Kenyan LGBTQ community vogues despite threat of repressive lawFri, 04 Jul 2025 04:25:07 GMT
Before a cheering audience in Nairobi, the performer gets the ball going with a string of acrobatic moves — a celebration of queer resistance from a Kenyan LGBT community feeling threatened by new legislation.”Balls”, where participants can vogue and catwalk with full freedom, were created by the Black and Latino gay and transgender community in …
Germaine Acogny, promoting Africa as a beacon of danceFri, 04 Jul 2025 04:23:05 GMT
A group of performers stepped and swayed in the sand at an open-air studio on the Senegalese coast as Germaine Acogny, known as the mother of contemporary African dance, called out to them.”Walk! Take in the energy of the earth”, commanded Acogny, who for some 60 years has imbued her students with the joy and …
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Hidden gem: Angola opens up to tourists in a pivot from oilFri, 04 Jul 2025 04:17:56 GMT
When Feliesiano Muteca started surfing a decade ago, he had the waves at Cabo Ledo on Angola’s long Atlantic coastline pretty much to himself. Now, the unspoilt and sandy beach about 125 kilometres (75 miles) south of the capital Luanda has become a prized destination for international surfers, with a reputation as a hidden gem.The Portuguese-speaking …
Hidden gem: Angola opens up to tourists in a pivot from oilFri, 04 Jul 2025 04:17:56 GMT Read More »
Asian markets mixed as Trump warns tariff letters to be sent soon
Asian investors trod cautiously on Friday as Donald Trump’s deadline to avert his steep tariffs approached, with the US president saying he planned to start sending letters informing trading partners of their rates.Uncertainty leading up to next week’s cut-off tempered the positive lead from another record on Wall Street, where a forecast-busting US jobs report soothed worries about the world’s top economy.Governments around the world have fought to hammer out deals with Washington ahead of the July 9 deadline, set after Trump unveiled a blitz of levies on his “Liberation Day” in early April.He and his top officials have said several were in the pipeline, but only Britain and Vietnam have signed pacts while China has agreed to a framework for it and the United States to slash tit-for-tat tolls and ship certain products.While negotiators continue to seek ways to avert the worst of the White House’s measures, Trump warned Thursday he would soon be issuing his messages to capitals.”My inclination is to send a letter out and say what tariff they’re going to be paying,” he told reporters. “It’s just much easier.”He added: “We’re going to be sending some letters out, starting probably tomorrow, maybe 10 a day to various countries saying what they’re going to pay to do business with the US.”The prospect that trading partners from Japan and South Korea to India and Taiwan could be hit with stiff tariffs fuelled fresh worries about the global economy.Tokyo edged up with Shanghai, Sydney, Wellington and Jakarta but Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore, Taipei and Manila fell.Traders were unable to pick up the baton from their New York colleagues, who sent the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to more record closes ahead of the Independence Day break.Those gains followed data showing the US economy topped expectations to add 147,000 jobs in June while unemployment dipped to 4.1 percent from 4.2 percent, which was also better than estimated.The reading was taken as a sign the labour market remained in rude health despite warnings about the impact of Trump’s tariffs.It also dented hopes that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates at its next meeting this month, with bets now on two reductions before the end of the year — the first likely in September.However, analysts suggested that all was not what it seemed, pointing to softness in the private sector.”We think that private-sector hiring has stalled, and we may see sporadic layoffs in some industries in the coming months,” warned analysts at MUFG.”Despite the unemployment rate having fallen… the flow of potential workers that remained out of the labour force rose sharply in June (and over 750k have dropped out of the labor force over the past two months), further highlighting the weak hiring environment. “We continue to view labour demand as being fundamentally weak relative to the past several years.”The passage of Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” also left investors in a quandary as they weighed the extension of huge tax and spending cuts with forecasts that it will add around $3 trillion to the already ballooning national debt.Still, it included a $5 trillion increase in the debt limit, removing the risk the country could default on its bond payments.- Key figures at around 0230 GMT -Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 0.1 percent at 39,828.20 (break)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: DOWN 1.1 percent at 23,797.99Shanghai – Composite: UP 0.1 percent at 3,463.89Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1770 from $1.1755 on ThursdayPound/dollar: UP at $1.3656 from $1.3642Dollar/yen: DOWN at 144.61 yen from 145.06 yenEuro/pound: UP at 86.19 pence from 86.14 penceWest Texas Intermediate: DOWN 0.2 percent at $66.88 per barrelBrent North Sea Crude: DOWN 0.3 percent at $68.59 per barrelNew York – Dow: UP 0.8 percent at 44,823.53 (close)London – FTSE 100: UP 0.6 percent at 8,823.20 (close)
