths 👉7-day average TPR: 17.95% @RijoMJohn

Misc.

The reproduction number (R) of SARS-CoV-2 in India has been very high at 1.4 based on cases. Measured based on reported deaths the figure is closer to 1.5. @lrossouw

Misc.

The Pandemic is a Portal

Misc.

@narendramodi Owns India’s Unfolding Covid Disaster Even an illusionist as masterful as Modi will find it difficult to spin them to his advantage. @bopinion Pankaj Mishra

Misc.

Bodies are piling up at crematoriums in India. Photographer: Anindito Mukherjee/Getty Images

Misc.

Narendra ‘’Benito’’ Modi

Law & Politics

India Official counts of deaths are several times lower than the numbers of people being cremated at special COVID sites @FT

Misc.

If applied nationally, that would mean that instead of 1,700 deaths per day, India is currently seeing 17,000. @jburnmurdoch

Misc.

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

Misc.

The IHME estimates the true number of cases and this is how their estimates compare with the reported number of cases in India. @MaxCRoser

Misc.

Nawab Malik, an opposition minister in Maharashtra, hit back that if vaccination certificates continued to carry Modi’s image: “We demand the prime minister’s photo should be put on death certificates too”

Law & Politics

Blood and Soil in @narendramodi’s India @NewYorker

Law & Politics

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”

Law & Politics

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”

"Do you understand what I'm saying?" he said "We are capable of delivering any message we want to the public - whether sweet or sour true or fake." said @AmitShah

Law & Politics

#COVIDEmergency2021 @suhasinih

Misc.

27 JUL 20 :: Drinking the Kool-Aid

Misc.

There is something Karmic in this #COVID19

Misc.

“We expect a repeat of 2020’s sudden crash in economic activity in the coming months,” said Timothy Wee Lee Tan and Jason Lee, Bloomberg Intelligence analysts.

Misc.

28-MAR-2021 :: We have now passed peak vaccine euphoria because we are seeing a sustained acceleration in mutant viruses

Misc.

Indian variant B.1.617 aside from mutations E484Q&L452R in spike receptor binding domain lead to increase affinity to human ACE2 receptors, increased infectivity & viral replication & some cellular & humoral immune escape @TWenseleers

Misc.

Indian variant B.1.617 has a couple of interesting mutations: aside from mutations E484Q&L452R in the spike receptor binding domain, which lead to increase affinity to human ACE2 receptors, increased infectivity & viral replication & some cellular & humoral immune escape

B.1.617 .it also has mutation P681R, which adds one more R at the furin cleavage site, making it even more polybasic (PRRAR became RRRAR). @TWenseleers

Misc.

This likely boosts cell-level infectivity by facilitating cleavage of the S precursor protein to the active S1/S2 configuration.

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.

An even more polybasic furin cleavage site in SARS2 cannot be a good thing. RRRAR in the mutant instead of the canonical PRRAR. Could it be the reason behind the third wave spikes in India and other countries? @ydeigin

Misc.

A bit concerned by scientists claiming with absolute certainty that VOCs will not evade vaccine responses & that this has never happened in 'real people'. @dgurdasani1

Misc.

A bit concerned by scientists claiming with absolute certainty that VOCs will not evade vaccine responses & that this has never happened in 'real people'.

This has happened in clinical trials & dismissing very real risks provides false reassurance & prevents pre-emptive action.

“The variants are like a thoroughbred and our vaccines are like a workhorse,” noted evolutionary biologist Sally Otto.

Misc.

The statement that no variant has escaped disease induced immunity is likely false based on the epidemiology of outbreaks in Latin America, South Africa &c. @OYCar

Misc.

The statement that no variant has escaped disease induced immunity is likely false based on the epidemiology of outbreaks in Latin America, South Africa &c. Indeed the onus of proof is reversed in this claim; to make it you need to show it hasn't happened, rather than it has.

Now for the kicker on Evidence Based Science: New variant is here, all of the existing evidence is worthless, obsolete. @yaneerbaryam

Misc.

What you gonna do? Start all over again? Or make incorrect assumption of independence from the change (not evidence based!).

Although efforts to develop second-generation Covid-19 vaccines targeted against B.1.351 and P1-like variants are under way, the only Covid-19 vaccines likely to be available for most of 2021 have been formulated against the original virus.

Misc.

