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Morning
Africa
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Register and its all Free.
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Poetry pure: As it turned out the best hedge against the joke of unlimited money printing was a joke currency. #dogecoin @NorthmanTrader
World Of Finance
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08-FEB-2021 :: The Markets Are Wilding
World Of Finance
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Earliest Known Human Burial in Africa @nature
Africa
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Scientists have named the child Mtoto, meaning "the kid" in Swahili.
"It was like excavating a shadow," said Prof María Martinón-Torres, director of Spain's National Research Center on Human Evolution.
"[When we moved the cast], we didn't know we were carrying a child in our arms," she told the BBC's Inside Science programme.
The researchers were able to study the teeth to confirm that this was the tiny body of a human child - between two and three years old.
Scans revealed that the body had been laid in a fetal position.
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Child's burial 78,000 years ago in Kenya was a Homo sapiens milestone @Reuters
Africa
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It is a scene that exudes sadness: a child perhaps 2-1/2 or 3 years old buried in a shallow grave under the sheltered overhang of a cave, head resting on a pillow and the upper part of the body carefully wrapped in a shroud.
Scientists said on Wednesday they have found the oldest-known human burial in Africa, the continent that gave rise to our species, dating to about 78,000 years ago at a cave site called Panga ya Saidi near the Kenyan coast.
They nicknamed the youngster 'Mtoto,' meaning 'child' in Swahili.
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“Ours is the most cryptic of Centuries, it’s true Nature a Dark Secret” @SalmanRushdie
Africa
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Its a bit of a drive from Kilifi - and this photo doesn't do justice to quite how bright and saturated the red of the soil and green of plant life can be @palaeolicious
Africa
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The walk to site: In those trees is a ridge, and in that ridge is a cave, and in that cave @palaeolicious
Africa
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and everyday, entering the cave you walk through a cloud of butterflies - which i have entirely failed to capture for you here @palaeolicious
Africa
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Virtual reconstruction of the Panga ya Saidi hominin remains at the site (left) and ideal reconstruction of the child’s original position at the moment of finding (right) © Jorge González/Elena Santos
Africa
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Luminescence dating securely places Mtoto’s at 78,000 years ago, making it the oldest known human burial in Africa.
Later interments from Africa’s Stone Age also include young individuals – perhaps signaling special treatment of the bodies of children in this ancient period.
The human remains were found in archaeological levels with stone tools belonging to the African Middle Stone Age, a distinct type of technology that has been argued to be linked to more than one hominin species.
“The association between this child’s burial and Middle Stone Age tools has played a critical role in demonstrating that Homo sapiens was, without doubt, a definite manufacturer of these distinctive tool industries, as opposed to other hominin species,” notes Ndiema.
Though the Panga ya Saidi find represents the earliest evidence of intentional burial in Africa, burials of Neanderthals and modern humans in Eurasia range back as far as 120,000 years and include adults and high proportion of children and juveniles.
The reasons for the comparative lack of early burials in Africa remain elusive, perhaps owing to differences in mortuary practices or the lack of field work in large portions of the African continent.
“The Panga ya Saidi burial shows that inhumation of the dead is a cultural practice shared by Homo sapiens and Neanderthals,” notes Professor Michael Petraglia of the Max Planck Institute in Jena.
“This find opens up questions about the origin and evolution of mortuary practices between two closely related human species, and the degree to which our behaviours and emotions differ from one another.”
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The Epic of Gilgamesh means many things to its many readers and listeners, past and present. @psyche_the_mag @Moudhy
Africa
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I wrote about how to me it is a story about profound grief and healing, about love and loss, and about what we share with Gilgamesh and his contemporaries
Along a dried-up channel of the Euphrates river in modern-day Iraq, broken mud bricks poke out of vast, dusty ruins.
They are the remains of Uruk, the birthplace of writing that’s better known in popular culture today as the city once ruled by the legendary king Gilgamesh, the hero of an epic about his struggle with life, love and death.
