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Sea off Thai island turns green | Floods

The water off Thailand’s Ko Lan island has turned a vibrant shade of green thanks to a plankton bloom, keeping many tourists out of the water. But scientists say the bigger concern may be what’s happening beneath the surface, where oxygen levels are falling.

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L.A.’s Shakespeare Bridge turns 100 — and there’s a party

There is no love like municipal infrastructure love.

It was late in the 20th century when my wife, Mary Frances, and I moved into Los Feliz. Quickly we learned that our corner of the neighborhood was known as Franklin Hills, and that just about every eastward outing would take us across a funny little bridge with eight pointy turrets. That bridge was the Shakespeare Bridge.

As a teacher at nearby Ivanhoe Elementary, Mary Frances crossed the bridge twice every school day for more than 20 years. As a student there, our daughter Grace crossed it for six years, usually with me as chauffeur.

We’ve crossed it at all hours in every kind of weather, on foot, on bikes and in cars, talking about school, work, family and, lately, the fractured state of the nation and world.

Now that bridge on Franklin Avenue at St. George Street is near its 100th anniversary and an Oct. 10 neighborhood celebration is in the works, complete with a street party and procession. As the day approaches, I keep thinking about how large a funny little bridge can become in the lives of its neighbors.

This view looks westward across L.A.'s Franklin Avenue Bridge, also known as the Shakespeare Bridge.

This view looks westward across L.A.’s Franklin Avenue Bridge, also known as the Shakespeare Bridge.

(Library of Congress)

Originally it was the Franklin Avenue Bridge, designed by J.C. Wright of the city’s civil engineering department in the mid-1920s, when a twenty-something cartoonist named Walt Disney was new to the neighborhood and the Vitagraph Studios, a block away, were transitioning from silent films to talkies.

Paid for by a controversial city assessment of neighbors, the bridge is 262 feet long and 30 feet wide — a pipsqueak compared with landmarks like Pasadena’s Colorado Street Bridge or the 6th Street Bridge between Boyle Heights and downtown L.A.’s Arts District. Its three open-spandrel arches were made using Portland cement.

Nobody knows where the Shakespeare nickname came from, but city officials designated the bridge as L.A.’s Historic-Cultural Monument No. 126 in 1974 and retrofitted it in the 1990s to better withstand earthquakes. Crucially, city staffers preserved those charming and entirely unnecessary turrets, which deserve their own sonnet, if you ask me.

“Back then, people put some thought into these things,” City Council aide Tom LaBonge told this newspaper in 1988, years before he became councilman (2001-15) for the district that includes the bridge.

Since 2017, neighbors have tended a Shakespeare Bridge Garden beneath the span. The neighbors (a.k.a. the Franklin Hills Residents Assn.) also pay to keep up the landscaping on the nearby traffic island.

When the bridge went up, L.A. “was becoming a city,” said Alison Wallace, president of the FHRA. “We were trying to look legit, and people were adding all of these amazing public works.”

The result, Wallace said, was a span that eased connections between neighborhoods and “helped us become a community.”

 VIEW from the ravine below OF the SOUTH SIDE of FRANKLIN AVENUE BRIDGE, also known as the Shakespeare Bridge.

This view looks from below the Franklin Avenue Bridge, also known as the Shakespeare Bridge.

(Library of Congress)

Many architectural sources call its style Gothic Revival. Some see Moorish influence. Researcher Tiger Shankman has hailed its “perky, anachronistic beauty.” In “An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles,” authors David Gebhard and Robert Winter suggest that the ornate ends of the bridge “cry out for sculptured saints.”

Instead of saints, however, the bridge has seen a lot of actors and film crews. The bridge turns up in the movies “Dead Again” (1991) and “I Love You, Man” (2009), the Netflix series “Nobody Wants This” (in 2025) and the HBO series “I Love L.A.” (also 2025). My favorite clip is a chase sequence from a 1971 “Mannix” episode — excruciatingly slow-paced by 2026 standards, and shot long before the FHRA tore out the city’s blacktop median and planted greenery.