International Markets

World Of Finance

Currency Markets at a Glance WSJ

World Currencies

Euro 1.2052

Dollar Index 91.045

Japan Yen 107.90

Swiss Franc 0.9164

Pound 1.3885

Aussie 0.7743

India Rupee 74.8175 [SELL] TARGET 80.00

South Korea Won 1117.32

Brazil Real 5.445

Egypt Pound 15.6935

South Africa Rand 14.27315

The #USD has reversed most of its recent gains. @jsblokland 91.045

World Of Finance

$EURUSD 1hr Chart: See Chart @FXPIPTITAN 1.2053

World Currencies

Coffee lovers and home bakers drive strongest Nestle quarter in a decade

Commodities

Coffee drinkers, pet owners and home bakers helped to drive the biggest rise in quarterly sales at Nestle (NESN.S) for 10 years, as the world's biggest food group outshone Danone (DANO.PA) and set a high bar for Unilever (ULVR.L).

The Swiss group has weathered the COVID-19 pandemic well so far, as consumers have bought more packaged foods and tried to brighten up lockdowns with Starbucks at-home coffee or making treats with Carnation evaporated milk.

Nestle's ecommerce business also fared well in the first quarter, with sales up 40%, and its health science business benefitted as people bought more vitamins and supplements. Demand for fortified milks boosted dairy too.

"What a blow out – the strongest quarterly number since 2011," Kepler Cheuvreux analyst Jon Cox said, pointing to a recovery in emerging markets, while Bernstein analyst Bruno Monteyne described the figures as an "amazing beat".

Organic sales leapt 7.7% in the first quarter versus 4.3% in the same period last year, easily beating a forecast for 3.3% growth in a company-compiled consensus and a 3.3% drop in sales posted by peer Danone (DANO.PA) this week.

Coffee was the largest contributor to growth, with Nespresso portioned coffee up more than 17%, dairy rising almost 16% and petcare around 9%, Nestle said

The Way We Live Now

Misc.

@Nespresso London @Bader_AlQabandi

Misc.

Rapidly rising virus cases pushes back the timeline for global travel recovery. @DavidInglesTV

Misc.

10-MAY-2020 :: For example Tourism – I believe it is stopped out through Q4 2021 [even with a Vaccine]

Tourism, Travel & Transport

YELLEN TO PROPOSE CAPITAL GAINS TAX AS HIGH AS 80% FOR CRYPTO TRADING - HEARD ON STREET @acpandy

World Of Finance

Taxes and central planner power moves controlling their assundry #psyops are Brutal @mcm_ct

World Of Finance

26-NOV-2018 :: "It's because I'm a bad trader and I KNOW I'M A BAD TRADER. Yeah you good traders can spot the highs and the lows pit pat piffy wing wong wang just like that and make a millino bucks sure no problem bro."

World Of Finance

GameKyuubi posted "I AM HODLING," a drunk, semi-coherent, typo-laden rant about his poor trading skills and determination to simply hold his bitcoin from that point on.

"I type d that tyitle twice because I knew it was wrong the first time. Still wrong. w/e," he wrote in reference to the now-famous misspelling of "holding."

"WHY AM I HOLDING? I'LL TELL YOU WHY," he continued. "It's because I'm a bad trader and I KNOW I'M A BAD TRADER. Yeah you good traders can spot the highs and the lows pit pat piffy wing wong wang just like that and make a millino bucks sure no problem bro."

He concluded that the best course was to hold, since "You only sell in a bear market if you are a good day trader or an illusioned noob. The people inbetween hold. In a zero-sum game such as this, traders can only take your money if you sell."

He then confessed he'd had some whiskey and briefly mused about the spelling of whisk(e)y.

#bitcoin falls below USD 50,000! @jsblokland

World Currencies

$DOGE is in a Great Depression now @DereckCoatney

World Currencies

08-FEB-2021 :: The Markets Are Wilding @elonmusk I am become meme, Destroyer of shorts

World Currencies

And on February 4 He tested that hypothesis

No highs, no lows, only Doge @elonmusk Feb 4

Dogecoin is the people’s crypto @elonmusk Feb 4

You have it all wrong The Pink Tulips aren't Trading Tulips, they're investing Tulips @StockCats

The hardest thing at the peak is to be the naysayer the short seller.

