Biggest immediate task ahead for Tisza in government will be reckoning with state capture. But also important in the months ahead: setting out the plan for Hungary to join the euro.

Crispin Odey has dropped his £79mn libel claim against the Financial Times over its reporting of sexual misconduct allegations against him, acknowledging that the FT would win in its defence. 

www.ft.com/content/6966...

“If you want to get a message out, use erotic content and put the message at the end of the book.”

I love this @ruthmaclean.bsky.social piece about the entrepreneurial Hausa women writing erotica for women and making a lot of money while doing so

On the proliferation of 'total return swaps' as a form of sovereign borrowing. Should they even be called TRS? They also resemble repo, but they keep calling them TRS, so 🤷 www.ft.com/content/9b76...

“To make Covenant with bruit Goldendoodles, is impossible; because not understanding our speech, they understand not, nor accept of any translation of Right; nor can translate any Right to another; and without mutuall acceptation, there is no Covenant” - Thomas Hobbes

FT Correction: Researcher Brené Brown was misquoted in an interview published on April 6. She described herself as “solidly in my fuck it era” rather than “solidly in my fucking era”.

Within you there are two eras. www.ft.com/content/5269...

IIF bar and line chart of non-resident portfolio flows to EM, split into China debt, China equity, EM equity ex China, EM debt ex China, and (line) total. The total drops from $100bn net inflows in January to $20bn in February, to minus $70bn in March.

Emerging markets equities are (were) Asia (and particularly Asia tech) dominated, Iran shock edition. Of $70bn in portfolio outflows from EMs last month tracked by the IIF, over $53bn of the drop was EM Asia equities. EM debt flows holding up surprisingly well, maybe.

The German occupation posed an immediate threat to the Papacy. A precedent had been set during the Napoleonic Wars when French troops had taken Pope Pius VI prisoner in February 1798 and transported him to France where he died. The current Pope, Pius XII, feared that the Germans would invade the Vatican, and much of the Vatican's response to events during the German occupation was tempered by the priority to preserve the liberty of the Pope. The fears were not entirely groundless: Hitler and Wolff did seriously discuss plans to occupy the Vatican and to kidnap the Pope. Halik Kochanski Resistance: The Underground War in Europe, 1939-1945 #kindlequotes

US threats to the papacy: could be a lot worse, especially after the Maduro abduction precedent…

White House pushed Pakistan to broker temporary Iran ceasefire Idea for pause in fighting originated from Donald Trump’s team even as he escalated threats against Iran

"Trump, worried about surging oil prices and surprised by a resilient Iranian regime, was eager for a ceasefire since at least his first threat on March 21 to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants, according to five people familiar with the Pakistan-led back channel."

On the 'tracing' point - it sounds like they want a system to process payments quickly and discreetly in the moment as vessels turn up. I would really like to know how far Iran thinks this is a durable and difficult to trace system *over time*.

Still, at least there's a debt reporting clause!

...Oh: “The Issuer’s failure to comply with its ‘Debt Reporting’ and ‘Annual Investor Call’ covenants in the terms and conditions of the Notes provides no contractual recourse for Noteholders.”

Inside Iran’s Growing $7.8 Billion Crypto Ecosystem Iran's crypto ecosystem reached over $7.78 billion in 2025, having grown at a faster pace for most of the year compared to the year prior.

Why Bitcoin, you ask? Possibly because the IRGC has lots and lots of experience using it, based on IRGC-linked wallets which have appeared in US sanctions lists. www.chainalysis.com/blog/iranian...

Iran demands fees for ships passing Hormuz during ceasefire Oil exporters’ union says fees to be paid in cryptocurrency and vessels monitored for weapons

“Once... Iran completes its assessment, vessels are given a few seconds to pay in Bitcoin, ensuring they can’t be traced or confiscated due to sanctions”: www.ft.com/content/02ae...

If Iran really will have a large and sustainable new source of hard currency now through collecting Hormuz tolls on an ongoing basis - having faced a banking crisis in recent months - presumably stock market valuations will eventually reflect that.

Valuations and reopening scenarios On the last trading day before the war, total equity market capitalisation had fallen to below $100 billion, while the median forward P/E for the top 100 companies stood at 2.8x. By the time the stock exchange reopens, the market could react in two very different ways: a sell-off driven by retail withdrawals, similar to what followed the 12-day war in June last year, or a strong rebound accompanied by an extended period of limit-up sessions, as seen during previous bull market rallies in Iran.