Sometimes called the oldest story in the world, the Epic of Gilgamesh continues to resonate with modern audiences more than 3,000 years after a Babylonian scholar named Sîn-leqi-unninni picked up his reed stylus and, in the tiny tetrahedrons of cuneiform script, impressed a standardised version of the epic on to 12 clay tablets.
Written in a literary dialect of the Akkadian language spoken in ancient Mesopotamia, it’s this version that has survived on fragmentary clay copies – some as big as an iPad and others as little as a fingertip – uncovered from sites throughout what is now Iraq, Syria and neighbouring countries.
The story is equal parts hero’s journey and crash course in Mesopotamian cosmology, as Gilgamesh follows the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to their source beyond the known world in search of a survivor of the apocalyptic Flood named Uta-napishti.
Fundamentally, it tells of Gilgamesh’s transformation from cruel to kindly king. Central to this is his relationship with Enkidu, a wild man who was sent by the gods to temper Gilgamesh’s tyrannical rule, and who becomes his closest friend and lover.
The pair undertake a series of adventures together that culminates in their slaughtering of the Bull of Heaven, a fiery creature plucked from the constellation Taurus.
For this act, the gods decide to punish them by taking Enkidu’s life and, in many ways, this is where the epic begins, as Enkidu’s death launches Gilgamesh’s quest for the antediluvian secret to immortality.
That quest sees him traverse the mythical landscape of ancient Mesopotamia and the region’s linguistic landscape of emotional distress.
Following Gilgamesh’s journey reminds anyone who has ever grieved that they’re not alone – the experience of extreme loss transcends the millennia-long gap between what it meant to be human then and what it means now.
Gilgamesh’s initial reaction to Enkidu’s death is a heart-rending picture of misery. Staring at the fresh body, he screams: ‘Now what sleep has seized you?’ and reaches out to feel for a heartbeat.
When he finds nothing, he pulls a veil over Enkidu’s face. He paces back and forth like a lioness who has lost her cubs, he pulls out his hair and tears off his clothes.
For seven days and nights, he weeps over Enkidu and refuses to allow him to be taken for burial until a maggot crawls out of the decomposing corpse’s nose.
Following an elaborate funeral, he continues to weep bitterly and takes to roaming the wild steppe outside Uruk’s walls.
‘Sorrow has entered my belly,’ he declares. ‘I became afraid of death and go wandering the wild.’ Anyone who has suffered the pain of loss will see themselves in this scene.
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Tablet XI The Epic of Gilgamesh @britishmuseum "You gods may I be mindful of these days & never forget them." @RobGMacfarlane
Africa
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(Gilgamesh to Enkidu, Tablet III of the Old-Babylonian version) @MrsCourtyard
Africa
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"Who is there, my friend, can climb to the sky?
Only the gods dwell forever in sunlight.
As for man, his days are numbered,
whatever he may do, it is but wind."
(Gilgamesh to Enkidu, Tablet III of the Old-Babylonian version)
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How to Read "Gilgamesh" @NewYorker
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A carnelian tree was in fruit,
hung with bunches of grapes, lovely to look on.
A lapis lazuli tree bore foliage,
in full fruit and gorgeous to gaze on.
To me, this is the most dazzling passage in the poem: the engulfing darkness, in which Gilgamesh can see nothing for hours—he is just an organism, in a hole—and then, suddenly, light, color, beautiful globes of purple and red hanging from the trees. God’s world, made for us, or so we thought.
Gilgamesh does not linger in the garden. He at last finds Uta-napishti, the man who gazed on death and survived. Gilgamesh wants to know, How did you do this? Unhelpfully, Uta-napishti explains:
“No one at all sees Death,
no one at all sees the face [of Death,]
no one at all [hears] the voice of Death,
Death so savage, who hacks men down. . . .
Ever the river has risen and brought us the flood,
the mayfly floating on the water.
On the face of the sun its countenance gazes,
then all of a sudden nothing is there!”
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DOOM quotes @nfergus
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A decade of "semiotic arousal" when everything, it seemed, was a sign, a harbinger of some future radical disjuncture or cataclysmic upheaval.
