Member Info for extrader

Hat-tip to Halland75

"New Era in Greek Healthcare’ as First Medical Cannabis Prescriptions Issued

BYBEN STEVENS

FEBRUARY 27, 2024

IN BUSINESS OF CANNABIS EUROPE, MEDICAL CANNABIS

Greece has officially made medical cannabis available to patients for the first time, bringing a frustrating seven-year wait to an end.

As of Monday, February 19, the first medical cannabis products were made available to patients with a prescription in what the companies involved said marked ‘a new era for healthcare in Greece’.

It follows a seven-year battle to make medical cannabis readily available to Greek citizens after Greece became one of Europe’s first countries to reschedule medical cannabis in 2017.

Although a ban on cultivation and production was repealed in March 2018, plans to allow the sale of medical cannabis prescriptions in pharmacies were not announced until 2022.

..........

In January last year, Tikun Olam Europe revealed that operations had begun at its 56,000 sq. metre facility in Corinthia, Greece’s first medical cannabis production facility, after five years of preparation.

This facility, understood to have cost over €40m, is now expected to produce 10 tonnes of medical cannabis in its first year.

According to the managing director of Tikun Europe, Nikos Beis, Greece has all the conditions to be a star in the global medical cannabis market..."

HELD better get its skates on! 'First mover advantage' and all that...

GLA

Hi techguru91,

.."Pireaus Bank must have done their due dilligence ahead of the MOu in mid Jan .."

On the contrary : the RNS suggests that Piraeus is waiting on others to do that, see

.."Piraeus Bank S.A ("Piraeus Bank") has conducted a review of Hellenic Dynamics five year business plan and have issued a letter of intent for funding ("Letter") which outlines the support from the bank for the provision of credit facilities on the submission of a detailed business plan, to be submitted on behalf of Hellenic Dynamics by a consultancy firm considered to be acceptable by Piraeus Bank...."

In the normal course of events, you'd expect HELD to have (1) found a Piraeus-acceptable consultancy ; (2) commissioned them to undertake said detailed business plan; and (3) have submitted it to Piraeus.

Absent any communication from HELD on these 3 basic steps, I don't think it's safe to assume very much.

Do you?

ATB

Carl's linked-in profile is quite extensive . Companies House has only this record for Carl (Jan) Haffner:

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/yMQwlPVzjhobiLBC0l6TKMFtD6c/appointments

Total number of appointments 2

Date of birth July 1968

IMPROVED SPORTS LIMITED (06763807)

Company status

Dissolved

Correspondence address Chestnut Cottage, Groby Lodge Estate, Groby, Leicester, United Kingdom, LE6 0GN

Role Director

Appointed on 2 December 2008

Nationality British

Country of residence England

Occupation Company Director

QE GLOBAL LIMITED (06232015)

Company status

Liquidation

Correspondence address 6 Charter Point Way, Ashby Park, Ashby De La Zouch, Leicestershire, LE65 1NF

Role RESIGNED

Director

Appointed on 30 April 2007

Resigned on 5 December 2023

Nationality British

Country of residence England

Occupation Company Director

AFAICS

GLA

Hi shaun 86,

Isn't the connection psei.co to psei.cn set out in the history ?

MM's link to psei.co ref'd a project including 'mining, BENEFICIATION, pipeline transportation, harbor and hydropower stations....' which was what prompted my Q.

'Beneficiation' was part of my post of 28 Dec, unfortunately the link seems to have been 'terminated'

.."Worth comparing today's RNS with the Key Milestone Objectives per Interim Results RNS of 29 September.

(A) What EPCPartner/Perth was tasked with :

(1) Phase 1 Feasibility Study update re Stage 1 (12 mtpa) and Stage 2 (30mtpa) Projects . Status : DONE.

(2) Phase 2 Processing technology application study : Beneficiation technology, with further potential cost savings.