Trump wins ‘phenomenal’ victory as Congress passes flagship bill
US President Donald Trump boasted of a “phenomenal victory” to cheering supporters at a rally in Iowa on Thursday after Congress narrowly passed his signature tax and spending bill, cementing his radical second-term agenda.The jubilant president kicked off America’s year-long 250th birthday celebrations with a victory lap hailing the unpopular bill, which has caused deep concern within his own Republican Party — as well as, polls show, among many Americans.Many fear that it will balloon the national debt, gut health and welfare support as well as clean energy, and supercharge Trump’s migrant crackdown.”There could be no better birthday present for America than the phenomenal victory we achieved just hours ago,” Trump told supporters in the state capital, Des Moines. “Very simply, the one, big beautiful bill would deliver the strongest border on Earth, the strongest economy on Earth, the strongest military on Earth, and ensure the United States of America will remain the strongest country anywhere on this beautiful planet of ours.”The bill squeezed past a final vote earlier Thursday, 218-214, after a small group of Republican opponents in the House of Representatives finally fell in line, corralled by Speaker Mike Johnson.Trump said he would sign the bill into law on Friday, American Independence Day, adding that pilots who had carried out US strikes on Iran two weeks earlier would be in attendance. – Mass deportations, tax breaks -The legislation is the latest in a series of big wins for Trump, including a Supreme Court ruling last week that curbed lone federal judges from blocking his policies, and US air strikes that led to a ceasefire between Israel and Iran.His sprawling mega-bill narrowly passed the Senate on Tuesday and had to return to the lower chamber for its approval of the senators’ revisions.The package honors many of Trump’s campaign promises: boosting military spending, funding a mass migrant deportation drive and committing $4.5 trillion to extend his first-term tax relief.”Everything was an absolute disaster under the Biden-Harris radical regime, and we took the best effort that we could, in one big, beautiful bill, to fix as much of it as we could,” Johnson said.”And I am so grateful that we got that done.”But it is expected to pile an extra $3.4 trillion over a decade onto the country’s fast-growing deficits, while shrinking the federal food assistance program and forcing through the largest cuts to the Medicaid health insurance scheme for low-income Americans since its 1960s launch.Some estimates put the total number of recipients set to lose their insurance coverage under the bill at 17 million. Scores of rural hospitals are expected to close.While Republican moderates in the House fear the cuts will damage their prospects of reelection next year, fiscal hawks chafed over savings that they say fall far short of what was promised.Johnson had to negotiate tight margins, and could only lose a handful of lawmakers in the final vote, among more than two dozen who had earlier declared themselves open to rejecting the 869-page text.Trump spent weeks hitting the phones and hosting White House meetings to cajole lawmakers torn between angering welfare recipients at home and incurring the president’s wrath.Democrats hope public opposition to the bill will help them flip the House in the 2026 midterm election, pointing to data showing that it represents a huge redistribution of wealth from the poorest Americans to the richest.”This bill, this one big, ugly bill — this reckless Republican budget, this disgusting abomination — is not about improving the quality of life of the American people,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said. After the bill was passed, Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, said it was “not only reckless — it’s cruel.”Extra spending on the military and border security will be paid in part through ending clean energy and electric vehicle subsidies — a factor triggering a bitter public feud between Trump and former key advisor Elon Musk.





