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And here's a link to the whole story, mentions in passing that UK uses Portuguese Tekever drones.

'How are the mighty fallen' ;-<

https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2023/07/uk/migrant-crossings-ai-small-boats/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=LNCH%20%2020230816%20%20House%20Ads%20%20SM+CID_9db41cb1383867e8e61805a4eb1c3772

ATB

And a bit more from Dillian :

.."A couple more notes on the Argentine primary. You probably saw that YPF and GGAL opened up down about 15%, but relentless buying pushed them higher throughout the rest of the day. I was reminded of the price action when Trump

was elected in 2016. Dow down 500 overnight, opened up 500 in the morning, and then went 20-25% over the next few months, never looking back. I think the circumstances are very similar here.

Outsider candidate, shock to the system, but remember, Milei has dogs named Milton Friedman and Murray Rothbard. I think you want to be long a country where there is a good chance the incoming president has dogs named Milton

Friedman and Murray Rothbard.

Just saying."

The dog names are a bit disconcerting (and impractical).

ATB

And this is Ashmore's more conventional comment :

.."Argentina: Argentinians cast their votes on Sunday 13 August for a presidential primary election called PASO (Primarias Abiertas Simultáneas y Obligatorias) designed to reduce the number of candidates in the general election next October. With 77% of the votes counted, the PASO has delivered a shock to the political system, with a stunning defeat of the traditional centre-right opposition parties at the hands of political outsider Javier Milei, who topped the field with 31% of voting intentions, more than 10% over median poll estimates.

Conversely, the opposition coalition Juntos por el Cambio (JxC), which was hoping to gather 34% of the votes (split between their two competing, and sometimes feuding candidates) came up short with only 27% of combined votes, barely ahead of beleaguered Economy Minister Sergio Massa representing the Peronist vote under the banner of the Union por la Patria, at 26%.

The result is a clear rejection of Argentina’s traditional parties, punishing both centre-right and centre-left parties that have failed to stabilise inflation and have weakened the value of the Argentinian Peso (ARS) by 95% against the US dollar in the last decade.

Javier Milei has embraced a mix of libertarian ideology and right-wing populist rhetoric..."

ATB

Interesting to note, as an aside that the US has just agreed that Denmark can sell some of its F-16s to Argentina, ignoring the UK's historic objections.

'With friends like these...'

https://www.flightglobal.com/fixed-wing/usa-to-approve-sale-of-danish-f-16s-to-argentina/154540.article

Hi all,

FWIW, this is Jared Dillian's (of the Mauldin stable) take on Millei's 'surprise' performance :

.."Boy, this Argentina trade has turned out to be something else...............Can’t play video in a PDF, obviously, but I saw a clip on Twitter of Milei’s

campaign rally and it was like a rock concert. There is a lot of excitement

about this particular candidate, to say the least. This is what happens when

people get to the point of maximum pain, and they are willing to try something

new—anything—to stop the pain. It will be an interesting experiment, for sure.

They are essentially going from Bernie Sanders to Ron Paul without passing

through the space in between. I should also point out that 58% of the vote went

to right-wing candidates.

One thing I’ve said a bunch of times is that some of the best investments come

from when a country goes from being economically unfree to economically free. If Milei ultimately wins and dollarizes the economy, Argentina is going to go ballistic, and there will be a boom that lasts for 10 years or more.

There is historical precedent for this. How did I have so much conviction? The

charts, dummy. Gap up, consolidation, gap up, consolidation. Don’t get me

wrong, Milei is a nut, but he is a nut who is in the right place at the right

time. You see these people in politics sometimes, whose message resonates. It

was true of Trump, and also of Obama.

Interestingly, stocks were down slightly on the election results. Gartman used

to say all the time that markets preferred center-right political outcomes, and Milei is not center-right.

There will be turmoil and upheaval. There are a lot of unknowns. Markets prefer safe hands. If there is an EM/FM hedge fund out there who understands economics, they will be buying Argy with both hands. Also, there is a lot of green in between—anything can happen at the general election, up to and including a Peronist victory.

Milei has been called the Trump of Latin America. In some ways he is like Trump,

in other ways he is not. He’s an ancap when it comes to economics, but he has

conservative social views. He’s like Trump in that he’s a complete outsider that has just crashed traditional politics in Argentina.

There’s only one bad outcome here, and even the bad outcome is not so bad. Giddyup.

Dillian's style is a little unusual, granted, but I enjoy his unorthodox take on things...and he's called it pretty right so far.

NAI, DYOR

Full disclosure : I have (modest) exposure to YPF.... and GGAL (a financial services company).