Anybody can be decisive during a panic It takes a strong Man to act during a Boom. VS NAIPAUL

“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.”

...and so then I says to the guy, "listen - you don't understand Radio..." @coloradotravis

Commodities

Commodities

Commodity Markets at a Glance WSJ

Commodities

$GOLD Big Picture View: Its been a nice bounce, but zooming out reveals this move is likely young This targets $1850 then $2200 @AdamMancini4 1783.00

Commodities

1) Gold held its core uptrend line from 2019 on March 30

2) Its been building a clean bull flag for 7 months

3) This targets $1850 then $2200, but 1700 must hold now

28-MAR-2021 :: GOLD HAS COMPLETED ITS CONSOLIDATION AND IS HEADED BACK TO ATHS

Commodities

Excellent follow through in $GOLD and en route to my 1820/1850 first targets. @AdamMancini4

Commodities

Also important to note: We collapsed in March was because Gold lost the major low from November at 1765. We've now recaptured it, making March's selloff a fake breakdown. Strong bottoming pattern

04-JAN-2021 :: What Will Happen In 2021 My Top Trades are Gold and Silver. I expect Gold to top $2,500 this year and Silver to reach $50.00

Commodities

India’s gold imports from Switzerland surged to highest in almost eight years in March @chigrl

Commodities

28-MAR-2021 :: CRUDE OIL IS OVERCOOKED ABOVE $60.00 AND WILL FALL SHARPLY

Commodities

Crude Oil 6 Month Chart INO 61.93

Commodities

Sub Saharan Africa

Africa

'A decline in the pandemic’s trajectory seen since January has now plateaued." - Dr @RichardMihigo @WHOAFRO

Africa

368,202 Active COVID-19 Cases in Africa @BeautifyData +22% off its lows from 15 days ago

Africa

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

Africa

Africa is currently reporting a million new infections about every 84 days @ReutersGraphics

Africa

A novel variant Tanzania Up until the discovery of the new variant, all other variants of interest or concern derive from a common ancestral virus, the B.1 strain This is not so for the newly described variant @Forbes @WmHaseltine

Africa

The versatility of SARS-CoV-2 to evolve new variants that increase transmissibility, virulence, and immune evasion is a new troubling feature of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The recent discovery of a novel variant emerging from Tanzania adds a new chapter to this disturbing story.

Up until the discovery of the new variant, all other variants of interest or concern derive from a common ancestral virus, the B.1 strain that first made its appearance in early 2020.

This is not so for the newly described variant. It evolved from an entirely different source, the A lineage, a finding that substantially expands our understanding of the repertoire of mutants we must be prepared to contend with in the months and years ahead.

The difference between the A and B lineages are three mutations that have come to define the B lineage that has displaced almost all others around the world.

The common understanding is that a single amino acid change in the spike protein, the D614G mutation, increases both the ability of the virus to bind to the ACE2 receptor and, at the same time, stabilizes the interaction between the S1 and S2 protein of the spike, conferring an increase in transmissibility.

I and others have suggested that the D614G substitution may not be all to the story of success for the B.1 variant.

The B.1 lineage viruses carry two additional mutations: the P323L mutation in the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (NSP12), which is the key to virus replication and the production of viral mRNA and another mutation in the 5 prime untranslated region of the genome.

Although hardly studied, both of these mutations may contribute, along with D614G, to the replication competence and transmissibility in the spike protein.

The Tanzanian variant (which is how I will denote it as it lacks official designation) teaches us that variants of interest and concern may lack all three defining mutations of the B.1 strain.

Nonetheless, the new variant is of interest and of possible concern as it carries a number of mutations in the spike protein characteristic of other bonafide variants of concern from the B.1 lineage.

Of the 13 mutations that distinguish the spike protein of the Tanzanian variant from the original Wuhan strain, eight are found in the B.1 family of variants.

This is a remarkable illustration of convergent evolution. No one B.1 variant carries all these mutations, but each must confer some selective advantage to the A lineage variant.

It is worth noting the five spike mutations unique to the Tanzanian virus, as they are likely to appear sooner or later in B.1 linage variants as well.

The observation of greatest concern is that the Tanzanian virus posses the E484K mutation found in many of the B.1 variants of concern.

This mutation confers resistance to neutralizing antibodies of convalescent and vaccine plasma and also reduces the activity of some neutralizing monoclonal antibodies.