Given all of its neighborhood fame, it surprised me to hear how few Angelenos know about the bridge. When Charlie Ryan and Thom Vest started offering LA Explained walking tours early this year, they expected the Disney history would be a popular part of their Los Feliz itinerary, but the bridge quickly emerged as another central element.

Because most of those who sign up for the Los Feliz tour live elsewhere, they have never crossed the bridge “and don’t know it’s there,” Ryan said. “Out of all the tours that I do, it’s the one that brings the most surprise to people.”

An aerial view of the Shakespeare Bridge spanning a ravine in the Franklin Hills area of Los Feliz.

An aerial view of the Shakespeare Bridge, formally known as the Franklin Avenue Bridge, in the Franklin Hills area of Los Feliz.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

But plenty of those who live nearby have deep connections with the bridge, including Charley and Shirley Mims, who got married there on Oct. 21, 2000.

To open the ceremony, Shirley strolled from the west end of the bridge to the east, where Charley was waiting. (They still live in the neighborhood and plan to be at the centennial party.)

“When you see the bridge and cross it,” my neighbor Dave McDonald said the other day, “you feel like you’re home. It’s like a welcoming beacon.”

“It’s a real local’s way of getting around,” said Matteo Chizzola, who moved to Los Angeles four years ago and settled in Los Feliz two years ago. Last year, when Chizzola decided to start selling matcha from a sort of grown-up street-corner lemonade stand, he chose a patch of sidewalk at Franklin Avenue and Talmadge Street, two blocks from the bridge.

A jogger crosses the Shakespeare Bridge.

A jogger crosses the Shakespeare Bridge.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

“It is beautiful and it’s weird. If you go at the right time of day, at sunset, it’s an incredible view,” he said.

Chizzola said he isn’t getting rich running the stand, Fridays through Sundays, but “it has become something that puts a huge smile on my face.”

He’ll be on hand for the bridge’s centennial parade, along with invited local luminaries including Victor the fruit guy (who worked a corner near Marshall High School for more than a decade) and Dora Herrera of the much-loved Yuca’s restaurant on Hillhurst Avenue.

A pedestrian crosses the Shakespeare Bridge.

A pedestrian crosses the Shakespeare Bridge,which was completed in 1926.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

Sometimes, when Mary Frances and I are on a neighborhood walk, we stop mid-span. In the distance to the south, you see the downtown skyline. In the arroyo below the bridge (officially the Arroyo de Sacatela) you see the private homes and yards along Monon Street and Myra Avenue. You also see the Los Feliz campus of the International School of Los Angeles (1960), the only school designed by modernist architect John Lautner.

Then there are the decorations. Every few months, in a tradition started by departed neighbor Chris Boutelle, Mary Frances joins a team of FHRA board members and other volunteers who put up hearts for Valentine’s Day, shamrocks for St. Patrick’s Day, Pride and Juneteenth flags in June, American flags and bunting in the lead-up to July 4, and so on.

Most of these costume changes are seamless. But in June 2023, someone tore down the Pride flags. Neighbors quickly replaced them. They came down again. Neighbors replaced them again. The back-and-forth went on for weeks. A suspect was arrested, released, then re-arrested.

Shakespeare Bridge in Los Feliz with Pride flags on it

Shakespeare Bridge in Los Feliz was the site of controversy in June 2023, when someone repeatedly stole Pride flags from a bridge display. Neighbors replaced the flags and police made an arrest.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

“It was almost every day for a month. People really came together,” said Wallace. The vandal surely didn’t mean to, but Wallace contends that he wound up uniting the neighborhood as never before.

The Oct. 10 bridge celebration, organized by the FHRA, will begin with a noon procession to the bridge from Marshall High School (another neighborhood Gothic Revival landmark), featuring a marching band, several vintage cars and a costumed dog parade.