Status : UNDERWAY

Comment : Perth has just (13 Dec 2023) announced a pre-contract for design of a 12mtpa plant , for Vale, see http://www.psei.com.cn/news/219.html.

Coincidence ? Maybe...but the workings re costings, engineering process flow etc are presumably 'transferable'...and certainly timely..."

C'est la vie, I suppose.

ATB

Cont...

Last September UNESCO added Congo's Odzala-Kokoua National Park to its World Heritage List, mysteriously ignoring IUCN's recommendation to defer doing so. For years, the park (surrounded on all sides by logging concessions) has been the scene of atrocities committed by ecoguards under the management of the South African firm African Parks. On 7 February Congo's Forest Minister announced that the President has ordered the construction of a new paved road in Odzala. That should make this militia's work easier.

"When will donors learn that greenwashing kleptocracy only encourages it?" wonders and concludes Dr. Lamfu.

GLA

Donors' Deafening Silence After Republic of Congo Green-Lights Oil Exploration in Conkouati National Park [press release]

Story by Greenpeace International Amsterdam Raphael Mavambu • 2d

Six weeks after signing a $50 million forest protection deal with donors, the Republic of Congo has given the green light to oil exploration in Conkouati-Douli National Park, the country's most biodiverse protected area and home to fishing communities since at least the 13th century.

The 18 January decision by Congo's Council of Ministers to award a permit to "China Oil Natural Gas Overseas Holding United" is a violation of the 1999 Presidential decree establishing Conkouati, which bans, inter alia, oil exploration and exploitation in the park and its buffer zone.

The decision represents yet another embarrassment for donors who pay lip service to protecting Congo's forests and biodiversity, greenwashing the Sassou regime at European taxpayers' expense.

It's also a blow to their flawed "fortress conservation" ideology. "While the Global North continues to back armed ecoguards in Congo and elsewhere notorious for violence against local people on ancestral lands, its love of nature stops short of criticizing oil, logging and mining multinationals," said Dr. Fabrice Lamfu Yengong, forest campaigner for the Congo Basin campaign at Greenpeace Africa.

Conkouati's major institutional donors include the EU, the Agence française de développement (AFD) and the World Bank-administered Global Environment Facility.

The EU is particularly compromised. In September 2022, it signed an €800,000 financing agreement with the French NGO Noé to "insure the sustainable management" of the park's flora and fauna. A month later, at the Three Tropical Forest Basins Summit in Brazzaville, the EU Environment Commissioner signed a "EU-Congo Forest Partnership Roadmap" designed to "safeguard Congolese forests and support the development of sustainable value chains." The accord was "backed by an additional 25 million EUR," the Commissioner tweeted.

In December, at COP28, the EU, France and a handful of private donors committed to a $50 million Congo "Partnership for forest ecosystems, nature and climate." A week later the Mining Minister handed out a 1,500 ha gold prospecting permit in Conkouati's buffer zone to Chinese oil firm Zhi Guo Pétrole.

Norway, too, shares blame for the plunder of Conkouati. In 2019, the Norwegian-led Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI) signed a $65 million Letter of Intent with Congo. It called merely for "minimizing the impact" of oil and mining on forests – without mentioning Norway's interests in Congo's oil sector. Today, Norwegian firm Petronor is doing record business offshore.

Cont...

This comment?

David Winter

out of network3rd+

Cultivation Consultant

1h

Thats a great fake picture of cannabis production.

Carl's rebuttal doesn't address the question or provide an obvious solution :

On 28 Dec, 2 months ago, we were told :

-Elgo Dimitra, the public research institute overseen by the Greek Ministry of Agriculture successfully began [Ed.: past tense] the cultivation of medical cannabis flowers for Hellenic Dynamics.

Not difficult, surely, to provide a photo of 'work-in-progress' ?

You have to wonder at the marketing / business skills of a management that can't come up with this simple means of allaying shareholder concerns.

