(Reuters) &#8211; Tesla Inc on Wednesday became the highest-valued automaker as its shares surged to record highs and the electric carmaker’s market capitalization overtook that of former front runner Toyota Motors Corp.



Tesla shares gained 5% in early morning trade to a record of $1,133, boosting the company’s market cap to $209.47 billion &#8211; roughly $6 billion more than Toyota is currently valued by investors.



Tesla is now worth more than triple the combined value of U.S. automakers General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co.



The shares’ meteoric rise, up more than 163% since the start of 2020, highlight growing confidence among investors about the future of electric vehicles and Tesla’s shift from a niche carmaker into a global leader in cleaner cars.



After several years of losses, Tesla has delivered three straight profitable quarters since the third quarter of 2019 and surprised investors with solid first-quarter deliveries despite the virus outbreak.



Toyota, one of the world’s most profitable automakers, sold 10.46 million vehicles during its 2019 financial year, ending on March 31, 2020. It reported net revenues of 30,226 billion yen, or roughly $281.20 billion, during that time.



Tesla, in comparison, ended 2019 with $24.6 billion in revenues, having delivered 367,200 vehicles last year. Chief Executive Elon Musk in the past said Tesla would deliver at least 500,000 vehicles in 2020, a forecast the company has not changed despite the coronavirus pandemic.



Tesla is expected to report second-quarter delivery numbers this week.

Elon Musk At SpaceX Headquarters

Elon Musk’s Tesla becomes most valuable automaker in latest stock rally

Out from under the pall of gloom over Africa brought by COVID-19 and contracting economies emerges a deal that’ll see locomotives moving freight across the continent on the way to a brighter trading future.



This week the ink dried on a deal signed by TheloDB with the government of Ghana to repair and extend 217 kilometres of railway track to haul everything from iron ore and bauxite to cocoa for export from the coastal ports.



The railway will open up a new trade corridor and is another step towards African Continental Free Trade Area; the single market may have been postponed from July 1 to January, but political will for it appears to be growing across the continent. One of the impediments to this dream of trade on the continent is poor transport infrastructure. According to the African Development Bank, Africa’s total infrastructure needs between $130-170 billion-a-year and has a financing gap of $68-108 billion.



On top of this, the fact that this was a contract won at one end of the continent by an entrepreneur from another end of continent also bodes well for the pan-African future of business.



The entrepreneur behind it all is South African Ronnie Ntuli, the chairman of TheloDB, who worked on the deal for more than two years. He says the company is negotiating for at least two similar rail projects, one in West Africa and the other in Southern Africa.



“My passion in life, as an African, is economic development in the continent. It has to be sustainable development aimed at infrastructure and building industrial capacity,” says Ntuli.



The project will create many jobs and see locomotives shipped to Ghana from manufacturers in South Africa. TheloDB will also train workers in the Ghana run the railway and oversee its operation and maintenance on completion, expected in 2024.



It was difficult closing the project in the world of COVID-19, but Ntuli believes that the pandemic has an unintended consequence.



“Many countries around the world have a lot of capital liquidity and it is going into the capital markets right now,” says Ntuli.



“Our job is to tap into that liquidity so we can do the solid infrastructure projects that the continent needs.” &nbsp;&nbsp;

Thelo_Transnet 3605

A train bound for Africa’s future to emerge from the continent’s COVID-19 gloom.

Malawi – the land of Hastings Banda the former president-for-life – may have seen a minor miracle in a clean, just, peaceful, transfer of power in defiance of the ballot box cheats. Now it is up to the new president Lazarus Chakwera to perform a bigger miracle by turning around a struggling economy in one of the poorest nations in Africa where three quarters of the people live on little more than a dollar a day.



Chakwera held his nerve as he stormed to victory over incumbent Peter Mutharika with 58% of the vote after losing the first, crooked, ballet in May 2019. They called it the “tippex election” because that was what was used to cover up people’s crosses before a false cross was put next to the ageing Mutharika’s name. The courts overturned last year’s result, on February 3, ordering the rerun that has given Chakwera a golden opportunity to shake up his country’s small and sleeping economy that barely feeds all of its 17 million people. &nbsp;



In this task, Chakwera is an outsider in more ways than one. Even though he leads the monolithic Malawi Congress Party – the party of Banda – he is a former preacher and not a career politician unlike most who have walked the country’s corridoors of power. At the very least he promises a different approach to the job that is likely to prove tough. &nbsp;



“He comes from a very different environment. He believes in the values of a Christian. He is new in politics and he comes from a Christian community and is going to bring a lot of fresh air. He is certainly likely to be a man of his word,” says Mercus Chigoga patron of the Malawi chapter of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.  



Chakwera will need to be in cleaning up one of the biggest messes Malawi faces- corruption. For years Malawians have complained bitterly about the looting of their country’s tiny coffers by its large political elite. Chakwera has put down his marker saying he will crack down on corruption and work towards the return of ill-gotten gains to the public purse. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Malawi needs the money. For a start, fewer than one-in-five Malawians can switch on a light bulb, as the country has less electricity than almost any other on the continent. Roads leave a lot to be desired and struggle to move the agricultural products that bring in 80% of the country’s earnings and jobs.



Overall, Chakwera has his work cut out to revive an economy that has been in virtual paralysis since the disputed election last year. People close to politics in Malawi say indeed Chakwera is a man with a vision and could repay the faith of the people by changing his country’s economy for the better.

Opposition Malawi Congress Party leader Lazarus Chakwera addresses supporters after a court annulled the May 2019 presidential vote in Lilongwe

Does a man of God have a prayer when to comes to saving Malawi?

South African finance minister Tito Mboweni painted a bleak picture of the South African economy during his emergency budget speech and quoted the Bible in plotting the way forward for a struggling economy expected to contract by 7.2% this year.



In a 40 minute speech Mboweni outlined a package of support for some state owned enterprises warnings of a the dangers of debt and a sovereign debt crisis. He said he was going to borrow $7 billion from international lenders to try to shore up the money-starved economy.



&#8220;Enter through the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many find it. The narrow road is the one that leads to life and few can find it,&#8221; says Mboweni quoting the gospel of Matthew in the Bible. He warned that South Africa could face the same fate as the wrecked German economy of the 1920s and Zimbabwe and Argentina in more recent years. 