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Disorientated people in a fragmented post-industrial society clinging to the bogus solidarity of tribal nationalism. @nickreeves9876
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Fast Forward
World Of Finance
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Political Reflections
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A French boat has been spotted ramming a British vessel in Jersey waters. @SkyNews
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Conclusions
@BorisJohnson and @EmmanuelMacron are wilding geopolitically speaking
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A member of the Jersey Militia reenactment group was seen firing on the French boats with a musket from Elizabeth Castle this morning. @ITVChannelTV
Law & Politics
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It's after the flotilla of French fishermen who blockaded Jersey's main harbour returned to open water.
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The ‘’Zeitgeist’’ of a time is its defining spirit or its mood. Capturing the ‘’zeitgeist’’ of the Now is not an easy thing because we are living in a dizzyingly fluid moment.
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27-JUL-2020 :: Drinking the Kool-Aid Geopolitically speaking we have entered ‘’a furin cleavage site’’ moment
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France threatens to cut off power to Jersey as U.K. sends in the Royal Navy, in post-Brexit spat over shellfish @washingtonpost
Law & Politics
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"When I first saw the furin cleavage site in the viral sequence... I said to my wife it was the smoking gun... mak[ing] a powerful challenge to the idea of a natural origin for #SARSCoV2." virologist David Baltimore, former president of @Caltech
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27-JUL-2020 :: It is impossible to ignore the introduction of a PRRA insert between S1 and S2: it sticks out like a splinter. This insert creates the furin cleavage site
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Russia's FM Sergei Lavrov lays wreath at Armenian genocide memorial in Yerevan photos h/t @Danale @michaeltanchum
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@OurWorldInData #COVID19 Daily Cases
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28-MAR-2021 :: The Virus remains an exogenous uncertainty that is still not resolved #COVID19
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28-MAR-2021 :: We are once again entering an exponential escape velocity Phase #COVID19
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As @DrTedros the head of the @WHO puts it, Covid-19 is an international fire and, “if you hose only one part of it, the rest will keep burning”. @FT @gideonrachman
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08-MAR-2021 the ultra hyperconnectedness of the c21st World.
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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
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Not that we need more evidence that sars-2 has dominant airborne/aerosol transmission, but this figure from @JustinLessler et al is really something. @DFisman
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This has become an almost-entirely Indian pandemic. And we know that confirmed cases are just the tip of the iceberg. @fibke
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Merkel “You cannot fight the pandemic with lies and disinformation...the limits of Populism are being laid bare.”
Law & Politics
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6 May #COVID19 snapshot: 414182 new cases, 3920 deaths & 18.3L tests y'day. 7-day average TPR: 22.5% 7-day average TPR: 22.5% 36.4L active cases & growing at 2% Total: 21.5M cases, @RijoMJohn
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.@AliHMokdad of @UW_PHI : The detection rate in #India is about 4%. Not every case in India has been diagnosed and reported. So cases are drastically under-reported — there could be as many as 12 million cases a day. @funds4disaster
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"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
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“The situation has become dangerous in villages,” said Suresh Kumar, a field coordinator with Manav Sansadhan Evam Mahila Vikas Sansthan @Reuters
Africa
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In some villages where the charity works in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh - home to about 200 million people - “there are deaths in almost every second house”, he said.
“This temporarily halts speculations of a peak,” Rijo M John, a professor at the Indian Institute of Management in the southern state of Kerala, said on Twitter.
India has 3.45 million active cases.
“Who to be saved, who not to be saved should be decided by God,” Aggarwal told Reuters during a grim overnight shift.
“We are not made for that – we are just humans. But at this point in time, we are being made to do this.”
“Our lockers are full. We cannot store any more ashes. We used to get around 40 COVID-19 bodies a day. We are now telling relatives to take the ashes with them on the same day.” Pankaj Sharma, a manager at the crematorium told Reuters.
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The link between great power and great suffering — from Mao’s China to Modi’s India @ProfVarshney @IndianExpress
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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
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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”
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He is in fact a Genocidaire
Law & Politics
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"Is a Hindu genocide happening in Bengal?" "No, it is not; it is actually happening in hospitals across India, where Indians are dying due to lack of oxygen." @free_thinker
Law & Politics
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"Who's responsible for that?"