This observation suggests that like other variants, this Tanzanian virus may heed resistant, at least partially, to the current generation of Covid-19 vaccines.

The E484K mutation also increases the affinity of the spike protein for the ACE2 receptor, raising the possibility of increased transmissibility.

Another mutation of note in the spike protein is P681H. This change occurs near the cleavage site between the S1 and S2 spike subproteins.

We and others speculate that this mutation increases transmissibility by increasing the efficiency of the spike precursor S protein, a requirement for infectivity.

All of the variants of concern carry a number of mutants in the N-terminal domain of the spike protein.

Again, in an example of convergent evolution, four of these mutations are present in B.1 lineage variants, but not all together in any other single variant.

The N-terminal domain contains a super antigenic site, the target of many neutralizing antibodies. Many of the N-terminal domain mutants of the Tanzanian virus map to this site.

As no specific function is attributed as yet to the N-terminal domain, this set of mutations is thought to increase the ability of the virus to escape immune detection.

I suspect that is not all there is to the story. We can ask the question: Why are there such convergence-specific mutations in the superantigenic and other sites? Investigations of the functions of the N-terminal domain deserve further study.

An additional 18 amino acid changes occur in proteins outside the spike protein.

These include 14 in the orf1ab proteins that specify the replication complex. Extensive mutations in the replication complex are a common feature of B.1 linage variants.

I and others speculate that these mutations confer enhanced replication competence, contributing to an increase in viral load virulence and transmission.

Not all of the selective advantage of variants is readily attributed to mutations in the spike proteins alone.

Of the remaining four amino acid changes outside of the spike protein, there are two in the structural proteins, one each in the envelope (E) protein and nucleocapsid (N) protein.

Antibodies targeting both are present in convalescent plasma raising the possibility that these changes contribute to immune evasion.

The remaining two mutants both change the coding sequence of the accessory orf8 protein.

One of these is identical to a mutation in a B.1 linage variant of concern.

I note that orf8 is amongst the most frequently mutated viral proteins common to all variants of concern.

The orf8 protein is one of the most antigenic of the SARS-CoV-2 proteins, raising the reasonable hypothesis that these are escape mutants.

Elsewhere, some have suggested that orf8 may slow viral replication and that mutations that truncate the orf8 protein otherwise reduce its function may increase the viral load in infected patients.

So why is this new variant relevant? This is another variant we have to be especially vigilant towards.

It may be as infectious and immune evasive as the widespread B.1.1.7 and B.1.351 variants, in addition to potential reinfection capabilities, as they carry similar mutations.

It also represents why we need more comprehensive variant surveillance around the world.

Were this not detected in the Angolan airport, it may have caused havoc in the country and elsewhere.

We do not yet know exactly how dangerous the Tanzanian variant may be.

That is partly due to the new total blackout of information during the pandemic from that country.

Official data would have that no infections have occurred in Tanzania since May 2020, which is clearly not the case.

The appearance of a new variant of interest and possibly of concern detected in travelers from that country highlights the need for transparency, both for the control of Covid-19 within the country and for the dangers viruses emanating from Tanzania may pose for the rest of the world.

Tanzanian Variant lineage is reference to other variants @Forbes @WmHaseltine

Africa

Tanzanian Variant spike protein: Mutations in red are those found in “B” lineage variants; mutations ... [+] AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY @Forbes @WmHaseltine

Africa

FIGURE 2 SPIKE MUTATIONS: Δ144 is shared with B.1.1.7 and B.1.525; D215G is shared with B.1.351 and ... [+] @Forbes @WmHaseltine

Africa

Tanzanian variant branched off Wuhan 1.0 strain but acquired all the bad mutations of #B117 & #B1351 independently—convergent evolution @DrEricDing

Africa

It’s a start. If we want vaccines to be successful we need to stop variants traveling the world hitching rides in airplane passengers. @yaneerbaryam

Africa

08-MAR-2021 :: ultra hyperconnectedness of the c21st World

Africa

The US military now sees @M_Farmaajo’s power grab as posing a bigger threat to American interest in Somalia than even Al Shabab. Just WOW @adancabdulle

Africa

France, Libya and the ‘crazy’ frontline death of Chad strongman Déby @FinancialTimes

Africa

Killing of ‘warrior’ leader at heart of fight against jihadis heralds uncertain era in the Sahel

By the time Chad’s electoral commission had declared President Idriss Déby Itno the winner of his sixth term, the former general was already dead or dying from wounds sustained hundreds of miles away at the front line of a firefight with a rebel convoy sweeping south from Libya.