Mobweni said the government&#8217;s tax target was likely to fall short by R300 billion making more borrowing inevitable and the repayments crippling with a national debt expected to top R4 trillion by the end of the year. He said for every Rand the country earned it had to spent 21 cents merely paying back debt.



The government has revised its revenue down from R1.43 trillion to R1.16 trillion as COVID-19 virtually shut down the economy for nearly three weeks.



Mboweni said the government was planning to narrow the deficit and stabilize debt at 87.4% of GDP by 2023/24. 



On the other side of the coin, Mboweni was forthcoming with taxpayers&#8217; money in giving R100 billion to the infrastructure fund and R3 billion to help restructure the struggling Land Bank.

PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA - MARCH 16: Finance minister, Tito Mboweni briefs the media on the details of government interventions in various sectors of the departmental portfolios on COVID-19 at DIRCO Media Centre.

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“Broad is the road that leads to destruction,” bleak words in a bleak budget from Tito Mboweni.

Tito Mboweni said his emergency budget would address debt as well as gathering money tot fight COVID-19.



&#8220;We have accumulated far too much debt.This downturn as severe as it is will make it worse. Out of every Rand we collect in tax 21 cents will go to paying debt,&#8221; says the finance minister.



&#8220;This Hippo is eating or children&#8217;s inheritence and we have to do all we can to close its mouht.&#8221; 



&#8220;We have flattened the curve and saved many lives. As a farmer will tell you when the storm is raging you have to protect you plants&#8230;.the storm shall pass,&#8221; says Mboweni.



The once mighty South African economy could contract by between 7 and 16 % this year losing more than a million jobs in the process.



&#8220;I think we can forget about growth this year and probably next year,&#8221; Isaah Mhlanga, the chief economist at Alexander Forbes, told CNBC Africa. 



Mboweni has to find at least R130 billion to shore up a gap in finance an a R500 billiion stimulus package to help the South African economy weather the COVID-19 pandemic. 



Despite huge spending gap that Mboweni has to bridge t, economist Azar Jammine reckons the finance minister won&#8217;t tinker with tax.



&#8220;My view is he probably won&#8217;t do so. The amount of additional revenue you might collect would be a drop in the ocean, if you think that increasing VAT by one per cent would merely raise R24 billion which is a minute amount compared to what is needed,&#8221; says Jammine.



South Africa has been borrowing more than a billion Rand a day to keep the economy afloat through the issue of bonds.



&#8220;The question I have is this appetite for buying debt, I think the longer the bonds are issued in these volumes the less the appetite is likely to be,&#8221; says Annabel Bishop, the chief economist at Investec.

COVID-19: “This Hippo is eating our children’s inheritance”Tito Mboweni on debt in the emergency budget

This week the finance minister Tito Mboweni tweeted the metaphor of closing a hippo’s mouth to hint how hard a job he faces closing the fiscal gap. It may be easier for Mboweni to catch a real life hippo and wrestle with it rather than to solve South Africa’s gaping debt problem – expected to rise to 80% of GDP by early next year.



On the afternoon of June 24 Mboweni will outline his emergency budget in the hope it will help South Africa ride out he COVID-19 storm and find elusive growth. South Africa’s once mighty economy is expected to contract by more than 10% this year and shed more than a million jobs. Figures out this week show unemployment in South Africa has already reached 30.1 % and youth employment has risen to 59%. Mboweni has warned that South Africa could face a sovereign debt crisis by 2024 forcing it to go cap-in-hand to the International Monetary Fund for a bailout.



Mboweni is expected to reveal a budget deficit for this year projected at close to 15% of GDP, a severe injury to government finances as the economy contracts alongside a huge collapse in tax revenue of up to R300bn.In all of this Mboweni has to decide whether to throw more scarce taxpayers money at the losing making state owned enterprises – his cabinet colleagues say he should, the finance minister feels he shouldn’t.



“SA’s debt is further estimated to rise to 90.9% by 2023 and over 100% by 2025, climbing to a massive 113.85 by 2029. SA is likely headed for further substantial credit rating downgrades from Moody’s, Fitch and S&amp;P, and likely quite rapidly, from out of the BB category into the single B category, which is just above C grade,” says Annabel Bishop, Chief Economist Investec



“There is not much wriggle room that the fiscus has left coming into 2020 and now we face this miracle budget with a shortfall in revenue,” says Nesan Nair a senior portfolio manager at Sasfin.



“But as far as investors are concerned there is not better person than Tito Mboweni to do the job.”



Nolan Wapenaar, of Anchor Capital, said he was expecting a deficit of about 14, which was a significant gap to be financed.



“The country is selling bonds to the tune of a billion Rand a day. We need to get into financial shape and get out of the dire financial shape we are in,” he says.



Bernard Sacks, a senior tax partner at Mazars, believes that cutting corporate tax could help get the economy back into shape.



“In world terms we are not competitive at 28 %; we need to be at 20 % to attract foreign investment. That level of tax would see money come in and South Africans trained and put to work…I don’t think we will see the minister raise tax rates which is just as well because most companies are punch drunk right now,” says Sacks.

COMMENT: Why it may be easier for Tito Mboweni to wrestle a hippo rather than close its mouth.

Students celebrated through the night as Oxford University decided to take down the statue of Cecil John Rhodes from its plinth at Oriel College – in all of this I am staggered that the debate about whether to exhume the old man’s bones has not cropped up.



Despite the respect in Africa for the dead, this was a hot debate more than 20 years ago and I reported on it for television. There were no hashtags in those days so the row was conducted in the newspapers and on the air. Remarkably, it fizzled out and even the late President Robert Mugabe – who was not always kind to colonisers – blocked the exhumation.



The grave lies in one of the most beautiful spots on earth high in the Matopos Hills above Bulawayo in Zimbabwe. I have marvelled at Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janiero, the pyramids of the Sudan, Victoria Falls and the southern Alps of New Zealand; the spot in the Matopos is hauntingly beautiful; just to stand there and see for miles, with the wind rushing through your hair, is more like heaven than earth.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



It was a place where Rhodes used to go and think and it is certainly a peaceful site for a grave if ever one existed.