At the end of that short walk, there’s a party planned from 1-5 p.m. at the end of Monon Street , right under the bridge. There will be snacks, drinks, live music, kid crafts, a bouncy house, a handful of actors in Shakespearean garb and scads of neighbors being neighborly.

I’ll be there for all of it. In times like these, every bridge needs celebrating.

An aerial view of the Shakespeare Bridge

Shakespeare Bridge, formally known as the Franklin Avenue Bridge, spans a ravine in the Franklin Hills with downtown Los Angeles in the background.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)



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Sunday in Japan: A Ugandan asylum seeker turns to filmmaking | Documentary

Facing deportation from Japan, a Ugandan filmmaker makes a samurai film inspired by his own life.

For more than 15 years, Sunday, a Ugandan asylum seeker, has lived in limbo in Japan. Once detained at the Shinagawa immigration centre, he must now regularly report to the authorities and rely on charity to help feed his children.

Changes to Japan’s immigration laws mean he could face deportation. Refusing to be reduced to a statistic, Sunday throws himself into an unlikely project: a samurai film inspired by Yasuke, remembered as Japan’s first Black samurai. For Sunday, filmmaking becomes an act of survival, dignity and hope.

Sunday in Japan is a documentary film by Antonio Rui Ribeiro, Leo Nelki and Golriz Kolahi.

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Contributor: There’s a reason people are still talking about Julie Andrews as she turns 91

Shams-il Arefin IslamGuest contributor 

Summer mornings in the Hill Tracts region of Bangladesh are a respite from the dissonance of honking cars and construction of the capital city of Dhaka. It was a welcome change to hear chickens and the sound of … wait, was that Julie Andrews’ voice echoing over the hills?

I was visiting my home country when I heard a group of schoolchildren playing ektaras, a traditional string instrument, and singing the “Do-Re-Mi” song for their morning assembly.

I used my phone to show them a picture of Andrews. “Do you know her?” They immediately leaped in excitement. They didn’t know the composer Richard Rodgers or lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II. But they knew Andrews — even though 60 years have passed since “The Sound of Music” and these children live in a remote Bangladeshi village. The recognition is evidence of something extraordinary.

Andrews is turning 91 on Thursday, and there are calls online to bubble wrap her, just in case. She is indeed a global treasure, and she has been earning plaudits and admirers for eight decades.

Andrews trained in the Italian bel canto tradition and from a young age sang challenging coloratura arias with precision, clarity and range. The bright, happy tone, perhaps a subconscious decision rather than anatomical alone, provided her respite from the doodlebug bombs that fell during her childhood in England in World War II. British critics had dubbed her as the “youngest prima donna,” a title usually reserved for opera greats, and it wasn’t undeserved. At just 12, she routinely floated high Fs above the treble staff during live performances.

Yet before opera could claim her, Broadway stepped in. From “The Boy Friend” to “My Fair Lady” and then “Camelot,” she won the hearts of theater goers and creators alike. Lyricist Alan Lerner described her as “an amazingly quick study in music … who meets any challenge with an unabated eyelid that makes you wonder how Britain ever lost the empire.”

Her voice then was so precise that the late maestro André Previn, who led the London Symphony Orchestra, proclaimed: “No one’s diction in any field of singing can come close. … You understand every syllable from the second balcony — I don’t understand how you do that.”

It’s inaccurate to romanticize her legacy in 2026 as simply nostalgic. That would overlook the depth and progressive nature of her characters. She was essentially the first female superhero on the big screen, as Mary Poppins — who could fly and create alternate realities with the snap of her heels, but whose more stunning superpower at the height of the Cold War was to charmingly portray capitalism as dangerous.