GLA

On a more serious note, here's Seb on the macro, per linked in :

Sebastian MarilSebastian Maril

• 3rd+• 3rd+

Regional Director, US & Latin AmericaRegional Director, US & Latin America

3h • 3h •

Follow

ARGENTINES HAVE LONG LIVED IN FANTASYLAND

.."Attempting to impeach a recently-elected president solely based on his policies and disruptive leadership style not only is unreasonable, but also shows that Argentines have been detached from reality for a long time. For decades, residents of the Republic have relied on government handouts to cope with the challenges of a running inflation and a stagnant economy. Provincial governments, municipalities, and social movements, among others, have also received federal funds from a government increasingly dependent on printing money and substantial borrowing to ensure that everyone can meet their needs.

Now, with a president committed to "putting the house in order," there is a shift in narrative, emphasizing the high cost associated with living in Fantasyland for so long. The government is signaling that these unsustainable practices are no longer affordable for the country, urging Argentines, including the political establishment, to confront the reality that money is not free. The handouts, to which they have been accustomed for so long, are quickly being dismantled and, in doing so, President Milei is also hitting the establishment right where it hurts: its pockets.

It doesn’t come as a surprise that calls for the impeachment of Argentina’s president have surfaced in tandem with the execution of an agenda marked by aggressive spending cuts, compelling the political class across the spectrum to enact their own unwelcome cuts.

During the campaign, Argentina’s leader emphatically expressed his belief that the most destructive force in the Republic and the primary hindrance to sustained progress was its political apparatus. Now in office, he is striking at the heart of the establishment by overhauling the Federal Government and drastically reducing public spending.

President Milei is not changing and will not change his style. During the State of the Union Address this Friday, expect the president to intensify his endeavors to implement announced reforms, despite facing opposition from the political class, which has declared its intention to resist his attempts to bring about fundamental transformation in the country..."

GLA

At the very least, anything BUR does in this direction will give Argentina (and potential creditors/counterparts) 'pause for thought'.

Attempting to 'win by attrition' is a legitimate and occasionally successful strategy, as my children found out : it's called 'pester power'.

;->

GLA

Hi 99 icecream,

Good spot! I wonder if there's any significance that the list you provided of current projects doesn't appear to include the 12mtpa beneficiation plant in Brazil that PSEI was 'newly' working on a few months ago ?

Hi MM,

I think you'll find that the Mayoko project that PSEI was working on in 2018 was the 'other' Mayoko - Moussondji - that Equatorial Resources passed to Midus Holding in 2015.

See https://investmentpolicy.unctad.org/investment-dispute-settlement/cases/1172/congo-mining-and-midus-v-congo; and

https://company-announcements.afr.com/asx/eqx/002e3106-217b-11ec-b40e-0e6a5451275b.pdf

Sapro Mayoko's Lekoumou project has lower (= unsuitable for green) ore grades, IIRC, which is another likely factor at play.

GLA

Thanks to Seb for the link to this:

hxxps://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ad-hoc-committee-of-province-of-la-rioja-bondholders-responds-to-the-provinces-recent-announcement-regarding-payments-under-its-green-bond-302073253.html

..."The explanation by the Province of its failure to pay, which it attributes to the current economic situation in Argentina, is entirely specious. In fact, the problem with the Province is the disdain of its government for complying with legal and contractual obligations. The majority of proceeds from issuance of the Green Bonds were invested by the Province in its wind farm projects under Parque Eolico Arauco S.A. ("PEA"). In December 2022, the Province concluded a sale of 100% of Vientos de Arauco Renovables S.A.U., one of the undertakings of PEA, for US$171mm to Pampa Energia S.A.

Thus, having borrowed money from bondholders to build this project, the Province then sold the project for US$171mm and now purports to be unable to pay US$16mm of capital payment to its bondholders1. The excuses provided by the Province are those of a recalcitrant and recidivist defaulter...."

'Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.'

GLA

.."Lol, you sold ages ago like the rest of the rampers on here..."