“The peacefulness of it all: the chaotic grandeur of it: it creates a feeling of awe and brings home to one how very small we all are,” he once wrote.



Rhodes was buried there on April 10 1902. He had breathed his last in a beach house in Muizenberg, near Cape Town and a train took his body to Zimbabwe. In the final journey to the hills, twelve black oxen drew the coffin on a gun carriage. Thousands journeyed on carts, along spiralling roads, to pay respect. Chiefs from the land that Rhodes had taken in life respected him in death by saying “Bayethe”- the royal salute – yet, it is sobering to remember that the funeral was segregated – like everywhere else in colonial Africa at the time. &nbsp;



Anyone who wanted to dig Rhodes up would face a severe construction job; workmen carved out the grave, many metres down, in a shaft of sheer rock. The coffin is encased in lead. The get it out you would have to use heavy dynamite. It is as if Rhodes knew what was coming.



The other side of the story – oft quoted by young radicals – is that the spot is a spiritual site, called Malindidzimu. Therefore, by insisting on his burial there, the radicals felt strongly that Rhodes was trying to dominate Zimbabweans &#8211; even in death.



This was the argument ventured in the university halls and bars of Harare among the young Turks as the campaign gathered pace in 1998. It was led by the late Warlord Chakaredza who wanted to exhume the bones and throw them into the sea.



“He came from England to Zimbabwe by sea so he must go back the same way,” he told me eyes afire.



Yet the campaign was thwarted and Rhodes lies undisturbed in the rock to this day. Tourists pay money every year to go and see the grave, which means dollars trickle down to the people -somehow.



As for the statue of Rhodes ? I wish all of the world’s unwanted statutes of kings and colonialists and despots – whoever – could be melted down or sold to raise money for homes, food and education for people who need them. It is as simple as that. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



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Students protest under the statue of Cecil Rhodes outside Oriel College in Oxford University

OPINION: If Rhodes must fall, should he also be dug up?

By Chris Bishop







The government will allow a number of industries employing half a million South Africans to open up from lockdown. 



The government decided to ease restrictions on sit down restuarants,casinos air B and B and cinemas and theatres to be aligned on the limitations on gathering of people and hairdressers ; non contact sports including cricket and others. 



&#8220;We have taken this decision with due care and seriousness,&#8221; says President Cyril Ramaphosa.



&#8220;So far COVID-19 has cost our nations the lives of 1674 people out of more than 80,000 people, says the president of South Africa.



A drug manufactured here and tested in the UN has found it has cut deaths by a third and helped the management of the disease.



&#8220;We have succeeded in slowing the rate of the spread of the virus,&#8221;says President Ramaphosa. &#8220;But the pandemic will remain with us for many more months: it is not a sprint, it is a marathon.&#8221;



&#8220;More than a third of all the cases have been recorded in the last two weeks alone.



The disease is getting closer and closer to us all.As the county opens up the risk of infection increases&#8230;.Through our behaviour we can reduce the chance of getting infected.



Wearing a cloth mask reduces the chance of getting the virus&#8230;There are some South Africans who have not taken up the wearing of masks and we advise them to do so.&#8221;

African Union reaffirms support for WHO amid COVID-19 pandemic

COVID-19: Why Cyril Ramaphosa has  eased lockdown so the nation can gamble play and eat together.

By Chris Bishop



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Much has been written about Morris Isaacson High School in the last 44 years and its place as a crucible of the Soweto uprising, but very little about the man who gave his money and name to the school.



Children from Morris Isaacson High School led the march through Soweto, to Orlando Stadium on June 16 that culminated in shootings and bloodshed leaving at least 176 dead – reports say the death toll was many times more. The youth of Soweto was protesting against the use of Afrikaans as, a language of instruction, because they felt it was a tool of oppression preparing them for menial jobs. Morris Isaacson High School was sought after by parents as it stuck to English – seen as the language of opportunity – but, in 1976, the authorities decreed it too was going to teach in Afrikaans.



It was a bitter chapter in a long history of Morris Isaacson that dates back to 1896. That was the year the man himself landed in South Africa. Isaacson arrived from Lithuania, the Baltic state that yielded the majority of Jewish immigrants to South Africa. He made a name for himself in his adopted country as a trade unionist, businessman and philanthropist.



In his later years, Isaacson gave money to open a school in what is now Soweto with the idea of funding black children towards university. It opened up in 1956 with 10 classrooms and 300 pupils under the name Mohloding School. &nbsp;



The school educated leading lights of the South African liberation movement including Murphy Morobe, Tsietsi Mashanini &nbsp;&#8211; one of the leaders of the Soweto uprising – and activist Abram Onkgopotse Tiro who perished in exile in Botswana in a bomb attack in 1972.



Nelson Mandela visited Morris Isaacson High School in May 1993 to acknowledge its place in the history of the struggle.



In 2017, according to Jewish Report, Isaacson’s grandson South African born Kevin, who lives in Israel, visited the school in his first visit to the land of his birth for half a century.



Kevin said grandfather gave the educational cause top priority.



“He was very far thinking in those days,” he said in using his wealth in a positive way.



“And it is satisfying to see this is still ongoing. This community wants to be successful and to make this a better place for the younger generation.”        



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June 16 1976: The man behind the high school that made history: who was Morris Isaacson?

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This looks like a picture to celebrate happy school days – yet, it is not; behind the smiles was sorrow. The snap was taken outside Morris Isaacson School, in Soweto, on the morning of June 16 1976 as children prepared to march into a day of blood and violence. By the evening three of the children lay bloodied and bruised as police opened fire killing at least 176 school children.



Mary Fisher, who grew up in Meadowlands, Soweto, was crouching to the right of the picture. She lives in Johannesburg and spoke to CNBC Africa about her brush with death during the 1976 uprising and the story behind the picture:         



“We thought this was going to be the last time we were going to see each other. We thought let’s take a memory picture so we won’t forget each other &#8211; I am the one squatting there. So if we lose each other we will at least have a memory. We put our placards on the floor; we took this picture just in case we are not coming back. 