In “Victor/Victoria,” she navigated a gender-bending performance that challenged societal norms, playing a woman who impersonates a man impersonating a woman when it was taboo to speak about any layer of that. Her most overlooked and perhaps her best dramatic role was in “Duet for One,” a 1986 film about a musician who suffers from multiple sclerosis. Tragically this became a moment of life imitating art, foreshadowing her own destiny to lose her instrument after throat surgery in 1997.

Rather than retreat, Andrews adjusted and leaned into voice acting with characters like the dominant Queen Lillian in “Shrek” films, Gru’s hilariously villainous mother in “Despicable Me” and the mysterious Lady Whistledown in “Bridgerton,” for which she won an Emmy, twice.

In real life, the flying super governess fought to adopt two babies from Vietnam just after the fall of Saigon, helping to raise awareness of the need for adoptive parents. She then co-founded the Operation USA disaster relief charity and opened the Japanese wing for the United Nations Development Fund for Women.

Whether it was to support UNICEF after the devastating Bhola cyclone hit present-day Bangladesh in 1970 or jetting to Jordan and Senegal to support women’s and children’s activities, she was a quiet champion for the underserved. In her most famous role, in “The Sound of Music,” she was a savior for children being displaced by war.

Andrews is mostly out of the public eye, but her singing is eternal and accessible. YouTube is home to a trove of Andrews performances, including “This Is My Beloved” from “Kismet,” full-voiced “When You Wish Upon a Star,” from pianissimos to fortes, high B-flats and all — her classical skill shines through. These recordings remind us that beyond just the formulaic legato phrasing that singers from the Italian tradition follow, and the clear resonance, her work it set a gold standard for musical storytelling that few have surpassed since.

Julie Andrews is no longer trilling on the Alps, nor is she reprising her role as queen of Genovia in a “Princess Diaries” film, but her voice, and what it represented for more than 80 years, endures. It lives on not just in films and recordings but also ringing in the minds of children and adults alike, from her hometown of Walton-on-Thames to the Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. In an age of doom scrolling (and alarmingly low singing standards), her vast career offers a rare resonance and a continuing masterclass.

Shams-il Arefin Islam, a Yale-Berkeley College associate fellow who works on climate mitigation and adaptation, is a classically trained tenor.

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Taylor Tomlinson turns off the mic to tell all in ‘Actually, Nevermind’

There’s an alternate universe where Taylor Tomlinson is a young adult fantasy author holed up in a cabin miles from civilization.

“ I don’t know if you have some sort of backup career or backup life that you go to in your head when you’re overwhelmed or fed up with your career or whatever process you’re in,” she asks in the lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel Denver ahead of a two-show night. “That was in the back of my head, [I was] like, ‘Well, I could just move to the woods and write books.’”

In this world, she’s a 32-year-old comedian with four Netflix stand-up specials and a two-season stint as the host of late-night game show “After Midnight.”

Her manager told her that people would probably be more interested in her memoir before a series centering on magic and dragons, so she started writing her own story two years ago.

A self-diagnosed workaholic, Tomlinson spent 10 years constantly moving. From a combination of mold exposure and severe burnout from filming “After Midnight” on weekdays and performing in different cities on weekends, she fell ill for months and was forced to take a break.

In that time, she wrote “Actually, Nevermind.” Coming out Tuesday, the autobiographical essay collection delves into the aspects of life that she changed her mind about since her mother died when she was 8 years old.

“Actually, Nevermind” opens with an eclectic mix of three quotes from “Anne of Green Gables” by Lucy Maud Montgomery, celebrated writer Joan Didion, and the 2001 Anne Hathaway-led comedy film “The Princess Diaries.” Tomlinson wanted a combination of funny and serious excerpts capturing grief, but also a quote about evolving as a person.

In the classic coming of age novel “Anne of Green Gables,” a young Anne Shirley states, “I’m not a bit changed — not really. I’m only just pruned down and branched out. The real me — back here — is just the same.”

That’s the essence of Tomlinson’s realizations in her book — she’s growing into herself but that girl who started performing stand-up shows on the church circuit at 16 is still in there.

