Anyone who knows me knows this is my favourite photo. President Frederick Titus Jacob Chiluba leaned in, I stood tall, and my mother watched as power shook hands. It was one of those fully parent driven events. I just knew my mum was excited that the Zambian president was coming to Kenya. This was in the early 1990s, not long after Chiluba had succeeded Kenneth Kaunda. At that time he represented hope, a fresh chapter for Zambia after nearly three decades of one party rule. For Zambians living in Nairobi it was a moment of pride, a chance to meet the new leader who carried so much promise. My mum, working at the British Council, insisted I be there. She had come to Kenya for further studies, met my dad, and built a life here, but her roots and her pride in Zambia’s future carried her to the airport that day with me in tow. I did not grasp the gravity. I was just a child being taken to meet a visiting head of state. Yet today, when I look back, I see more. I see posture, symbolism, and history in a single frame. Chiluba leans forward, extending authority. I stand upright, unintimidated, hand outstretched. My mum looks on, smiling, the bridge between heritage, identity, and a moment of recognition. This photo reminds me that we rarely understand the weight of moments while we are in them. Their meaning unfolds years later when life teaches us how to see. For my mother, this was pride. For me, it became perspective. Power bends, youth rises, and the witness in the background holds both stories together. Sometimes leadership is exactly that: recognising when to lean in, when to stand tall, and when to simply bear witness so that others can remember.

Permanent grievance is boring. Build something.

It’s incredible how every country in the World Cup has a community in the US. How big is this country?

A friend sent me a post last week about being told you are "too much." She added a line of her own: you are extra and I cherish you for it. I needed to hear it that day. This week's Friday Reflection is personal. It marks the hundredth piece published on Canary Compass and asks a question I have been avoiding: what happens when the same standard you set for the work becomes the only standard you carry? When it follows you into conversations, into group chats at midnight, into how you speak to your eldest, into the tools that have quietly replaced the people. The work filled the hours. It did not fill the room. canarycompass.com/p/friday-r…

SA wameanza ngware?

Why is the Supersport/DSTv table so small? Or is the panel too large?

Is it just me, or has this conflict been normalised simply because oil stopped spiking the way everyone said it would? The call keeps rolling, June, then September. So when does this actually get testy? After June 30th, just before the mid-terms, or has that window already gone?

There is room for BOZ to allow some more downside, given the year's average sits around 19.0-19.2. But suppressed fiscal revenues limit how low, and how long, BOZ can let that downside persist. Expect them to use this window to rebuild reserves instead. That is the right call. The target range still holds at 18-20.

LLM model matrix

On 1 June, a creditor group held more than 25 per cent of Zambia's Bond B, enough to block the buyback. This morning's LSE release shows 97.85 per cent tendered. The blocking position dissolved in nine days. On 6 June we published "The Most Expensive Recovery" on this transaction. The early results land almost exactly on the full-participation scenario in that note. The price. We published approximately USD828 per USD1,000 at full participation. The actual: USD828.68 (USD740 base, USD40 fixed fee, USD48.68 pooled pro rata). The cost. Early settlement totals USD1,106.6m, plus USD21.7m to call the residual 2.15 per cent at 740, as announced. After the AfDB's USD600m, drawn at settlement on or about 15 June, Zambia funds approximately USD528m from reserves, inside the USD546.6m maximum we modelled. Why the group folded. The USD65m pooled fee created a race: every additional tender diluted everyone's share, and missing the early deadline cost USD88.68 per USD1,000. A coordination position became a prisoner's dilemma. What exiting holders gave up. Had the Composite Indicator crossed 2.69 and the IMF reclassified, the coupon would have stepped to 7.5 per cent with repayment accelerated to 2032-2035. Our note modelled the exit at USD840: an implied 9.14 per cent a year in dollars. The same model at the actual 828.68 puts the forgone yield at 9.35 per cent. The rotation window. Roughly USD1.3bn lands in holder accounts at settlement. The next bond auction is 26 June. Once those dollars repatriate, no second event reassembles them. Our published breakeven, before withholding tax: as long as the kwacha weakens by less than 8.36 per cent a year, the 15-year at 17.5 per cent beats what exiting holders gave up. We expect far less: our corridor is 2 to 5 per cent annual depreciation. At yields this high, longer tenors add yield, not duration: a 20-year near 18.5 per cent or a 30-year near 20.5 would match the 15-year's risk horizon while widening the room for error, with published breakevens of 9.36 and 11.37 per cent. If the Ministry of Finance launches either benchmark on 26 June, rotating dollars become FX the Bank of Zambia can buy back. What today does not change. Three conclusions from the note hold. A replacement Eurobond still needs a two-notch upgrade to price unambiguously below the yield retired. Rotation still consumes the savings: kwacha service at 17.5 per cent replaces debt that cost 0.5, and with no step-up yet triggered, the near-term saving was always minimal. And the fiscal trajectory this year still concerns us: the April MEI puts the cumulative fiscal deficit at ZMW16.5bn against the ZMW19.4bn full-year target, 85 per cent consumed in four months. We wrote that the standoff would resolve on price. It did, at terms the government called final. Original Note: canarycompass.com/p/zambia-m…