The death of the strongman of N’Djamena — a rare modern case of a head of state dying in battle — blows a hole in the French-led fight against jihadism, removes the west’s greatest African ally in the war on extremism and strands Chadians in the middle of an internal power struggle.

After three decades of his brutal and kleptocratic rule, “the sudden death of President Idriss Déby has left Chad in a state of political, security and social uncertainty”, said Kelma Manatouma, a Chadian researcher at Paris-Nanterre university.

Chad is not only the most important regional army fighting alongside France’s 5,000-troop Operation Barkhane in the Sahel but is the main player in the decade-long fight against jihadis Boko Haram, picking up the slack for Nigeria’s under-equipped army.

“In his absence, if there is not a smooth transition or if this rebellion gets serious and Chad is distracted and taken out of the equation, the security implications for Sahel and even for Nigeria are relatively dire,” said J Peter Pham, who served as Sahel envoy for the Trump administration.

The circumstances of Déby’s death remain murky. With his 37-year-old son now interim leader, some observers have speculated that the mounting resentment within the army and his ruling clan had finally come to a head.

But it was not surprising that on the day election results were announced Déby had travelled hundreds of kilometres to the front line of the battle with Libya-based rebels from the Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT), said Cameron Hudson, an expert at the Atlantic Council, even if it was “crazy”.

“This is entirely in keeping with his MO and his persona. He [was] a battlefield commander, that’s where he [was] most comfortable,” said Hudson, a former US government official on Africa.

“Previous coup attempts he has gone to the front lines and personally directed assaults and campaigns. He [was] a military tactician through and through and that was a reason Paris and Washington liked him so much.”

General Stephen Townsend, the top US commander for Africa, told Congress that Chadian troops with French support had confronted a rebel column hundreds of vehicles long that appeared to be withdrawing when Déby was apparently struck. Many of the rebels are former Chadian officers.

A French miscalculation?

This was just the latest French intervention on behalf of Déby, who has faced a series of uprisings since seizing power in 1990.

Two years ago, Paris sent fighter jets to strike another rebel convoy heading for N’Djamena; in 2008, French soldiers helped beat back another insurrection.

Déby’s hands-on approach against jihadis and his highly capable army encouraged France and the US to turn a blind eye to the repression and rampant corruption that left the oil-rich country among the poorest in the world.

“Whatever else one may think of Déby and how he governed Chad . . . over the course of 30 years he has made himself the centre of a web of political and security links that run across that whole region,” said Pham.

“He intentionally made himself useful if not indispensable.”

President Emmanuel Macron, who will attend Déby’s state funeral, called him “a courageous friend” of France, as the Chadian army dissolved parliament and instituted an 18-month transitional military government.

France’s foreign minister defended the unconstitutional takeover in the name of “stability” despite an outcry from Chad’s opposition and a general who said he spoke for many soldiers.

The ex-colonial power had “miscalculated” by depending so much on Déby, said a European diplomat in the region.

“Chad, and his military and security apparatus at large, was always considered to be the backbone of [France’s military alliance in the Sahel] and this backbone is now in danger,” the person said.

While General Mahamat Idriss Déby, the head of the elite presidential guard, known as “Kaka”, had been groomed to replace his father, “no one in the Chadian regime, whether son or nephew, can lead the country as Déby used to”, said a French diplomat with close knowledge of France’s Africa policy.

Blowback from Libya

The Chadian rebels’ indirect ties to the rogue Libyan general Khalifa Haftar, who failed to overthrow the former government in Tripoli and is believed to have used FACT to secure an air base, complicates matters further.

Haftar has received backing from Paris but also from the United Arab Emirates and Russia, France’s main rival for influence in the neighbouring Central African Republic.

A warrior dynasty in Chad will do little to end Islamist threat

Russia’s indirect support for these rebels hints at a potential proxy war, said Jérôme Tubiana, a researcher focused on Chad.

“France is losing the Central African Republic, and now Russia is maybe pushing also against French interests in Chad.”