Tomlinson has a bit from her first Netflix special “Quarter-Life Crisis” about your 20s being a period to “fish trash out of the lake before it freezes over.” She asks how I’m enjoying my 20s, to which I bluntly reply, “It’s a nightmare.”

“ My 20s were a nightmare, too, and I was waiting to be 30, and I was like, ‘When I turn 30, I’m going to be solidified and great.’ And then I turned 30, and it was like the last two years I have probably changed just as much, if not more, than I did in my 20s,” she says. “It’s been much rockier than I anticipated.”

In speaking with her friends, she realized they also felt a disconnect between the lives they envisioned for themselves and their realities. Tomlinson channeled that uncertainty into a jumping-off point for her book.

She reflected on when she began questioning the trajectory of her life and traced it back to her mother’s death.

“ I didn’t know if I was even going to write about my mom at all when I first got the book [deal] because I was like, ‘Well, I talked about it in ‘Look At You,’ and I’ve talked about it in interviews,’ but that’s the thing about losing a parent or any big traumatic grief event is you’re always getting hit by waves of it, and then you’re always untangling it,” she says.

In creating “Actually, Nevermind,” Tomlinson pored through her mother’s diary, deciding to include a few excerpts in the finished book. For most of Tomlinson’s life, she regarded her mother as a flawless, devout Christian whom she desperately yearned to impress.

Blond woman in green shirt

Drawing on her mother’s diary, estrangement from her father and complex sibling bonds, Tomlinson confronts impossible standards, relinquishes parentified guilt and reframes what family means after loss.

(Sela Shiloni)

Her mother married young, so she tried to hit that milestone, too.

“I didn’t manage it and self-sabotaged a lot,” she says. “Now, I’m grateful that I didn’t get married young, but at the time it was all I wanted because I wanted to fit in and I wanted to be someone she would’ve liked, someone she had things in common with.”

Through reading her mother’s diary entries, Tomlinson began to heal from the impossible standards she set for herself to follow in her mother’s footsteps.

“ She was sort of this perfect, infallible character in my brain for so much of my childhood, so it was helpful to read about her being like, ‘I’m nervous about getting married. We got pregnant on accident,’” Tomlinson says. “There’s stuff I didn’t include about arguments she had with my dad in college. It was just very human, and it was very encouraging to go, ‘Oh, it wasn’t like this perfect frictionless decision for her.’ It’s not like she just nailed it and did everything perfectly.”

One of Tomlinson’s largest shifts in perspective was no longer feeling parental responsibility toward her three younger siblings.

“ I went from their sister to a weird half parent figure when I was still a kid,” she says. “And I made all these missteps because I was also a kid. And then young adulthood was confusing because I had been waiting for everyone to get old enough to be friends with me.”

Now, Tomlinson’s siblings all take care of each other in their own ways. She refers to them as her “soul mates” and feels guilty wishing for a romantic partner when she already has three lifelong best friends.

While Tomlinson remains close with some of her mother’s relatives, she has been estranged from her father for five years. She writes about the sadness of not speaking to someone you feel so alike, but she doesn’t go into extreme detail about cutting ties.

“ There’s some things you just want to keep for yourself, you know?” she says. “You don’t want every painful private detail about who you are and what’s happened to you available to Google because it just makes you feel like you’re a raw nerve walking around, and you can’t get it back once you’ve shared it.”

“And you want something to say on a fifth date,” she jokes.

After processing the heartache of losing another parent in a different way, Tomlinson allowed herself to miss the good memories with her father and assuage any longing for revenge.

In her essay “I’m Gay Now,” Tomlinson explores her bisexuality and the transition from chasing male validation to feeling comfortable in herself. She came out at around 28 years old. Part of what took her until then was feeling the need to prove that she deserved to identify as queer.

Blod woman in white dress shirt

In essays on sexuality, faith and ambition, she trades the pursuit of perfection for hard-won self-acceptance, exposing a more vulnerable offstage self still learning to do her best.