Your comment, even -especially- if true makes no sense : if they've sold and have no current financial interest (but were thinking of re-entering), then it would be in the rampers' interest now to talk the price DOWN, so they could (hope to) rinse and repeat......

OTOH, if they were long (and hurting, in all likelihood) it WOULD be in their interest to talk the s/p up....

Capisce?

..."Andy Murphy at Edison Investment Research has a value realisation of 2,564p per share on the group’s equity.

For the year to end December 2023 he estimates that group revenues will have risen to $472.6m ($440.01m) with a massive pre-tax profit of $107.2m ($38.5m), lifting earnings to 159.2c (loss 51.9c), while maintaining its 70.0c per share dividend.

The year now underway could see it boost revenues to $521.7m, taking profits up to $135.5m, earnings of 214.7c, enabling a 100c a share dividend.

My View – Looking For 1,600p Very Soon

Within the next four weeks or so we should be seeing the group declare its 2023 Final Results, which going on the Edison estimates should be well received.

We should also get some confirmation on just how well the current year is perceived by the group’s Management.

But of much more interest, just what is going on in terms of the ongoing Strategic Review and the number of offers that were previously mentioned for both parts of the company.

That helps to give the low p/e and healthy yielding shares, currently 1,335p, quite a bit of a sparkle valuing the company at just £472m.

Despite them having risen from 820p last June and having already seen quite a swift ascent, I now fix a Target Price of 1,600p on the shares, hoping for some early positive news.

At that time is it possible that we might also get a more enlightening detail on the strategic review and its potential outcome, especially if any of the offers have progressed?

https://masterinvestor.co.uk/equities/wading-in-play-in-overseas-waters/?mc_cid=18f5b17c20"

Apols for editing/formatting...

GLA

..It looks to develop its businesses by maximising economies of scale and efficiency and improving the quality and range of services that it provides to customers.

Major Strategic Review Now Well Underway

On 12th June last year, the group responded to some Brazilian media speculation by stating that:

“The Board notes recent Brazilian media speculation to the effect that the Company is negotiating the sale of its 57% owned subsidiary, Wilson Sons SA.

The Company confirms that it is undertaking a strategic review involving the Company’s investment in Wilson Sons.

That review, which will consider all potential strategic options, is currently at an early stage and there can be no certainty as to its outcome.

The Company has not received any formal proposals from any third party with regard to a potential transaction involving Wilson Sons.”

The Board recognises that there are divergent views among the group’s shareholders regarding its non-correlated asset holdings.

The review is intended to provide a platform for it to optimise the asset mix, to enhance returns, and to drive growth in the longer term.

On 15th November last year, the group issued its Q3 Quarterly including an Update on its strategic review regarding its investment in Wilson Sons:

“The company has retained Banco BTG Pactual S.A. as adviser to Ocean Wilsons Overseas Limited, the holding company for the Group’s indirect investment in OW Overseas (Investments) Limited and in Wilson Sons.

The company confirmed that BTG Pactual has received a number of indicative non-binding offers for its indirect investment in OWOIL and in Wilson Sons.

“As the strategic review process remains ongoing, there can be no certainty as to its outcome and the indicative non-binding offers received by the company are highly conditional.

The Board continues to evaluate all potential strategic options and will update shareholders further in due course.”

The Equity

There are some 35.36m shares in issue.

The larger investors include Hansa Investment Company (26.45%), ICM Investment Management (12.95%), Dynamo Internacional (4.99%), City of London Investment Management (4.94%), Unicorn Asset Management (3.04%), Menhaden Capital Management (1.02%) and Chelverton Asset Management (0.85%).

Two Board members also represent large holdings – William Saloman (13.18%) and Christopher Townsend (11.42%), both of whom are Directors of Hansa Capital.

Analyst’s Views

A consensus of analysts suggests an average Price Objective for the group’s shares is 1,675p, with the highest view seeking 1,750p a share.

Continued...