Today I'm publishing a new essay, Policy on the AI Exponential. AI is progressing extremely fast—much faster than the policy process was built to handle. The essay lays out where I think the technology is now, and the action needed to close the gap: darioamodei.com/post/policy-…

The responses out of the US admin overnight and this morning track very closely to what we published overnight. canarycompass.com/p/permissi…

This is actually a very good clarification from Dean. There’s very little you can do to reason with people whose sole objective stopped being understanding what’s happening and became proving that nothing is working.

BREAKING NEWS: HH declines to sign Public Gatherings Bill, says it’s “against public interest” PRESIDENT Hakainde Hichilema has declined to assent to the public gatherings bill, saying the legislation is undemocratic and against public interest. The Public Gatherings Bill is among the bills that were passed by the National Assembly in the final days of the last sitting. According to Parliament sources, President Hichilema sent back the bill on 29th May saying he had reservations to proceed and assent. The Public Gatherings Bill dictated that a person who intends to hold a public gathering shall, at least five days before the proposed date of a public gathering, notify the police and get clearance for the proceedings. The Act further described “public gathering” as an assembly, meeting, procession or demonstration of three or more people in a public place. It also included “public place” to mean any highway, market place, square, road, street, bridge or other way which is lawfully used by the public including a building. Zambians from all walks of life had expressed concern over the bill, with critics and civil society saying this would be the most disastrous law and worse than the Public Order Act. More details in tomorrow’s edition…

Oh well, that answers that. There is the real story, which will not get clicks. Then there is the narrative, which will get clicks. That is the world we live in, where the loudest 10% dominate discourse. And yes, the manufacturing of outrage is to generate clicks. You are the bait. Reuters: "In response to outrage over ⁠the players' treatment, the FSF stressed that all checks were ​carried out in compliance with "applicable airport security regulations" and were ​part of an arrangement to expedite travel. "As part of the logistical arrangements for the trip, the bus transporting the national team left the ​hotel in Raleigh to go directly to the airport ​tarmac," the federation said in a statement. "This procedure allowed the players and ‌staff ⁠members to complete all security and police checks directly at the foot of the aircraft, without having to pass through the usual airport terminal areas and boarding lounges. "This arrangement was ​primarily intended to ​optimize the ⁠delegation’s travel time and to facilitate boarding onto the private flight bound for San Antonio.""

Dean, you have put out a body of knowledge that is well researched & broad in its reach You have flagged issues that have led to policy adjustments & yield better positives. You have also commended where good has been done Twisting your writings into a sound bite, is plain lazy

When you put aside all the emotions surrounding Omar Abdulkadir Artan's refused entry into the United States, @InfinitelyDean's article does a great job in breaking down this whole saga. Highly recommend a read. canarycompass.com/p/permissi…

Permission to Ask A Somali referee reached Miami with a valid United States visa, covered by the World Cup's own exemption, and cleared to board. He was refused at the port of entry. Three decisions had already gone in his favour. The fourth, at the port, reversed them under a power that gives no public reason and allows no appeal. So what refused him? Call it bias and you overreach the record. Call it routine and you excuse too much. The essay takes a third position, and builds it only from what is visible. There is a second question the coverage skips. Not why the gate refused him, but why the tournament sits where that gate is hardest of all. The same essay tests a claim the headlines repeat without checking: that the empty seats are the border's doing, and that the pricing is what FIFA says it is. Both answers are structural. A visa is not a key. It is a permission to ask. Read the full essay below. canarycompass.com/p/permissi… #Sovereignty #WorldCup2026 #Immigration #PoliticalEconomy #StructureBeforeSentiment

If computing power brings about technological advances without human input, and enough of the pay-off is reinvested in building still more powerful machines, wealth could accumulate at unprecedented speed economist.com/leaders/2025/0…

Not enough people are talking about this because dynamic pricing is currently a niche conversation re FIFA and Airline ticket pricing. In 2-3 years this could be a core function of online or grocery shopping pricing.