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We had assembly in the morning and during we sang Senzeni Na (what have we done ). We all sang together freedom songs and after that we started lifting the placards and the teachers were standing aside. Then Tsietsi Mashanini  (a Morris Isaacson pupil and one of the leaders of the uprising) says Amandla  and we all said Awethu!



READ:<a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/article/2020/06/16/june-16-1976-the-man-behind-the-high-school-that-made-history-who-was-morris-isaacson/">June 16 1976: The man behind the high school that made history: who was Morris Isaacson?</a>



We marched out carrying our placards. We were showing our placards and singing all the freedom songs and walking and with one long, big, voice; there were so many. 



Morris Isaacson was in the lead the other schools followed behind. Children from nearby schools primary schools they all came with their placards. By that time we didn’t know how big this was going to be. We thought it was only Morris Isaacson and Naledi High. We were heading for Orlando West we were supposed to collect other schools   As we got to Orlando we heard gunshots we were in the middle, but most of the guys were in the front…They were so brave that they always wanted to lead. Even, even when thugs wanted to attack the ladies at school they always wanted to protect the girls. We had so much brotherly love for one another. We heard the gunshots, then, we stopped the march. People were saying people are shot and there are two down now. So we started panicking, what I did with my friends, we ran into the schoolyard trying to hide in the classrooms.



As they were shooting we were scattered all over running into the houses… As I looked I saw behind me this dog. I was an athlete at school and thought I could outrun this dog. The dog was about to get my leg and one of the boys hit it with a dustbin. Then the police started shooting I didn’t see because I jumped over the fence. I don’t know if they got this guy.



We could hear helicopters and we thought wow now they are going to bomb the area and we are now going die. We were also aware that anything can happen. They will just come don’t switch on the light because aeroplanes can pass and see where Soweto is so they can drop a bomb. So we already had that fear that anything can happen to us we are not safe…



Everything was quiet at 6pm when we were at home bleeding and shaking with fear. The more they hit us; the more we bled and got angry; there were boys who took a dustbin and a stone thinking it will stop a bullet.



They made us so angry. We felt we did nothing and yet you want to kill us…In my mother tongue, there is a saying that says: &#8216;Don’t die like a sheep, you must die like a horse you must kick.’ You don’t just die, the person who is killing you must also get hurt…So we thought let’s just fight with our little stone. ..We were thinking: enough is enough.



It has made us fight for justice, even in my old age I don’t like bullies. I don’t like to be bullied and don’t stand to see people bullying one another. Sometimes when someone tries to steal my rights I always fight – so I&#8217;m always an activist for justice. I will not sit back and let other people take advantage or take anything that belongs to me.”

PHOTO-2020-06-15-08-43-05

June 16 1976:  A happy picture that masks the sorrow of a bloody and violent day.

By Chris Bishop and Nic Wolpe



Forty four years on and still black people are being attacked and despised on the streets of their country. On the 16th June, we pause to remember the South African schoolchildren who stood up against heavily armed police for their rights and paid with their young lives. A sad reminder of what vicious brutality, at the hands of police, went before the tragic death of George Floyd.



The desperate days in South Africa when the lives of schoolchildren clearly didn’t matter to the authorities; the late photographer Alf Kumalo was there in Soweto, risking his neck to take pictures, on that dreadful winter’s afternoon. Years later he told, with horror, how he saw police tossing the dead bodies of schoolchildren in a pile in the aftermath of the shooting that claimed at least 176 lives. Rarely was more blood spilt and innocence lost in Africa in a single clash with authority.



The memory of all can be best served by remembering and discussing the causes all sacrificed for. The youth of Soweto rose against the apartheid system. They were fighting against a system of instruction in schools, in Afrikaans, that condemned many of them to a life of servitude. In the words, borrowed from the Bible, of the architect of apartheid – Hendrik Verwoerd – such an education made the youngsters: “nothing more than drawers of water and hewers of wood.”



Both the Soweto uprising and the killing of George Floyd have their antecedents in the same deep seated racism whether it be in the classroom or the street. You can be sure the young Turks of Soweto in 1976 would have taken to the streets in support of George Floyd.



The howl of protest from Soweto was enough is enough; 44 years later we are seeing the same anguish emanating from the United States. The killing of George Floyd has sparked mass demonstrations around the world crying out for change.



The commemoration of the ‘76 Soweto uprising chimes with the massed George Floyd demonstrations with people saying they are no longer going to tolerate the brutality dished out to people based on their skin colour. The behaviour of some US policeman towards their black fellow citizens in not only deplorable, it is also a microcosm of this systemic racism that has seeped into every pore of US Society.



It affords us, in South Africa, opportunity to stand with our brothers and sisters in America to shout with one voice that enough is indeed enough. We won’t sit silently by and accept racist discrimination in the United States, or anywhere else for that matter.



It may have taken decades, but many of the young bloods of Soweto lived to see their children and grandchildren grow up with the chance of a brighter future with more opportunities. Let’s hope the children of the revolution in the United States protests will be able say the same in decades to come – if not sooner.&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;

COMMENT: Youth Day 2020 – The link between the Young Turks of Soweto and George Floyd.

By Chris Bishop



It is only 10 years ago? Isn’t it 100, or 1000 years ago? Surely, it seems a, far off, distant world.



On June 11it will be exactly 10 years since Siphiwe Tshabalala sprinted down the left like a dreadlocked gazelle and smacked in one of the sweetest goals in the history of African football. People remember where they were at that split second of the first ever world cup goal in Africa and will tell their grandchildren about it. I know I will.



This was the opening game of the 2010 FIFA World Cup; Tshabalala had the world at his feet and so it seemed did South Africa. For years we had been hearing about the billions that were coming with the world’s finest players and it looked good. Analysts predicted it would be billions in investment.



On that sunny winter afternoon we had got as right and perfectly timed as the Kagisho Dikgacoi &nbsp;&nbsp;through ball to Tshabalala. My fellow journalists and I had fought our way home, through the gridlocked streets, with meat and drink for the masses at my house. Amid the whiff of charcoal and wood the whole house was cooking along with the steaks; people of all creeds and colours hugged and wept as Tshabalala’s goal rattled into the net. I saw my first game at the age of seven, at my grandfather’s knee, and always had this romantic idea that the game could heal the troubles of the world. On that day I believed it.