Amtelon Capital on how Iran’s stock market might reopen post-ceasefire, which also illustrates that even being highly isolated, Iran’s stock market is relatively large in frontier market terms. It’s about a third the size of Vietnam’s, on a very low valuation.

BofA box chart: 'ERM in 2030-31, EUR in 2034 likely earliest timeline' 'Potential roadmap for Hungary's EUR adoption, based on experience of other CEE countries' 1 Parliamentary elections April 2026 2 EUR officially in government's strategy Fall 2026 3 Parliamentary elections April 2030 4 ERM II Entry 4Q 2030 1H 2031 5 Pre-EUR Convergence Report 2Q 2033 6 EUR Adoption Jan 2034 7 Parliamentary elections April 2034

Hungary could be in the euro in a decade if Tisza wins this weekend, and the Maastricht criteria shouldn't be too difficult, BofA reckons:

Harrow proliferation watch: “A Dubai branch of UK boarding school Harrow, which charges fees of more than £21,000 a term, is scheduled to open for the next academic year in August 2026.” www.ft.com/content/3fcc...

The Islamic Republic of Iran, Part V The Problem remains unsolved.

“Local actors like the GCC & Israel have far too much at stake to let things settle like this. But who knows? Maybe we’ll get a few months of ceasefire, or maybe this conflict freezes for a year or even longer. But… Every earthquake has its aftershocks.” threeninetywest.substack.com/p/the-islami...

“And the human understanding is like a false mirror which receives light irregularly, then distorts and discolours the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it.” (Idola Tribus in Novum Organum. AI anthropomorphism in other words.)

Lessons for the AI revolutionaries from Francis Bacon His project of mastering nature contains a warning for the excesses of our technological age

Ironically enough, I'm not sure if Bacon would have classed LLMs as Idols of the Tribe, Cave, or Marketplace - but surely as one of them. www.ft.com/content/0a8f...

Nigeria, Angola, and Senegal are just the total return swaps we know of publicly in Africa (the first two countries disclosed them proactively, the latter disclosed after... well, it's a funny story). Outside Africa the biggest public deal is Colombia's $9bn+ swap (which it will soon unwind early).

Or not so much closed as seeming too expensive even against total return swaps that could bring heavy US dollar cash margin calls. Some people still don't see these swaps as sovereign loans, or as collateralised, but the language in the Nigerian disclosure is very clear about this.

Nigeria is doing Africa's biggest sovereign total return swap loan yet - $5bn against $6.6bn in naira bond collateral, after Senegal's $1.3bn $ Angola's roughly $2.5bn to date. These deals are sweeping African government borrowing as international bond markets have closed. placng.org/i/wp-content...

It also turns out that Korea's president is keeping the MAX WEBER FLAME ALIVE en.sedaily.com/politics/202...

Lebanon's defaulted bonds watch: prices were around 30 cents on the dollar at one point this month. Now about 25 cents or just below (or about where they started the year...)

Next time for sure!

Durer’s 1516 etching of The Abduction on a Unicorn, which depicts a man abducting a woman on a muscular, terrifying unicorn against a savage stormy sky.

I was in Paris this weekend, and alongside ‘The Lady and the Unicorn’ the Musée de Cluny just opened a wider exhibition on the history of unicorn art. Which included this tantalising glimpse of how Albrecht Dürer might have approached the My Little Pony franchise.

Definitive proof that every member of the administration has read Tocqueville (but on the Ancien Regime and the Revolution), as Khatami correctly surmised.

Iran activates its ‘resistance economy’ to survive the war Islamic republic has spent years building a model designed to withstand hostility even as it presides over a deepening economic malaise

“So far, the state — the biggest employer — has continued to pay civil servants and year-end bonuses… Food prices have not been as volatile as in recent months, partly because the currency market has in effect become inactive.” www.ft.com/content/8d63...

Turning South African History Upside Down: Ivory and Gold Production, the Indian Ocean Trading System and the Shaping of Southern African Society, 600–1900 AD A focus on the colonial period has created a foreshortened history of South Africa which has been further blinkered by the reification of national boundaries. This perspective has limited the under...

Succinct early history of gold in Southern Africa and the role of long-distance connections in this article.

The decision by the Fatimid rulers of Egypt to make gold currency their standard measure of value in 969 caused huge demand for gold in southeast Africa:

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....