At the very least “the incursion into Chad shows the potential for blowback due to the practice of the Libyan parties of recruiting foreign mercenaries as fighters,” said Wolfram Lacher, senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

A French diplomat who knew Déby expressed a romantic view of the late president common in Paris, calling him a “warrior” who “wanted to die in battle rather than in a hospital bed”.

“He died as he lived,” the person said. “He was ruthless, cynical, he could have done much better with the oil. But he was in his specific way honest. He didn’t pretend to be what he wasn’t.”

Ayisha Osori, head of the Open Society Initiative for West Africa, said the Parisian view betrayed a casual indifference to the fate of ordinary Chadians.

“It just seems fundamentally unfair that the whole world’s view of Déby is ‘oh, we’ve lost the great soldier’,” she said.

“And now we have to do everything to make sure Chad is secure. But we don’t really mean Chad, we just mean the borders around Chad — the border that leads to Mali, to Nigeria, to Sudan, to Central African Republic.

“It is not about the people of Chad and what’s good for them.”

Idriss Déby Itno, centre: his tough approach against jihadis and proficient army encouraged France and the US to turn a blind eye to repression and corruption in Chad © STR/AFP via Getty Images FinancialTimes

Africa

#Deby is dead. #Chad’s future is in the balance. Rebels seem very well equipped. Note the blue vehicles bearing the flag of a neighbouring country. Inconclusive but worth examining. @DinoMahtani

Africa

Conclusions

These Folks are well provisioned. The Question is by whom? This is a Question @Emmanuelmacron must be surely asking himself. looks like Putin to me.

28 OCT 19 :: From Russia with Love

Africa

“Russia regards Africa as an important and active participant in the emerging polycentric architecture of the world order and an ally in protecting international law against attempts to undermine it,” said Russian deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov

Recently we have seen Russian interventions in the Central African Republic CAR.

In July this year, a three-minute animated video appeared on YouTube. Called Lionbear, the cartoon was aimed at children and told the story of a brave but beleaguered Central African lion, who was fighting a losing battle against a pack of hungry hyenas.

Luckily the lion had a friend who came to the rescue — the strong Russian bear. The bear fights off the hyenas brings peace to the land and everyone lives happily ever after.

Andrew Korybko writes Moscow invaluably fills the much-needed niche of providing its partners there with “Democratic Security”, or in other words, the cost-effective and low-commitment capabilities needed to thwart colour revolutions and resol- ve unconventional Wars (collectively referred to as Hybrid War).

To simplify, Russia’s “political technologists” have reportedly devised bespoke solutions for confronting incipient and ongoing color revolutions, just like its private military contractors (PMCs) have supposedly done the same when it comes to ending insurgencies

02-DEC-2019 :: Salif Keita, released a video on his Facebook page in which he tells President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita to stop “subjecting yourself to little Emmanuel Macron– he’s just a kid.”

Africa

There is another kind of paradise—the battlefield.”The front, he said, was “the lost paradise of the human beings.”

Africa

The heir of the Marshal of Chad seated in the chair where his Father once sat. @rfemassala

Africa

French President Emmanuel Macron, Guinean President Alpha Conde and several other African heads of state arrived in N'Djamena despite warnings from the rebels that foreign leaders should not attend Friday's funeral for security reasons.

Africa

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the military was justified in its actions as the speaker of parliament had declined to take charge. @Reuters.

Africa

"Logically, it should be (speaker Haroun) Kabadi ... but he refused because of the exceptional security reasons that were needed to ensure the stability of this country," Le Drian told France 2 television.

Macron met General Deby on Thursday evening, a source at the French presidency said.

Deby, although criticised by human rights groups for his repressive rule over three decades, was a lynchpin in France's security strategy in Africa.

About 5,100 French troops are based across the region as part of international operations to fight Islamist militants and France has its main base in N'Djamena.

Dissent within the military has raised concerns about stability in Chad.

"Kaka (Mahamat Deby) only has partial support of the army. He is young and, unlike his father, has never been a rebel," said Jerome Tubiana, an analyst specialising on Chad.

"Within the army, there's indeed (at least) two groups."

Re-election, Death and Putsch: A zero Sum Game. @hervegogo

Africa

Turning To Africa

Africa

Aux proches du président Idriss Deby, à ses soldats et au peuple tchadien, j’adresse mes condoléances les plus sincères. @MLP_officiel

Africa

La France perd un allié, mais surtout un ami.