As night fell all people seemed to think about was getting together. At four the following morning people were still arriving wearily at the party that had steadily acquired the energy of a Brazilian midfield. Many were fresh from the stadium with vuvuzela in hand; horns which they blasted out into the starry African skies from the balcony until their lips went blue. It was late, but few people were sleeping; even people who didn’t like football were swept up in it.



Weeks later, my wife and I drove to Bloemfontein and found ourselves behind the South African team coach. It was a touching drive; at every village and small dot on the map teachers led crowds of children from school to the side of the road to wave and cheer their national team on. I smiled behind the wheel, in the slipstream of the coach, with the thought of how many of those children would be inspired to do something with their lives in that moment. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



The other day, in lockdown, I watched a documentary on the world cup portraying &nbsp;a nation confident and free and multi-coloured and proud. I shed a few tears for lost days of promise and splendour. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



It is a shame that, a decade on, a deadlier striker than Tshabalala – COVID who wears number 19 – is causing as much disappointment &nbsp;as the goal that cancelled out his stunning effort against Mexico on that sunny winter’s afternoon. &nbsp;



For a start COVID-19 has stopped football and the good feeling that comes with it, dead in its tracks. In 2010, people in football shirts were waltzing through the streets and shopping malls like Lionel Messi; ten years on those same people are shuffling through lockdown restrictions with the gloom of a wet Sunday. &nbsp;Millions of jobs will go and the majority of companies are set to collapse. The flow of tourism income that flowed from publicity around the world has dried to a trickle. &nbsp;



Yet, where there is life there is hope and history teaches us this. In 1964, Nelson Mandela shuffled in chains and short trousers, through the cold, to his cell on Robben Island with the prospect of dying behind bars. Forty years later he smiled and held the golden world cup trophy high before the eyes of the world &nbsp;as South Africa won the bid to stage Africa’s first ever tournament. Who would have thought it? &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Newsflash – It is 2030 and the South African economy turns itself around to prosperity with nerve, steel, hard work and concord between government and private business. Who would believe it? We have to.

REPETITION – HIGHER RESOLUTIONSouth Afr

THE WEEKEND READ : Where did our golden world cup wonder go?

My colleague Wale sees me return to the office from the site late one afternoon and then says to everyone, &#8220;Hey, Paul is back; let&#8217;s ask him what he thinks on our discussions this morning&#8221;.



Wale is quite witty, funny and knowledgeable about things; so immediately, my attention is spiked.



&nbsp;&#8220;If you were paid N1.5 million per month, would you be able to save up to N1 million every month?&#8221; he asks.



The response that comes out of my mouth is: &#8220;Why not N1.2 million&#8221;?



The entire room goes silent as everyone seems to expect me to answer differently



&#8220;Why do you have to spend as much as N500,000 every month on yourself? In my mind, I wondered, &#8220;One needs a plan to scale-up their financial flexibility,&#8221; I add.



I could never &nbsp;fathom why mostly young, unmarried guys and a few newly-weds, saw the need to spend N500,000 a month on living expenses, if they earned up to N1.5 million (roughly $3,947) monthly (which, by the way, is above the average income).



Well, long story short, a lot of my colleagues disagreed me, saying higher earnings mean more expenses. This sounds logical. However, do we really spend more on our needs, or on our wants? And do we find that we tend to spend more only when we have disposable cash, but spend less and still get by just fine when we’re seemingly out of disposable cash?



One fundamental factor that keeps the middleclass in the middle class is the continuous lack of self-discipline to live within their means, work with a budget, and consistently invest in well-designed schemes to scale up their financial flexibility.



I concur that saving substantially with a salary within the range of N100,000 &#8211; N200,000 ,which is the average income of Nigeria’s younger middleclass, might be tough, but not impossible. I believe that whether you earn N100,000 or N1 million monthly, with the desire to save, you will. Married or single, it all comes down to having a plan and sticking to it.



If you make irresponsible financial decisions, you will pay sooner than later. If you keep being overly generous,(when you really can&#8217;t afford it, one day, you&#8217;ll become broke, and those same people you were &#8220;helping&#8221; will accuse you of spending foolishly. Some of them might even abandon or mock you.



In personal finance, don’t cut your coat according to your size but according to your cloth. Societal pressures shouldn’t determine your spending habit. Understand that there&#8217;s nothing wrong if you&#8217;re the only one among your friends who uses an Android phone. You could also be the only one among them who can afford to make a N1 million in emergency spending. Appearances can be deceiving, and mostly are. You don&#8217;t have to look rich when you know you aren&#8217;t. There’s no wisdom in that. Create a realistic plan and work your way to real financial flexibility. And even if you make mistakes, don’t be too discouraged to try again. Put in the hard work to get it right; and you will.



Chukwubuikem Paul Anunaso, is a civil/structural engineer and writer in Lagos, Nigeria.

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OPINION: “You don’t have to look rich when you know you aren’t”  Why Nigerians should save.

By Chris Bishop



It says a lot about the personality of the last survivor of the trial that saw Nelson Mandela face death that when he emerged from 27 years in prison he returned to the same tiny township home he had been arrested in on a cold, crisp, winter’s evening nearly three decades before. The bedroom where rough tough police pushed their way in, on June 24 1963, to arrest Andrew Mlangeni, who was in bed with his wife June Johanna, is now his book-filled study where he worked for years to improve the life of his &nbsp;people; there is an uplifting metaphor for hope in life if ever there was one. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Not for Mlangeni the status symbol big empty multi-storey mansions of rich; he preferred to stay in the house be bought, in Dube in Soweto the Johannesburg township where he was born, close to his family and the people who supported his liberation politics. In his mid-eighties, a time when most people have retired, the member of Parliament Mlangeni opened up an office for his people in Dube.