Hat -tip to Mirabeau for this :

"...Wading ‘In Play’ In Overseas Waters

Today I am going international with a feature on an undervalued group with a London and a Bermudian quote – Ocean Wilsons Holdings (LON:OCN).

On the face of it I believe that the shares of this £472m capitalised group are trading well below their value at the current 1335p – yes unusually for me a heavier market capitalisation with a very heavy share price – but it looks cheap to me, which readers will identify in due course.

With results due within the next month, it is expected to report a 10% uplift in 2023 revenues to £372m, with a 178% better profit of £84m.

For this year that could rise by another 10% in turnover to £411m, with a 27% increase in pre-tax profits £107m.

The Business

The company’s principal activities are the management of a diverse global investment portfolio and the provision of maritime and logistics services in Brazil.

In outlining its Purpose and Strategy the company robustly states that its objective is, through its investments, to create long-term capital growth without pressure to produce short-term results at the expense of long-term value creation.

It operates through two primary investments – Ocean Wilsons (Investments), an actively managed investment fund, and Wilson Sons, a Brazilian maritime services company.

The maritime services segment provides towage and ship agency, port terminals, offshore, logistics and shipyard services in Brazil.

The investment segment holds a diverse global portfolio of international investments with an investment strategy of a balanced thematic portfolio of funds and is a Bermuda based company.

Ocean Wilsons (Investments) Limited

The investment strategy for its managed portfolio is to generate real returns through long-term capital growth, whilst emphasising preservation of capital without respect to short-term moves in equity markets.

Its investment portfolio is invested in both publicly quoted and unquoted assets in diversified components.

Working alongside expert managers in specialised sectors or markets allows it to have access to the best opportunities to achieve its strategy.

This longer-term view directs an OWIL investment strategy that its investments are made in a balanced thematic portfolio of funds which leverage long-standing relationships.

Wilson Sons SA

Wilson Sons is one of the largest providers of maritime services in Brazil with activities including towage, container terminals, offshore oil and gas support services, small vessel construction, logistics and ship agency.

The Wilson Sons strategy is to grow the business on the basis of its skills and existing assets, strengthening the businesses and looking for new opportunities in the maritime and transport sector, focusing on Brazil and Latin America.

It looks to develop its businesses by maximising economies of scale and efficiency and improving the quality and range of servi

.."- forecasters estimate that 7% of Germany electricity would need to be dedicated/diverted to 'clean' hydrogen production...so (ironically), the target of ending (dirty) coal for electricity is quietly being pushed back from 2030 to 2038..."

Re this bit, here's a true story, from my then neighbour an electrical engineer in Spain :

(1)Spain was keen to leap onto the solar energy bandwagon, thanks to its intrinsic (sunshine ) advantages over the main purchaser of solar panels at the time, usually overcast but trying to go green Germany.

(2)It had to offer generous electricity tariffs to pay the premia needed to get hold of some of said scarce solar panels.

(3) Its generous tariffs were duly successful in getting a lot of plant installed.

(4) Everything went swimmingly for a while and Spain could tout its increasingly green credentials and tell the local consumers how much of their electricity was the 'good' stuff.

(5) After a while, some accountant noticed a curious thing : there were at first a few, then steadily more solar farms producing electricity after dark....

On investigation, it was discovered that folk were using diesel generators to shine arc lights onto the panels at night - the input cost of diesel, even allowing for efficiency loss (energy value input vs energy value output), being lower than the inflated sales price of the electricity produced.

This was such a political scandal that the Government of the day not only felt forced to slash the subsidies, it took the remarkable (maybe unprecedented ?) step in a democracy of BACK-DATING the revision...

"España es diferente"

Quite a lot of investors lost their shirts as the 'subsidy harvesters' came unstuck and went bankrupt.

A further twist : Those that didn't go bankrupt- the bigger users, who'd 'gone solar' to reap the subsidies AND power in-house their existing businesses - didn't escape altogether : the Government then decided to charge them the IMPUTED cost of not using the electricity network as envisioned.