(Sela Shiloni)

“ I think that’s just a theme throughout my entire life,” she says. “I felt like I needed to earn the label of comedian. I felt like I needed to earn the label of queer. I needed to earn love.”

Her brother helped her understand that she didn’t have to achieve the title — she’s always been gay.

With all of her adulthood realizations, Tomlinson also reflects on what she wishes she could tell her younger self.  Talking to a 16-year-old Taylor, she writes, “The most valuable thing about us cannot be all the things we haven’t done.”

“ So much of my childhood was like, ‘Don’t drink, don’t do drugs, don’t have sex. Don’t step out of line,’” she says. “I wanted to experience things more than I wanted to be this pure version of myself that was performing for the Lord.”

“Actually, Nevermind” is a reflection of Tomlinson when she puts down the microphone, and she is nervous for readers to see that side of her.

“ I feel pretty good about me on stage. Me in the room, I feel really insecure about,” she says. “I’ve gotten to a place where I feel pretty confident about taking up like 45 minutes to an hour and a half of your time. Eight hours, I think, is what the audiobook is. I’m like, ‘Eight hours is a lot more than that.’ So it’s been a real test of confidence.”

After years of chasing perfection, Tomlinson says she finds comfort in knowing that she may never be the world’s greatest anything.

“ In my 20s, I think I was always trying to be the best,” she says. “And now I’m like, ‘I’m going to do my best.’”

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Zayn Malik shares VERY rare pics of daughter Khai as she turns 6 and they celebrate without mum Gigi Hadid

ZAYN Malik has shared rare snaps of the daughter he shares with Gigi Hadid as the youngster turned six over the weekend.

Taking to social media to give fans a glimpse inside Khai’s special day, the former One Direction star posted pictures from the celebrations, although his ex Gigi couldn’t be seen.

Zayn shared some rare snaps from daughter Khai’s sixth birthday celebrations Credit: Instagram
Zayn lit the candles on Khai’s towering birthday cake Credit: Instagram

The 33-year-old wrote: “Khai’s 6th birthday this weekend!! Big thank you to everyone who made it extra special.

“@americandream – Nickelodeon Universe & Hasbro Arcade. The girls had the BEST time! And… @thelondonbaker the cake is epic, as always. Thank you!”

Zayn and Gigi’s only child could be seen surrounded by friends as she blew out the candles on a towering birthday cake.

Other snaps showed Khai playing arcade games and celebrating beside mountains of colourful balloons.

ZAYN PAIN

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perrie’s pain

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Khai blew out the candles on a towering birthday cake surrounded by friends Credit: Instagram
The youngster enjoyed a fun-filled day at Nickelodeon Universe Credit: Instagram
Khai was treated to an epic birthday cake as she turned six Credit: Instagram
Zayn and Gigi pictured together in 2016 before their split Credit: Getty

Gigi and Zayn split in October 2021, when Khai was just one, following an on-off relationship that began in 2015 after meeting at a Victoria’s Secret party.

Their romance came to an end following an alleged row between Zayn and Gigi’s mum, Yolanda, although neither Gigi nor Zayn has ever publicly given a full explanation for the split.

It was reported at the time that the couple had parted ways yet again following allegations made by Yolanda that Zayn “struck her.”

They have continued to co-parent Khai since then and are understood to share custody equally.

Zayn previously revealed they have their daughter “50/50”, while Gigi said the exes arrange their custody schedules months in advance.

Gigi, 31, said there is “love” and a “feeling of camaraderie” between them as they focus on raising their daughter together.

The model has since moved on with Hollywood actor Bradley Cooper, with the couple dating since October 2023.

Meanwhile, Zayn is not publicly known to be dating anyone and instead has managed to keep his love life out of the spotlight.