ATB

Guinea has a track record of supporting a successful bauxite mining industry over more than 2 decades. Most of the Chinese co's involved in Simandou iron ore were previously/ are currently involved in the bauxite industry.

C-B has a track record of talking up prospects but then expropriating mines or not progressing approvals for supportive infrastructure, witness how the Chinese walked away from the PN SEZ over sovereignty issues.

At some point, the penny will hopefully drop in C-B, esp. when they see other countries getting their act together.

AFAICS

Good to see that PIF is prioritising 'economic'...something that seems to be secondary in others' minds !

;->

ATB

Javier Blas

@JavierBlas

Glencore CEO Gary Nagle on how ESG works inside assets managers: “Someone in the basement, in office room 27, ticks a box”

8:30 PM · Jun 29, 2023

227.2K

Jason Wong

@jasonfx

Jun 29

😂and suddenly Philip Morris has a better score than Tesla!

Ho hum...

Catching up on depeches coverage of the Brazil Belem rainforest summit, it seems that Nguesso and Tschikedi are at logger-heads (sorry) :

- DSN is promoting HIS upcoming 3 x basins meeting scheduled for mid October, Tschikedi met with Lula to promote HIS mid August proposed meet-up. Lula politely prevaricated saying his advisers would need to be properly prepared....

The egos have landed.

Speaking of which, some photos of DSN getting off an aircraft on arrival. Too big to be PP-FCC, not flash enough to be a 'royal'....

The saga continues.

Nor Matt Han... at a guess...

lse's issue with the letters 'pak*' is commonly referred to as the s****horpe problem.

it also shows up when reporting the latest event won by the sprinter tyson g*y...and, closer to home, when depeches or another french-language publication refers to a politician meeting his opposite number (common enough), which is 'h*mologue' in french...

sometimes ai isn't very bright.

atb

Https://www.france24.com/en/environment/20230810-brazil-s-lula-urges-rich-countries-to-do-their-part-to-fund-fight-against-climate-change

Held in Belem, Brazil, at the mouth of the Amazon river, the summit was also something of a dress rehearsal for the 2025 UN climate talks, which the city will host.

The United Arab Emirates, which will host the next UN climate talks in December, sent its special envoy for climate change, Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber.

Al-Jaber, chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), vowed to "keep the pressure on donor countries" to meet their unfulfilled climate finance pledges, in his first major statement on the need to protect and invest in nature as a core pillar of climate progress."

AlJaber will have found much to talk about fossil fuels role with fellow attendees Brazil, Colombia , Guyana, Peru and Venezuela.....

Perhaps, wearing his Ministry of Industry hat, he also had an opportunity to talk with Lula and Nguesso about another shared interest in Congo-Brazzaville?

And wouldn't it be helpful (and entirely logical) if AlJaber had offered a ride-share to Belem to his new tree-hugging bestie Nguesso ?

What fun!

Https://www.france24.com/en/environment/20230810-brazil-s-lula-urges-rich-countries-to-do-their-part-to-fund-fight-against-climate-change

Held in Belem, Brazil, at the mouth of the Amazon river, the summit was also something of a dress rehearsal for the 2025 UN climate talks, which the city will host.

The United Arab Emirates, which will host the next UN climate talks in December, sent its special envoy for climate change, Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber.

Al-Jaber, chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), vowed to "keep the pressure on donor countries" to meet their unfulfilled climate finance pledges, in his first major statement on the need to protect and invest in nature as a core pillar of climate progress."

AlJaber will have found much to talk about fossil fuels role with fellow attendees Brazil, Colombia , Guyana, Peru and Venezuela.....

Perhaps, wearing his Ministry of Industry hat, he also had an opportunity to talk with Lula and Nguesso about another shared interest in Congo-Brazzaville?

And wouldn't it be helpful (and entirely logical) if AlJaber had offered a ride-share to Belem to his new tree-hugging bestie Nguesso ?

What fun!

Hi all,

Interesting to note that Sultan al Jaber attended the Belem Amazon Conference, no doubt in his capacity as host of upcoming Dubai COP 28.

He'll also have wanted to keep an eye on discussions about where oil fits in to these environmental goals (as will other attendees eg Brazil itself, Colombia, Guyana and Venezuela ;-

.."This looks like Shard dumping the first 12m into the market,.."

Could be read a number of ways (if this explanation is correct), surely?

(1) ZIOC needs more money because it's incurring higher expenses = things are moving behind the scenes.