“People can come here and we can help them,” he said of his new office in 2009. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



The widely respected Mlangeni joined the struggle in 1951 – the year he met Mandela for the first time at a train station in Soweto. He was always destined for the struggle and often used to talk of the influence future African National Congress leader OR Tambo had on him as he taught him science and mathematics at school. &nbsp;&nbsp;



There is no doubt Mlangeni was a tough as nails; he fought exploitation as a young factory worker and led a bus strike in Johannesburg in the late 1940s- the days when violence and coercion were the order of the day. He trained as a soldier in China, in the early 1960s and soon after his return to South Africa he was captured in the famous police raid on Liliesleaf farm in Rivonia-the suburb that lent the trial its name.



As I write this, on June 6 2020 the sun is going down over Soweto on Mlangeni’s 95th birthday – an day to celebrate an achievement in both perpetuity and politics. Where ever he is tonight, Mlangeni will be surrounded by his comrades and friends; quite right too for one who sacrificed so much for many. I was lucky to spend time with him in the making of the CNBC Africa documentary Liliesleaf – the Untold Story and his bluff, no nonsense, persona left an indelible mark on me. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



In the dark days of the underground struggle, in the early 1960s, Mlangeni suffered more than most at the hands of bullying police. In the cells at the old Johannesburg Fort – now the Constitutional Court &#8211; where the Rivonia trialists were hauled in chains after the raid, his jailers were ruthless in seeking, in vain, information.



&nbsp;In a chance meeting in 2010, ironically in the colonial splendour of the Rand Club in downtown Johannesburg, he puffed on a Consulate cigarette as he told me of how the police tortured him with electrodes and dished out arguably the worst beating inflicted on any of the Rivonia trialists. He said at one point the police were waterboarding him; that is, holding a bag over his head while they poured water through.



“I felt my lungs fill up, I was drowning, I was gone…then one of the police hit me hard in the stomach and all of the water spurted out of me and I was OK!”



All of us listening over post lunch drinks, including the late veteran photographer, Alf Kumalo, who once had his skull cracked in police cells, laughed. If you have suffered through politics or journalism, especially as Alf had, you tend to see the funny side of the ugliest of moments.



We even chuckled over the fact that no evidence was directed towards Mlangeni during the Rivonia trial – meaning he spent a lifetime in prison for doing nothing wrong. He pleaded guilty, on principle, to all the charges, shoulder-to-shoulder with his comrades, in the hope the hearing would put apartheid South Africa on trial. It did, the so called terrorists in the dock caught the imagination of the world’s press and transformed into the Benjamin Franklins of Africa.



This principle cost Mlangeni 27 years of his life. In the back of the police van leaving the Palace of Justice in Pretoria, on their way to Robben Island, the accused, including Mandela and Mlangeni, held up three fingers to the young advocate George Bizos who had helped them escape the death sentence.



“Three years George and we will be out!”



It turned out not to be so. A life sentence in apartheid days, meant life, as Robben Island &nbsp;prisoner, the late Ahmed Kathrada, once commented to me with a hint of irony.



It is a measure of the man that Mlangeni said of his feelings about the 1964 life sentence, nearly half a century on: “We felt happy and proud &nbsp;that although the propaganda outside from the government that we were murderers, terrorists and rapists, people now knew we were none of these things and people knew what we were fighting for. That feeling that they know we are not thieves, that we are fighting for freedom, that is what kept us going.” How much would people give to hear a leader speak that way in 2020?

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Why 95-year-old struggle stalwart Andrew Mlangeni was “happy and proud” about a life sentence.

Former World Bank Treasurer Arunma Oteh has gone into bat for her former colleague Akunwumi Adesina the under pressure president of the African Development Bank. Oteh &#8211; now an academic scholar at the University of Oxford- spoke to Kenneth Igbomor of CNBC Africa’s Lagos bureau.



CNBC Africa: Your take on the recent developments at the African Development Bank?



Arunma Oteh:“Indeed I’ve worked for the African Development Bank for 17 years in a variety of roles and also as you’ve mentioned, most recently as Group Treasurer for the World Bank for little over 3 years.  I do think that the issues that has developed are unfortunate. Particularly because of the difficult times that the world is facing in respect to Covid-19. Also I’ve known Dr Adesina, the President of African Development Bank for several years and I can attest to the fact that he’s not only a great leader but he is a man of upmost integrity.



Most recently, when he was Minister of Agriculture, I was the Director-General of the Securities &amp; Exchange Commission in Nigeria, and he and his team worked with my team and I on leveraging the capital markets to transform the agricultural sector of Nigeria.&nbsp; But I think also important is that we cannot lose sight of the fact that the African Development Bank and multilateral banks generally add credible institutions and highly rated in parts because of the best practice governance and stringent processes. In fact the African Development Bank has more rigorous processes in many cases then some of the other development banks. So let’s take one issue is a critical governance issue which is a selection process for the leadership of the bank.



If you take for example the Asian Development Bank, its President has always been Japanese – its largest shareholder. The World Bank – whose largest shareholder is the United States – the President has always been since 1947 when the World Bank has been established – has always been an American. For the African Development Bank it’s different. The process is a competitive, rigorous process that allows any candidates endorsed by their own country from any of today’s 55 African countries to contest for the elections.



Indeed, Dr Adesina is the first Nigerian that has ever been President of the African Development Bank since its founding. Even though Nigeria is its largest shareholder and so for 50 years because of this process that allows all of the shareholders that are African to submit a candidature, it is a much more rigorous and competitive process.



I was in my last role at the African Development Bank &#8211; Vice President of Corporate Services, and therefore as Vice President of Corporate Services because I was responsible for human resources, for Information Technology, for Administration, for Procurement, for Language Services, and had administrative oversight of the offices around the continent. So I was very involved in hiring processes in procurement and I can also attest to the fact that these processes are by design and by practice very rigorous and involve several levels of decision making.



So by the time something gets to the desk of the President of the African Development Bank it’s gone through rigorous processes. There is also feedback mechanisms to continue to ensure that these governance and best practices and processes remain best practice. I think also important to highlight is that Multilateral Development Banks have been the bastion of collective decision making processes at all levels, I mean if you’re hiring somebody there’s a multi-disciplinary team across departments that get in the selection process – there are different levels in the hiring process. If you take – and for me it’s very representative of one of the essence of what Africa brings to the table – collective collaborative decision making.&nbsp; And if you take for example the fight that I think was had in either January or February that the African shareholders decided through the African Union, through the heads of state that they would endorse Dr Adesina as their sole candidate for the elections which I hear will be held in August this year.