Mind you, we shouldn't talk - we've got Drax.

;-<

GLA

GLA.

Long article in today's FT

..."How Germany’s steelmakers plan to go green

Europe’s biggest producer is moving away from carbon-intensive blast furnaces and towards hydrogen-powered processing..."

The gist :

- steel production is 7% of global CO2 emissions, 25% of Germany's;

- carbon credit offset (currently free/subsidized) will be phased out, therefore production > more expensive;

- historically, BFO was most popular route (1,400 units worldwide), because coal was a cheaper input than the electricity needed for EAF , feedstock scrap iron;

- solution ? switch to DRI, using sustainable hydrogen. Ta - dah !

- problem (for Germany) - how to produce H cheaply and at scale - so far unresolved;

- side-comment : DRI works with blue/grey hudrogen (ex natural gas) as well as 'green ' hydrogen (ex renewables), that's why most existing DRI plants (2022) are in gas-rich countries :

mtpa : India 40, Iran 35, Russia 8, Saudi 7, Egypt 6 , Mexico 5, US 5, Qatar 2, Trinidad 2.

[Ed.: India / Iran lead the pack because they have an historic local industrial base/demand; note all these DRI users total barely 110 mtpa];

- for Germany, there's an issue over availability/cost of its 'mandated/proposed' green hydrogen : Thyssen Krupp points out that its tender for 143K tonnes hydrogen feedstock alone would = 15% of all planned H production by 2030, which itself needs 500 x wind turbines;

- current H production (2022) meets only 2% of Europe's energy consumption....and 96% of that 2% is blue/grey ie from natural gas.....;-<

- forecasters estimate that 7% of Germany electricity would need to be dedicated/diverted to hydrogen production...so (ironically), the target of ending (dirty) coal for electricity is quietly being pushed back from 2030 to 2038...

- Germany's under more pressure to resolve this quandary , because it (still) has a sizeable manufacturing base (20% of economy), vs barely 10% in e.g. US, France or the UK [Ed.: we've offshored to China, so we have offshored this particular problem, but face the same self-inflicted immiseration in the long run, IMO...;-< ;

- article concludes that the solution (for Germany and maybe others in the Western consuming nations) is tariff barriers to make ITS steel still commercially viable. 'Going green' is desirable, the problem is 'how to get from here to there' ?

The article is specifically about Germany's problems and a (possible) solution for Germany, but it throws useful light/info on issues facing others.

The biggest unaddressed elephant in the room is the emergence of a 'cleaner, greener, objectively cheaper' solution elsewhere (mainly in the M East).

A second unaddressed elephant in the room is that wherever DRI is seen as the solution, the other key feedstock that will AIUI improve metrics (cost/quality/price premium/emissions) is iron ore....

GLA and ATB

Long article in today's FT

..."How Germany’s steelmakers plan to go green

Europe’s biggest producer is moving away from carbon-intensive blast furnaces and towards hydrogen-powered processing..."

The gist :

- steel production is 7% of global CO2 emissions, 25% of Germany's;

- carbon credit offset (currently free/subsidized) will be phased out, therefore production > more expensive;

- historically, BFO was most popular route (1,400 units worldwide), because coal was a cheaper input than the electricity needed for EAF , feedstock scrap iron;

- solution ? switch to DRI, using sustainable hydrogen. Ta - dah !

- problem (for Germany) - how to produce H cheaply and at scale - so far unresolved;

- side-comment : DRI works with blue/grey hudrogen (ex natural gas) as well as 'green ' hydrogen (ex renewables), that's why most existing DRI plants (2022) are in gas-rich countries :

mtpa : India 40, Iran 35, Russia 8, Saudi 7, Egypt 6 , Mexico 5, US 5, Qatar 2, Trinidad 2.