(2) ZIOC is 'rewarding' favoured parties by letting them access cheap shares = things are moving behind the scenes.

(3) ZIOC has miscalculated cashflows and has to sell at any price = maybe not good news.

(4) ZIOC(or someone else)is trying to manipulate the s/p, for whatever reason (= could be good for us PI's or not)

(5) Something else (suggestions invited !)

The one thing we can surely all agree on, based on long historic evidence, is that Elphick has always been parsimonious with ZIOC shares...up to now.

Which could be taken either way - aka 'this time it's different' - granted.

GLA and ATB

What fun!

Belinga was previously in the hands of BHP-Billiton (2012) after it had been earlier awarded to CMEC (2006), from whom it was withdrawn (and CMEC blacklisted for a spell by World Bank and others) for environmental violations.

https://leave-it-in-the-ground.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Exemplary-Cases-of-Good-Chinese-Investor-Responsibility_Case-5-Belinga.pdf

A competitor at the time (2006/7) for the concession appears to have been our friends at Vale.

.."SEPTEMBER 7, 2007: Framework agreement is signed between Gabon, Exim Bank and CMEC about iron mining in Belinga, infrastructures and finance after a controversial bidding process with Brazilian Vale as another contender..."

First this, then Simandou.....maybe it'll be third time lucky for Vale (hint: maybe try nearer the end of the alphabet ? ;->)

'Twiggy' Forrest gets to play his own 'green ' card, (a) with green ore and (b) with his other environmental enthusiasm for rain-forests.

He seems to have given notice to DRC that he's not prepared to hang around on Grand Inga dam plans forever, whilst they dither.

Maybe he'll want to do a 'two-fer', with ZIOC ?

The field is getting crowded again...and the BRICS meeting in SA takes place in a fortnight....

Interesting times !

GLA

Hi Vet10,

Nguesso in Brazil.

The conference taking place in Belem is about deforestation.

PP-FCC flew there the 7th of August, per flightradar24

07 Aug 2023 Sao Paulo (GRU) Belem (BEL) (PPFCC) 3:05 18:49 18:49 21:54

That alone could equally be a pointer to (a) use by Nguesso or (b) use by a timber merchant keeping an eye on his business interests.

In favour of the latter is that the previous flts support the view of a travelling businessman* , rather than a head of state:

05 Aug 2023 Punta del Este (PDP) Sao Paulo (GRU) (PPFCC)

01 Aug 2023 Sao Paulo (GRU) Punta del Este (PDP) (PPFCC)

28 Jul 2023 Lisbon (LIS) Sao Paulo (GRU) (PPFCC)

28 Jul 2023 Cascais (CAT) Lisbon (LIS) (PPFCC)

27 Jul 2023 Naples (NAP) Cascais (CAT) (PPFCC)

27 Jul 2023 Olbia (OLB) Naples (NAP) (PPFCC)

22 Jul 2023 Naples (NAP) Olbia (OLB) (PPFCC)

22 Jul 2023 Cascais (CAT) Naples (NAP) (PPFCC)

19 Jul 2023 Brazzaville (BZV) Cascais (CAT) (PPFCC)

*Punta del Este (Uruguay) and Olbia (Sardinia) are fashionable fleshpots for the rich and (in)famous....

AFAICS

Meanwhile, further evidence of AbuDhabi and CMEC's good working relationship (Dec 2020)

https://renewablesnow.com/news/cmec-to-build-2-gw-solar-park-in-abu-dhabi-726427/

GLA

Meanwhile, further evidence of AbuDhabi and CMEC's good working relationship (Dec 2020)

https://renewablesnow.com/news/cmec-to-build-2-gw-solar-park-in-abu-dhabi-726427/

GLA

Meanwhile, the AbuDhabi/CMEC love-in continues...

https://renewablesnow.com/news/cmec-to-build-2-gw-solar-park-in-abu-dhabi-726427/

GLA

Something for people to get their teeth into, if interested in the nitty-gritty...

If the World Bank is looking at rail infrastructure associated with mining projects in SubSaharan Africa, I'm sure they'll take this sister/sponsored publication into account.

https://issuu.com/world.bank.publications/docs/fostering_the_development_of_greenf

It's a dated overview, but covers many of the issues and - helpfully - includes at least a few passing references /comparators re Zanaga amongst prospective iron ore mine developments.

See in particular pp12-14 re Zanaga and peers; pp 16-19and 38-39 re project aspects (incl. ports) and structures; and pp 44-45 port to mine rail distance considerations.

Although dated, ZIOC continues to stack up pretty well against current contenders, IMO..

ATB