His two predecessors were also re-elected by acclamation. So this principle of collective decision making of best practice – governance practice &#8211; is something that’s associated with the African Development Bank and other development banks. I have had the privilege working in a variety of roles, rising through the ranks. I’ve worked as a loan officer, for West &amp; North Africa as a funding officer, as a portfolio manager, I’ve ran the trading route, I was Treasurer of the African Development Bank, I was Group Vice President of Corporate Services so I’ve worked in operations, I’ve worked in Treasury, I’ve worked in administration.



But as you’ve also mentioned I’ve also worked at the World Bank, most recently from 2015 to 2018. And I can assure you the Multilateral Development Banks are absolutely an amazing institution. They are well-run and they have great impact on society as people have seen and in particularly on the African continent. What I don’t like about them is this pattern of making frivolous allegations of a sitting President just before an election.



I’ve worked with three presidents from 1992 to 2009 when I left the African Development Bank and each of them experienced this. I’ve worked with the President at the African Development Bank (at the World Bank) and he also experience this. So the shareholders must find a way to try and make sure that they stop this issue of these frivolous allegations in trying to undermine the leadership of an institution that’s trying to make a difference on the continent.”



CNBC Africa: I am still trying to understand type of signaling that it gives on the state of governance systems for AAA premise to show, like the African Development Bank, to take the option of an independent probe on cause of a shareholder after the conclusion of the same process by the board of governance.



Arunma Oteh: “What I would like to share with you is that first and foremost, there are rigorous processes and by the time something gets to the board of Directors and the ethics committee has reviewed it; it’s gone through a lot of processes. So I have no doubt that the work of the board ethics committee has been rigorous. But I think we need to go back to something that is unique in terms of the context of the establishment of the African Development Bank. I don’t know if you know this, it was conceptualized by African financial luminaries led by Romeo Horton – the late governor of the Central Bank of Liberia in the 1960s. Their vision was to establish a first class African Institution that will mobilize resources for Africa.



It was also one that ensures that Africa has a leading voice in its economic development. African Development Bank started its operations I think in 1964. It was a decade later that non-African countries joined through the establishment of the African Development Fund which was modelled after the World Bank Group’s international development association. The non-African countries did not join the bank until 1982. So almost two decades later. That said the African Development Bank remains an institution where everybody comes together to focus as a group in advancing Africa’s economic development agenda.



And today I know that there are 81 shareholders. Last year, in that collaborative and cooperative nature there was a replenishment of the fund, there was a capital increase.&nbsp; And I think this is a show of confidence not just by African countries but also by the non-African country shareholders of the excellent work that Dr Adesina and his team have undertaken in the last 5 years. I, of course have looked on with interest and their many, many achievements. Transforming the power sector, revolutionizing agriculture, but importantly putting youth and women at the centre of development. I’ve been struck also by some of the very important initiatives that catalyze resources by the private sector that bring partnerships between the public sector and the private sector. Initiative like the African Investment Forum, which in a short term has catalyzed a lot of resources for the African Development Bank and for Africa’s development more so.



But it’s also focused on trying to make sure that those issues that prevent the acceleration of Africa’s development at tackled that government, private sector and the honest brokers, development banks like the African Development Bank, like the Europe Investment Bank, like IBRD, the Development Finance Cooperation of the United States that they all at the table trying to make sure that the environment that support Africa’s development is taken account of.



I’ve also been struck that this has not distracted Dr Adesina and his leadership team because I’ve seen what they have done in respect to responding and supporting African countries in response to the Covid-19 crises. And I do think that this is extremely important given the difficult times that we face. Permit me to also use this opportunity given to appeal to shareholders and particularly to the Ministers of finance who comprises, who gather the most senior decision-making body of the African Development Bank, the board of governance to speedily bring closure to this issue so that Dr Adesina and his team continue to do the great work that they’ve been doing in supporting African countries at this critical time. I mean these are unprecedented times in terms of the Covid-19. Dr Adesina is someone of the highest integrity. His track record over his 35year career shows that.



The African Development Bank has always had rigor, continues to improve its governance practices, a board, the leadership of the institution, the various organs, the independent mechanisms within the organization, the internal auditor, the inspection mechanisms that report directly to the board. So these institutions are rigorous in terms of cooperative governance. I was the head of the Capital Market Regulator in Nigeria so issues of cooperative governance, understanding where private sector institutions stand. The quality of governance of these institutions are extremely world class and particularly the African Development Bank.



So my appeal really is that we dispense of this issue. That we stop this culture of frivolous allegations around the times of elections. And allow the African Development Bank to support the African continent at this important time.”



CNBC Africa: I would like to look at Nigeria now as the bank’s largest shareholder and try to understand the level recommendations you would have for the Nigerian authorities if they going to response to this issue.”



Arunma Oteh:“I think there is a lot put out by the media and I think that’s one the things that is a bit unfortunate that because of social media there is a lot of amplification of issues. So issues that the governors would’ve taken care of themselves than come out in the media then all of us get to talk about it. So in the media the absolutely well-articulated letter that the minister of finance Ms Zainab Ahmed wrote to the chair of the board of the governor, so the Minister of Planning for Ivory Coast, and she clearly articulates what is clear and I don’t think it’s just a Nigerian position I think that is a position of anybody who understands the governance processes of institutions, Multilateral Development Banks. So I think Nigeria has taken the steps that it should take. I think even important is the collaborative nature in the way that African nation operate because I understand that these allegations were made in January. I think in early February the African Union, chaired by President Cyril Ramaphosa, still endorsed Dr Adesina for the elections. The 55 African countries all of them together. And these people will not endorse who they think is not of integrity, who they think have made riches.



So my message is that we need to allow Africa to turn this Covid-19 crises into an opportunity. There is a lot of work that need to be done. There’s a lot of issues to manage. And this is my message to you, to Nigeria, to Africans, to the non-Africans who have been extremely supportive of this institution including the United States which is the second largest shareholder of the African Development Bank.”