[Ed.: India / Iran lead the pack because they have an historic local industrial base/demand; note all these DRI users total barely 110 mtpa];

- for Germany, there's an issue over availability/cost of its 'mandated/proposed' green hydrogen : Thyssen Krupp points out that its tender for 143K tonnes hydrogen feedstock alone would = 15% of all planned H production by 2030, which itself needs 500 x wind turbines;

- current H production (2022) meets only 2% of Europe's energy consumption....and 96% of that 2% is blue/grey ie from natural gas.....;-<

- forecasters estimate that 7% of Germany electricity would need to be dedicated/diverted to hydrogen production...so (ironically), the target of ending (dirty) coal for electricity is quietly being pushed back from 2030 to 2038...

- Germany's under more pressure to resolve this quandary , because it (still) has a sizeable manufacturing base (20% of economy), vs barely 10% in e.g. US, France or the UK [Ed.: we've offshored to China, so we have offshored this particular problem, but face the same self-inflicted immiseration in the long run, IMO...;-< ;

- article concludes that the solution (for Germany and maybe others in the Western consuming nations) is tariff barriers to make ITS steel still commercially viable. 'Going green' is desirable, the problem is 'how to get from here to there' ?

The article is specifically about Germany's problems and a (possible) solution for Germany, but it throws useful light/info on issues facing others.

The biggest unaddressed elephant in the room is the emergence of a 'cleaner, greener, objectively cheaper' solution elsewhere (mainly in the M East).

A second unaddressed elephant in the room is that wherever DRI is seen as the solution, the other key feedstock that will AIUI improve metrics (cost/quality/price premium/emissions) is iron ore....

GLA and ATB

(1) There appears to have been some kind of breakdown in comms surrounding Big Den's recent (result-light) visit to the UAE, suggesting that the visit may not have gone totally to plan. Senior heads have rolled as a result.

Per Brazzanews :

.." diplomatic sleuths do not hesitate to speak of a dysfunction within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Presidency of the Republic and the Ministry of International Cooperation and promoting Public-Private Partnership. What's more, a lack of communication and sharing of information, particularly between four key figures, Bienvenu Okiemy, Françoise Joly, Denis Christel Sassou and Jean-Claude Gakosso, respectively diplomatic advisor to the President of the Republic, advisor and personal representative of the President of the Republic for international affairs, minister of international cooperation and the promotion of public-private partnership, and finally minister of Foreign Affairs, Francophonie and Congolese Abroad. According to some, "no form of coherent communication seems to exist and each of them acts more or less autonomously." #Chezmoiaucongo

2 x senior diplomats have reportedly been sacked (perhaps by 'the Chief' - Big Den) and Min of Foreign Affairs is rumoured to be in the line of fire....

(2) Meanwhile, Little Den trumpets this recent visit, by a party led by the Vice-Governor (CCP representative) of Jiangsu province, as part of his promotion of inward investments.

May mean nothing, but Jiangsu province is home to China's biggest private sector steel group, Shagang Group, with a $ 47 Bn turnover.

Things usually happen when inclination coincides with opportunity. As ever with ZIOC, it's hard to figure out how far down the road we are....

GLA

From today's Brazzanews, unusually detailed/pointed criticism , starting with 'big picture' stuff :

https://twitter.com/brazzanews/status/1760242981825573127

.."The fiasco of President Denis Sassou Nguesso's last trip to the United Arab Emirates, the silence of parliament and the two-speed justice system on the inextricable situations experienced by the Congolese speaks volumes. The Congolese waited in vain for their head of state's trip to the United Arab Emirates to benefit from an exhaustive report. The national media in particular, the written press and online channels have remained silent. They did not echo any agreement whatsoever. The president's bag came back empty, one must believe.

A 7-day stay without convincing results from the point of view of the profits that the Congolese can draw from it suggests that it was for a check-up and secret financial transactions that Mr. Sassou went to Abu Dhabi, like this is done often. The unease is still palpable. The clan no longer knows which way to turn. ..."

then on to various bits of local malfeasance/poor governance.

(Mind you, folks overseas probably say much the same about the UK, these days ;-