"Same people who are distracting you with false claims of a Hindu genocide in Bengal."
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Narendra ‘’Benito’’ Modi
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Groucho Marx "WHO Ya Gonna Believe, Me or Your Own Eyes" #nCoV2019 #coronavirus
Law & Politics
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He was mocked for saying this. @SriniSivabalan @srinivasiyc
Law & Politics
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WATCH: @Yogital “Those who are lucky will survive..whoever has to die will die”. Uttar Pradesh Warning - this is very distressing. #India #COVID_19. With Fred Scott & Sanjay Ganguly #BBCNewsTen @NicolaCareem
Law & Politics
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The Pandemic is a Portal
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There is something Karmic in this #COVID19
Misc.
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INSACOG first detected B.1.617, as early as February warning about new variant in early March was issued by Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genetics Consortium INSACOG. conveyed to a top official who reports directly to the prime minister @Reuters
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Blood and Soil in @narendramodi’s India @NewYorker
Law & Politics
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Finally, B.1.617 evaded antibodies induced by infection or vaccination, although with moderate efficiency.
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Collectively, our study reveals that antibody evasion of B.1.617 may contribute to the rapid spread of this variant.
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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.
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“The variants are like a thoroughbred and our vaccines are like a workhorse,” noted evolutionary biologist Sally Otto.
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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International Markets
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Real yields are getting more negative again, with nominal yields remaining steady and inflation expectations rising. 10-year real yields are the lowest since February. via @ferrotv @tomkeene @bsurveillance @lisaabramowicz1
World Of Finance
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28-MAR-2021 :: I expect UST 10 YEAR YIELDS TO TARGET 1.45%
World Of Finance
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08-MAR-2021 :: The lights must never go out, The music must always play
World Of Finance
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Bonne Nuit Mesdames et Messieurs @MeprisWb
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In 1929, President Herbert Hoover assured the country that things were already “back to normal,” Liaquat Ahamed writes in Lords of Finance
Law & Politics
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The US recovery is weak especially given the size of the stimulus. @dlacalle_IA
World Of Finance
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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
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Here is why central banks are trapped and cannot raise rates even if inflation rises: @dlacalle_IA Feb 2 The Markets Are Wilding
World Of Finance
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.@dlacalle_IA Feb 2 Here is why central banks are trapped and cannot raise rates even if inflation rises:
World Of Finance
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Currency Markets at a Glance WSJ
World Currencies
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Euro 1.2074
Dollar Index 90.788
Japan Yen 109.13
Swiss Franc 0.9072
Pound 1.3913
Aussie 0.7765
India Rupee 73.63
South Korea Won 1120.825
Brazil Real 5.2769
Egypt Pound 15.669
South Africa Rand 14.2315
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Dollar Index Chart INO 90.802
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Euro versus the Dollar Chart 1.2077
World Currencies
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$ARKK continues to get mutilated, considerably underperforming literally everything. @FadingRallies
World Currencies
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The liquidity of this complex is illusory, as the reflexivity embedded within creates a lurking shadow convexity that is vulnerable to predatory flows.
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as the reflexivity embedded within creates a lurking shadow convexity that is vulnerable to predatory flows. 08-FEB-2021 :: The Markets Are Wilding
World Of Finance
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Partying responsibly. @BobNeiwen
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Anybody can be decisive during a panic It takes a strong Man to act during a Boom. VS NAIPAUL
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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TikTok Started With a Tech Guy From China Who Decoded America’s Teens @technology
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TikTok has emerged as the defining app of a generation: a cultural tastemaker, a musical hitmaker and a launchpad for a new breed of celebrity.
Its hold on American culture can be traced back to Alex Zhu, a technology entrepreneur from China.
Zhu grew up in Anhui province and studied civil engineering at Zhejiang University.
He came to the San Francisco Bay Area to work at the software company SAP SE.
On a Silicon Valley train ride in 2014, Zhu became fascinated by a group of American teenagers seated nearby, listening to music and shooting video on their phones.
