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Oops!

!!?? You couldn't make this stuff up.

BTW, what's the latest re this 30 May post :

.."

Readers at this point may be interested in the May movements of a corporate jet of some size.

London > Jeddah > Brazzaville > Nairobi (where and when President Nguesso was attending the African Development Bank's annual meeting). From Nairobi it was headed back to Brazzaville before diverting to Luanda, Luanda being the Portuguese-speaking city where Vale are thought to be quietly hanging out..."

'I've shown you mine,...'

GLA

These caught my eye :

(1) Resumption of Senate and National Assembly business held over from 26 May. Mostly routine admin stuff, this bit at the end: " “It's not out of the question for the government to include new business in the course of the session,” concluded the Senate secretary.

(2) There's opposition unhappiness at the non-disclosure of the agreements that C-B has recently reached, ceding territory to Rwanda...and at the 'racing certainty' that biometric ID won't be available to the electorate in time for the next Presidential elections, scheduled July 2026.

(3) The first International Conference on Reforestation (with UN, US and European support) to be held 2 to 5 July, as follow-up to the 3 Basins Summit last October.

(4) C-B telecoms authorities have sanctioned a Chinese gold-miner - "FaMiYe" in Sembe, Sangha - for illicit use of StarLink telecomms. Illicit Chinese gold mines (and logging activity) are apparently widespread ('dozens')...and they get away with it because of the protection of 'black Chinese' (people in power), see

https://pulitzercenter-org.translate.goog/stories/congo-brazzaville-gold-exploitation-and-sangha-brink-ecologi

The depeches article goes into quite some technical detail - which itself is interesting (extent and timing) - viz

.." all operators to obtain authorization from the regulator before providing satellite services, coverage of space segments and occupation of the Congo orbital position.

This requirement “is complemented by the obligation for operators wishing to operate satellite networks in the Congo to coordinate in advance, in order to protect the Congolese terrestrial networks on the same frequency bands from harmful interference. Among the other offences of this Chinese company Famiye is the fact that the imported equipment has not been approved by the regulator, ARPCE."

Concludes: .. "The dismantling operation, which is not a first, is part of ARPCE's ongoing mission of ensuring daily monitoring of compliance with regulations and network quality. A mission that the regulator follows scrupulously, as evidenced by the twenty or so fraudulent networks dismantled to date."

(5) Brazil has a full-page ad looking for a rental property to house its diplomatic mission.

(6) On May 29 in Brazzaville, the Minister of the Interior launched in Brazzaville a project to evaluate the capacity of the Republic of Congo's 'African Centre for Research on Terrorism'. The Minister wants help from the African Union, to benefit from its expertise in preventing and combating terrorism and violent extremism. This at a time when armed groups

scouring countries bordering the Republic of Congo's security belt have proclaimed their affiliation with international terrorist organizations. ..." The Minister warns of a 'deceptive calm'...

Not one, but two security-related articles....

GLA

thanks for this link, which also tells us that :

(1) the feasibility study isn't expected to be completed until december 2024....so reko diq is currently behind zioc, if an fs is key for any manara investment decision; and

(2) apart from 'preferred creditor' status for us exim, the americans are also likely to be behind the consortium preference to use karachi port rather than chinese-controlled gwadar (which is much closer to the strategic bottleneck of the straits of hormuz and end-point of the china****stan economic corridor (cpec).

see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/china%e2%80%93****stan_economic_corridor for the lengthy convoluted history and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/china%e2%80%93****stan_economic_corridor,

for the current status, which is 'complicated' :

.."the preliminary study on this project was done in 2014, which acknowledged the hostile environment and complicated geographic conditions but prioritized the importance of having a china-run port near the gulf of oman which serves as an important route for oil tankers. once this corridor is functional, the existing 12,000 km journey of oil transportation to china will be reduced to just 2,395 km..."

...there's a lot of local opposition (implementation delays and few perceived local benefits) and political unhappiness at china's treatment of the fellow-muslim uyghurs; challenging geography; delayed construction etc (the latter alluded to in claimed infrastructure deficiencies)....

...there are the existing debt burden issues and tussles between western , multilateral and other creditors over ****stan's economic mismanagement and corruption.

.."the vicious imf cycle comes with conditions, including the recalibration of cpec agreements.

“we have no choice but to get along with both the u.s. and china. transparency will help prove whether any project or agreement [is a debt trap or not]....unless we drastically improve our security situation, no investment is going to come to ****stan – whether chinese, american, or saudi,” ...

what the implications and read-across for zioc are is harder to say : (1) we have an fs ready ; (2) a 'clean slate' port in less potentially hostile/'complicated' hands (3) less critical a debt issue; and (4) less immediately (and likely more manageable) a security issue... maybe manara will re-think its priorities , esp if (a) it is interested in zioc and (b) there's a credible threat that they'll lose out to an asian ( chinese/japanese ?) consortium.

and maybe there's even a big enough mining equipment requirement at zanaga to 'unlock' us exim and imf/world bank /miga credit ?

collaboration is sometimes more productive than confrontation.

gla

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