Arunma Oteh on Adesina’s probe & why COVID-19 represents an opportunity for Africa

“Stop this culture of frivolous allegations” former World Bank Treasurer Arunma Oteh defends African Development Bank President

By Chris Bishop



Africa has agreed to link the middle of nowhere to God knows where to help NASA in its space race.



The South African government agreed, on May 27, that the South African National Space Agency be allowed to set up an earth station, in partnership with NASA, to help to support human spaceflight to the moon Mars and beyond. It will be called a Deep Earth Station and will assemble a bunch of scientists and experts to support the existing network of similar sites in the United States, Spain and Australia, according to official papers.



“The station will benefit South Africa in, amongst others, the development of scarce skills and the growth of the science, engineering, technology and innovation sector,” says cabinet papers.



The new earth station will be built in a tiny dot on the South African map in the heart of one of the great, remote, wildernesses of Africa – the Karoo. It will be built near Majtiesfontein, in South Africa’s Western Cape, 195 kilometres from Cape Town. Remote areas, with little pollution, apparently make it easier to connect clearly with the stars.



The tiny town nestles into a vast expanse of largely untouched land and has a population just over 400. As yet, it is more famous for mohair farming and the castle turrets of the 120-year-old Lord Milner Hotel, where nearly one-in-five people in Majtiesfontein work , than it is for its future role in the space race.



The hotel, built in 1899 by the town’s Scottish railwayman founder James Logan, once played host to the Sultan of Zanzibar, Lord Randolph Churchill – the father of Winston Churchill – and the author of the Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling. Two months ago it closed its doors, because of COIVD-19, for the first time since the days of Rudyard and Randolph in the 19th century.



&nbsp;“We don&#8217;t actually see a lot of people, they tend to stay in their houses,” says Werner Smit, the general manager of the Lord Milner Hotel in a recent interview with Cape Talk FM.



Work at the Deep Earth Station is likely to see the biggest influx of people and equipment into Majtiesfontein since the Anglo-Boer War when it was home to British 12,000 troops. By contrast, the scientists and engineers of the Deep Earth Station come in peace and in the hope that the Lord Milner Hotel will be open with enough beds to accommodate them.

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How Africa is hooking up the wilderness with the universe to help NASA in the space race.

In these difficult days of COVID-19 it seems a bit of renewed pragmatism is creeping into mining as it negotiates its way through the crisis.



From June 1 deep level mines will be able to ramp up to full production after a lengthy lockdown due that has cost the country between 8 to 10 % in production. There is a lot at stake. More than 400,000 pay packets rely upon unearthing mineral wealth in South Africa that creates 8.1% of the country’s GDP.



For years it has been daggers drawn between government and mine owners in disputes over mining regulations that the latter fear are driving away investors from starting new mines. As I write a court case launched by the mine owners and calling for a judicial review of the Mining Charter – the voluntary document that promote black ownership in the industry. In the past mine owners have seen the document as cumbersome and expensive to comply with.



Roger Baxter, the CEO of the Minerals Council of South Africa – that represents most of South Africa’s major mines said in a CNBC Africa virtual online discussion on mining that negotiations with mining minister Gwede Mantashe, in these difficult days, had been frank and fruitful.



“The mining minister calls me Frank Baxter and I call him Candid Mantashe – that give you an idea of how serious and open these discussions are because we all want to improve the mining over the long term and get the economy growing again. If we can get back to between three and five per cent growth it could turn everything around,” says Baxter.



The CNBC Africa discussion also saw pragmatic words from mining veteran Bridgette Motsepe, an ambassador with the Pan African Parliament, who had worked with Chinese miners in Africa.



“When they come with a project they come with a plan and get things done,” says Motsepe.



All agreed on the panel that the government had done a lot of work to help contain COIVD-19 in the mines. Deshnee Naidoo, the former Vedanta CEO, said tens of thousands of tests had been done in the mines since the pandemic and work was well advanced to set up a tracing system to contain outbreaks.



Mantashe was answering questions in Parliament on COVID-19 during the online discussion and couldn’t take part.

Chris Bishop

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June 16 1976: The man behind the high school that made history: who was Morris Isaacson?

June 16 1976: A happy picture that masks the sorrow of a bloody and violent day.

COMMENT: Youth Day 2020 – The link between the Young Turks of Soweto and George Floyd.

THE WEEKEND READ : Where did our golden world cup wonder go?

OPINION: “You don’t have to look rich when you know you aren’t” Why Nigerians should save.

Why 95-year-old struggle stalwart Andrew Mlangeni was “happy and proud” about a life sentence.

“Stop this culture of frivolous allegations” former World Bank Treasurer Arunma Oteh defends African Development Bank President

How Africa is hooking up the wilderness with the universe to help NASA in the space race.

Quite frankly, be candid… What African mining bosses and the minister call each other behind closed doors

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Chris Bishop

Elon Musk’s Tesla becomes most valuable automaker in latest stock rally

A train bound for Africa’s future to emerge from the continent’s COVID-19 gloom.

Does a man of God have a prayer when to comes to saving Malawi?

“Broad is the road that leads to destruction,” bleak words in a bleak budget from Tito Mboweni.

COVID-19: “This Hippo is eating our children’s inheritance”Tito Mboweni on debt in the emergency budget

COMMENT: Why it may be easier for Tito Mboweni to wrestle a hippo rather than close its mouth.

OPINION: If Rhodes must fall, should he also be dug up?

COVID-19: Why Cyril Ramaphosa has eased lockdown so the nation can gamble play and eat together.

June 16 1976: The man behind the high school that made history: who was Morris Isaacson?

June 16 1976: A happy picture that masks the sorrow of a bloody and violent day.

COMMENT: Youth Day 2020 – The link between the Young Turks of Soweto and George Floyd.

THE WEEKEND READ : Where did our golden world cup wonder go?

OPINION: “You don’t have to look rich when you know you aren’t” Why Nigerians should save.

Why 95-year-old struggle stalwart Andrew Mlangeni was “happy and proud” about a life sentence.

“Stop this culture of frivolous allegations” former World Bank Treasurer Arunma Oteh defends African Development Bank President

How Africa is hooking up the wilderness with the universe to help NASA in the space race.

Quite frankly, be candid… What African mining bosses and the minister call each other behind closed doors

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