He decided to create an app that joined the two cultural obsessions.
The result was Musical.ly, which encouraged users to record themselves lip-syncing to pop songs.
Zhu later sold Musical.ly to a fast-rising Beijing startup called ByteDance Ltd., which folded the app into TikTok.
The first episode of Foundering: The TikTok Story looks at the genesis of Gen Z’s favorite app.
It tells the story of a 36-year-old Chinese tech founder who seemed to have an uncanny understanding of American teenagers—a skill that helped him build a social media powerhouse that even competitors, including Facebook Inc., wanted to buy.
“He just has this incredible perspective of building this company from China that American teenagers are using more than anything right now,” said Josh Elman, a former Musical.ly investor who now works at Apple Inc.
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Commodity Markets at a Glance WSJ
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#Gold back above USD 1,800! @jsblokland 1819.00
Commodities
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#GOLD is signaling something, biggest move we have seen in months. @KobeissiLetter
Commodities
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28-MAR-2021 :: GOLD HAS COMPLETED ITS CONSOLIDATION AND IS HEADED BACK TO ATHS
Commodities
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While $GOLD has had a great run, zooming out shows how much upside potential left. We're still in a 7 month bull flag (purple below) that hasnt even broken out yet @AdamMancini4
Commodities
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Next up is flag resistance $1840, one more pullback is likely there, which sets up a breakout to new ATHs ($2200).
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Apr 28, 2021 Above $1800 breaks this out and starts the move to $1850, $1960, then all time highs @AdamMancini4
Commodities
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04-JAN-2021 :: What Will Happen In 2021 I expect Gold to top $2,500 this year and Silver to reach $50.00
Commodities
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Crude Oil Chart INO 64.81
Minerals, Oil & Energy
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The @UNFAO global food price index rose for an 11th month in April to a seven year high at 120.9, representing a y-o-y jump of 30.7%. @Ole_S_Hansen
Commodities
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Food #inflation has not risen this fast since 2011 with all sectors rising led by sugar and oils - #agriculture #grains
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Mozambique bread riots may be warning sign on African food security Africa Monitor @csmonitor By Aly-Khan Satchu, September 6, 2010
Africa
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Global food markets are but the perturbation of a butterflys's wing away from a serious tipping point.
Given the fragility of the food markets, Maputo might well be a shot across the bows of many regimes, who have yet to secure access to sufficient food at sufficiently low prices for their people.
Failure to execute on this front, surely imperils many.
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"Bread, freedom and social justice" were the three main goals of the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak
Africa
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India’s Stock Market Lives on Another Planet @bopinion @andymukherjee70
Emerging Markets
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Why isn’t India’s stock market falling more?
The question is a fair one, considering the risky asset class in a country struggling with its most horrific calamity since its violent partition and independence nearly 75 years ago.
New daily Covid-19 infections have remained above 300,000 for two weeks now, the worst caseload the world has seen.
The death rate is 3,700-plus — probably much higher if you discount the underreported official statistics.
Fear of the virus is pervasive. Even the rich and the powerful are finding it hard to arrange a hospital bed or track down an oxygen cylinder.
But in all this, the benchmark Nifty 50 Index is down ever so slightly, clocking a less than 5% decline since mid-February.
At 32 times earnings, almost double the valuations in China, the Indian market is super-expensive.
The logic for those prices runs like this: Unlike last year, there’s no national lockdown.
And there may not be one if the peak of the surge is just a week or two away, as some epidemiological models indicate.
Besides, investors know from the first wave in 2020 that firms will protect earnings by idling operations and firing workers if required.
Those who keep their jobs may cut back on discretionary spending.
Their excess savings will gravitate to stocks even as pain accumulates in smaller firms that don’t trade on public markets.
Another reason for optimism is the expected response of authorities. That’s based, once again, on last year’s experience.
If more infectious variants of the disease make a national lockdown inevitable, the finance ministry and the central bank might come together to offer moratoriums, state-guaranteed loans and other liquidity-enhancing measures to make up for disappearing cash flows.