Sa rigueur, sa discipline, sa disponibilité et son courage nous manqueront.

To the relatives of President Idriss Deby, his soldiers and the Chadian people, I send my most sincere condolences.

France loses an ally, but above all a friend.

His rigor, his discipline, his availability and his courage will be missed.

“Ours is the most cryptic of Centuries, it’s true Nature a Dark Secret” @SalmanRushdie

Africa

South Africa All Share Bloomberg

Africa

Dollar versus Rand Chart INO 14.2731

Africa

Egypt Pound versus The Dollar Chart INO 15.7046

Africa

Egypt EGX30 Bloomberg

Africa

Just got of the phone with a PE investors with investments in Nigeria. “Being an investor in Nigeria right now is a miserable experience”. Sigh. @afalli

Africa

Nigeria All Share Bloomberg

Africa

#Ghana: The economy narrowly missed economic contraction in 2020, with the full-year GDP print coming in at 0.4%. @RMBCIB

Africa

The combination of an early lockdown, a spike in inflation due to panic buying, and weaker oil prices weighed on the economy.

Ghana Stock Exchange Composite Index Bloomberg

Africa

Kenya

Africa

Running out of public credit @Africa_Conf

Africa

As the Jubilee government plans a referendum on another costly bout of devolution, citizens protest against rising debt

Arguments over public debt and fiscal balance have left the cabinet rooms and think tanks for the streets.

At home and in public meeting places, Kenyans are airing concerns that government borrowing is out of control.

Several petitions, signed by thousands, urge the International Monetary Fund to reconsider its decision this month to lend President Uhuru Kenyatta's government $2.34 billion in a three-year financing package

The IMF conditions for the loan include reducing the size of the civil service to cut high wage bills, although ministers are likely to try to avoid job cuts, and a programme of privatisation and restructuring of state corporations.

The funding programme includes a commitment to fight corruption and broaden the tax base.

Yet confidence in the government's anti-graft campaign is close to zero.

Tax reform is urgently needed. Government is reluctant to focus on corporate tax evasion, property levies and compliance measures in general.

Instead, it is likely to raise fuel duty and income tax, both of which disproportionately hit the poor and the lower middle class.

Most of the elite can circumvent income tax while holding out against taxes on their land and property.

'Previous loans to the Kenya government have not been prudently utilised and have often resulted in mega-corruption scandals,' reads a petition circulating online and on social media.

Public debt is rising towards 70% of GDP. Grand new infrastructure projects and hefty budget deficits in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic mean still higher debt levels in the coming years (AC Vol 61 No 20, A DIY debt trap).

Before the pandemic struck, Kenya was spending 40% of its tax revenue on debt repayment.

Public opposition will not stop the latest IMF loan. But it is a clear message ahead of elections next August: voters are watching ever more closely how politicians spend public funds.

Cooking gas prices to rise Sh350 on new tax. @BD_Africa

Kenyan Economy

Mobile phone masts across East Africa. Kenya's economic activity stands out. And so does it's concentration along Mombasa - Busia Highway. @denniskioko

Information & Communication Technology

Speaking to various companies shows dramatic drop in super petrol and diesel demand since the lock down started. As low as 20% with the average being 15%. @J_Njogu

Kenyan Economy

Kenya’s trade deficit widened by 13.48% to Shs 199b in first two months of the year largely driven by increased expenditure on fuel imports and manufactured materials @moneyacademyKE

Kenyan Economy

364 Day Treasury bond yields have increased by 2% between July 2020 and now @TheAbojani

Kenyan Bonds - Long Term

Kenya's remittance inflows continue to outperform expectations. The latest central bank estimates suggest remittances over Jan-March 2021 were 17% up on Jan-March 2020 (27% y-o-y in March 2021) @IEAKwame @DWteVelde

Kenyan Economy

Kenya Shilling versus The Dollar Live ForexPros

World Currencies

Nairobi All Share Bloomberg

N.S.E General

Nairobi ^NSE20 Bloomberg

N.S.E General

Foreign investors net sellers @NSE_PLC KES 1.98B withdrawn from the NSE since January. KES 1.01B [51% of year's total] withdrawn in April alone. @MwangoCapital

N.S.E General

Every Listed Share can be interrogated here

N.S.E General

by Aly Khan Satchu (rich.co.ke)

April 2021

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