Sure enough, the Reserve Bank of India Wednesday announced repayment relief, as well as 500 billion rupees ($6.8 billion) in three-year funding at its policy rate of 4% for banks to extend to vaccine makers, hospitals and oxygen suppliers.
There is no doubt more elbow room for policy action than existed just a couple of months ago.
Bond and foreign-exchange markets have given up opposing further fiscal-monetary easing.
Traders who were pulling long-term yields on government securities higher — or pushing the rupee lower — have stepped aside. Just like last year.
But all this ignores a basic reality: India’s 2021 is shaping up to be nothing like 2020.
A year ago, early and harsh physical distancing measures spread panic and misery among rural workers living in cities. But the health-care system wasn’t overwhelmed.
Worse, the virus has now infiltrated villages. Areas that last year offered sanctuary and work to a returning migrant labor force might themselves need support.
As for large firms managing to protect profitability, the thesis may not hold if raw material prices stay at their highest levels in a decade.
Unlike this time last year, industrial metals, energy and agricultural products are all firming up globally.
There are other differences. In 2020, capital-supplying rich nations didn’t have vaccines, let alone inoculation programs, which are running much faster than in India, where only 2% of the population has obtained the required two doses so far.
S&P Global Ratings says gross domestic product growth for the current fiscal year may be 9.8%, down from its March estimate of 11%, if infections peak in May.
One more month of rising cases may slow the expansion to 8.2%, following an 8% drop in output in the year that ended on March 31.
India’s fragile investment-grade rating is hanging in balance.
Even if it isn't altogether derailed, the economic recovery this year will probably decouple from the U.S., where Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is hinting at “somewhat” higher interest rates to prevent overheating from more government stimulus.
BNP Paribas SA recently downgraded India to “neutral” from “overweight” in its Asian model portfolio.
In an interview with Business Standard, Manishi Raychaudhuri, BNP’s head of Asia-Pacific equity research, warned of “consensus downgrades to Indian earnings estimates, which anyway appear optimistic to us.”
Caution is warranted. So much about the pandemic — and its interplay with an ill-prepared health system — is unknown.
The consortium of laboratories handling genome sequencing of the virus had cautioned in early March of “very prolific” new variants.
The result of ignoring scientific advice and allowing everything from big weddings and large religious gatherings to packed election rallies may not have become fully evident yet.
A model from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington forecasts more than 1 million deaths by the end of July, almost double the fatalities in the U.S. and more than four times India's current official tally.
Global investors, who kept their faith in China and India last year, aren’t waiting for equity analysts to change their minds.
They sold India in April, and bought South Korea and Taiwan instead.
That may be more prudent than pretending the second wave is just a bigger version of the first with predictable consequences. Based on what we have seen so far, that’s clearly not the case.
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The accelerated growth was "a fantastically crafted fiction," according to Prasad, Blood and Soil in @narendramodi's India @NewYorker
Emerging Markets
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"Africa by contrast is larger than it looks: the whole of China, the USA, India, most of Eastern and Western Europe, plus Japan would all fit into Africa with space to spare...." H/T @WillKnocker
Africa
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Africa is currently reporting a million new infections about every 90 days @ReutersGraphics
Africa
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360,528 Active COVID-19 Cases in Africa @BeautifyData
Africa
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Active #Covid19 cases record 520,000 was in January 2021 @NKCAfrica
Africa
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We all know by now ''viruses exhibit non-linear and exponential characteristics'
Africa
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05/05/21: #COVID19 South Africa New cases reported = 2,073. First time back above 2k since 18 February 2021 Test positivity rate on a sustained increase too! @rid1tweets
Africa
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All provinces in SA showing signs of an increase @rid1tweets
Africa
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Most notably, GP on a sharp increase. 7-day average up 33% compared to a week ago
FS on a sustained increase
NC trending back up again
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Covid-19 news: Cases surge in Seychelles despite high vaccination rate @newscientist
Africa
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There are about 1000 active cases in the Indian Ocean archipelago, which has a population of 100,000.
A third of the cases involve people who have had two vaccine doses, according to the country’s news agency.
Schools have been ordered to close, shops and bars must close early and some gatherings have been banned.
The Seychelles has fully vaccinated more of its population than any other nation. Around 60 per cent of vaccine doses used in the country were made by the Chinese company Sinopharm, and the rest by AstraZeneca.
“It is fair to say that high vaccination rates alone are not necessarily enough to stop a surge in cases”, mathematician Christina Pagel at University College London
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MAHE ISLAND, SEYCHELLES – APRIL 8, 2021: A woman holding an umbrella walks in a street in capital Victoria. Valery SharifulinTASS via Getty Images
Africa
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Record Zambian Corn Crop May Prove Bad News for Bondholders @markets
Africa
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Zambia announced a record corn harvest that may help President Edgar Lungu’s re-election bid.
The bumper crop may also push the state to buy more stock with dwindling finances, hurting chances for a long-awaited International Monetary Fund deal.
Farmers produced 3.62 million metric tons of the southern African nation’s staple food in the 2020-21 season, Agriculture Minister Michael Katambo told reporters Wednesday in Lusaka, the capital.
That could lead to lower food prices that often favor the incumbent government, according to Nkandu Mwenge, a commodity analyst at The Briefcase Trader.
But while a record crop could help cool inflation that’s above 20%,
it might also put pressure on the government’s Food Reserve Agency to buy more of the cereal from small-scale farmers, who have already been lobbying the state for higher prices.
The IMF, with which Zambia hopes to reach a bailout deal ahead of the elections in August, has repeatedly flagged agricultural subsidies as problematic, most recently in March.
A deal with the Washington-based lender is seen as crucial to stabilize Zambia’s finances after it became Africa’s first coronavirus-era default last year, and failure to reach an agreement may hurt chances of restructuring its debt.
“One avenue which may present a challenge between the consolidation-focused fund and populist-leaning government relates to the use of the Food Reserve Agency, which may be exploited to further a political agenda ahead of the elections,” said Irmgard Erasmus, senior financial economist at NKC African Economics near Cape Town.
“With its tendency to pay above-market prices, Treasury funds may be required to effectively subsidize exports.”
Including carry-over stocks from last year’s harvest, Zambia will have enough corn to last 20 months and can earn much-needed dollars by exporting the grains, Mwenge said.
The country uses about two-million tons per year for human consumption and industrial use. Zambia also produced a record 411,115 tons of soya beans in the season, Katambo said.
Foreign-exchange reserves fell to a record low $1.17 billion at the end of January, and the kwacha has depreciated by 19% against the dollar over the past 12 months amid plans to restructure external debt, and then the default.
The budget shortfall reached 14.4% of gross domestic product in 2020.
Endorsement from the IMF will be key to Zambia’s plan to seek to use the Group of 20’s Common Framework for Debt Treatments to reorganize its external loans.
Bondholders have already said they want an IMF program in place to ensure any restructuring is sustainable.
“Agreement on fiscal targets with the IMF is pivotal to debt treatment under the G20 CF, crowding in additional funding, and setting the scene for a bond swap,” Erasmus said.
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14-OCT-2019 ::The Canary in the Coal Mine is Zambia
Africa
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President Edgar Lungu was unanimously chosen as the ruling PF party's presidential candidate for the August 12 elections in #Zambia
Africa
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Zambia Shuts Seized Copper Mine as Prices Soar Toward Record @markets
Africa
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Zambia said a lack of capital halted production at a copper mine it seized from Indian billionaire Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta Resources Ltd., just as the metal surges toward a record.
The standstill at Konkola Deep, a high-grade underground pit that also contains cobalt, was triggered by a shortage of funds to develop new mining areas, said Barnaby Mulenga, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Mines.
The lack of capital is also curbing output at other operations of Konkola Copper Mines Plc, which was placed under provisional liquidation in 2019 after the government alleged Vedanta lied about expansion plans and paid too little tax.
The production setbacks at KCM come as copper surged back above $10,000 a ton on Thursday, with the reopening of major industrial economies sparking a commodities rally.
Africa’s No. 2 copper producer is reliant on exports of the metal, but production at Konkola Deep may only resume after the resolution of a legal arbitration with Vedanta opens the way for new investment, Mulenga said.
“This demand for copper will only get higher and the sooner these issues are resolved there is still an opportunity to exploit this resource,” Mulenga said.
“This is a giant which is sleeping and we remain positive that it will be mined at some point.”
Mulenga said KCM’s current challenges result from Vedanta failing to complete underground works that would have allowed more ore to be extracted from Konkola Deep.
The flagship mine in Zambia’s Copperbelt requires most of the $1.2 billion needed to turn KCM around, he said.
Vedanta, which has denied the government’s allegations, said it was “saddened” to hear about the production halt at Konkola Deep.
The company said it had invested more than $1.7 billion in KCM and had planned to spend a further $1.5 billion to make the operations profitable.
Last month, employees of more than 30 contractors at KCM stopped work and staged protests over workers’ grievances.
The mounting problems at KCM highlight the political risks as President Edgar Lungu’s government seeks a greater share of mining revenues ahead of elections this year.
While Zambia’s copper production rose to a record last year, that didn’t prevent the nation from defaulting on its external debt.
Zambia also plans to sell a majority stake in Mopani Copper Mines Plc after acquiring the operations from Glencore Plc, Mulenga said earlier this year.
The government wants to raise about $300 million to expand output and pay off the $1.5 billion it owes the commodities giant.
Conclusions
Limited cash to be spent on buying Corn for @EdgarCLungu to win the Farm Vote
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If copper can maintain the average price of Jan-April 2021, it would suggest #Zambia copper exports would rise to $8.4bn in 2021, enough to more than double the current account surplus to nearly $5bn @Rencapman
Africa
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Kenneth Kaunda Airport Lusaka Zambia
Africa
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Uganda’s PMI reports its third consecutive month of improvement as business activity improves. @NKCAfrica
East Africa
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15-MAR-2021 :: Africa Emerging from The Pandemic
Africa
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South Africa All Share Bloomberg
Africa
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Dollar versus Rand Chart INO 14.243
Africa
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Egypt Pound versus The Dollar Chart INO 15.677
Africa
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Is there a new crypto currency called #GhanaStockExchange? @RencapMan
Africa
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Ghana Stock Exchange Composite Index Bloomberg
Africa
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Somalia restores relations with Kenya through Qatari mediation. QP has stakes in Kenya's offshore Oil @michaeltanchum
Law & Politics
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Qatar Petroleum acquired shares in 3 Kenyan offshore exploration blocks in 2019
Eni = 41.25%
TOTAL = 33.75%
QatarQP = 25%
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@SafaricomPLC vs Banks: H/t @AliHKassim @MwangoCapital
N.S.E General
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.@DTBKenya throws @TuskysOfficial lifeline in Sh1.7bn loan restructure @BD_Africa
N.S.E Equities - Finance & Investment
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Tuskys has disclosed that DTB Bank has agreed to restructure a Sh1.7 billion short-term loan, offering a reprieve to the retailer facing the threat of liquidation on mounting debts.
The cash-strapped supermarket chain says DTB has agreed to lengthen the repayment of the loan to an undisclosed period to ease repayment.
The bank has also agreed to provide Sh450 million in overdrafts, Tuskys acting CEO Shadwick Okumu said in the latest court filings in a case the retailer is fighting liquidation from more than 60 creditors owed Sh1 billion.
“I would wish to highlight that DTB is on board and has agreed to restructure the existing Sh1.7 billion short-term loan to a term credit,” said Mr Okumu.
Last August said the retailer had signed a deal to raise Sh2.1 billion short-term debt from an unnamed private equity firm based in Mauritius.
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.@DTBKenya share price data
N.S.E Equities - Finance & Investment
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Price: 65.00
Market Capitalization:18,174,144,300
EPS:11.61
PE: 5.599
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Kenya Shilling versus The Dollar Live ForexPros
Africa
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The Nairobi Securities Exchange [@NSE_PLC] market cap hit a 34-month high of Kshs. 2.62 trillion on Thursday @MwangoCapital
N.S.E General
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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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