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Africa Turns to Digital Bonds for Infrastructure

Gulf investment is rising, but Africa needs long-term solutions to close a huge infrastructure financing gap.

Africa harbors grand aspirations. In the continent’s long-term development blueprint, Agenda 2063, “world-class” infrastructure is one of the goals under Aspiration 2.

Realizing the goal of linking the continent by rail, road, sea, and air, as well as energy and ICT, to specifically unleash regional and international trade is proving herculean. The reason is financing constraints. Annually, Africa wrestles with an infrastructure financing gap of more than $80 billion, according to the Africa Development Bank.

For decades, China was the blue-eyed boy, helping Africa address infrastructure bottlenecks. In recent years, however, Gulf states have emerged as strategic partners.

Dubai-based DP World is among Gulf companies investing billions in Africa’s infrastructure. The conglomerate’s latest foray is in Kenya, where it is investing $100 million in a mega special economic zone (SEZ). The complex is expected to integrate Kenyan companies into regional and global supply chains.   

While Gulf partners are at the forefront of helping Africa meet infrastructure needs, the huge funding gap is forcing the continent to innovate in mobilizing long-term financing at scale. In this context, digital bonds are the latest capital-raising solution. 

AFC Issues Digital Bonds

Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) became the first African institution to issue the asset class, raising 350 million Swiss francs ($427.4 million) through a five-year digital bond, structured as a tokenized security on a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) platform and priced at a 1.4925% coupon. 

As the largest ever issuance in the Swiss Franc market, it attracted unprecedented interest from high-quality investors, including banks, asset managers, and hedge funds.

“Digital bonds have the ability to resolve frictions that characterize traditional bond issuances, making them ideal for investors with a different kind of risk appetite,” said Eric Musau, Head, Research & Sustainable Finance at Kenya’s Standard Investment Bank.

Fragmentation, exorbitant costs, slow and manual processes, and a complex web of intermediaries are among the friction points digital bonds can resolve.

As debt securities issued and recorded on DLT or blockchain, digital bonds are gaining traction. In 2025, global DLT fixed-income issuance totaled €4.8 billion ($5.5 billion), a 48% increase from €3.2 billion in 2024, according to the Association for Financial Markets in Europe. 

Asia remains the epicenter of issuances, with €3.8 billion issued in 2025, representing 78% of the world’s total.

AFC has identified inadequate infrastructure as the primary threat to Africa’s long-term growth. The institution, which has disbursed $19 billion to finance numerous projects across 36 countries, believes the new capital pool will help accelerate financing for critical sectors, including transport, power, natural resources, heavy industry, and telecommunications.

Transport, SEZs, and industrial parks are often cited as being central to the success of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). In transport, for instance, traffic flows are expected to increase significantly across all modes.

Maritime is a case in point. According to the Economic Commission for Africa, freight is projected to double from 58 million tonnes to 131.5 million tonnes by 2030 under the AfCFTA.

John Njiraini is a contributing writer based in Kenya.

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Braless Brooks Nader turns heads in totally see through dress as she enjoys night out ahead of Baywatch reboot

IT’S totally transparent how Baywatch actress Brooks Nader turns heads as she has a night out in a see-through dress.

The 29-year-old finished off the look with black high heels.

Baywatch actress Brooks Nader turned heads in this see-through dress Credit: Instar Images
Brooks has made her name as a swimsuit model, pictured last month Credit: Getty

The US star, who made her name as a swimsuit model, was in New York at an event as part of Fashion Week in the city.

Brooks, who also features with her sisters in reality show Love Thy Nader, is a lifeguard in the reboot of TV series Baywatch, which will air next year.

Earlier in the week, The Sun also revealed the star attended a CDFA event to kick off New York Fashion Week, and was spotted in the glam outfit on the night out.

Brooks opted to wear a sheer black dress made entirely from lace, which hugged her curves.

SHEER DELIGHT

Brooks Nader stuns in risky outfit as she goes braless in see-through top


LACY LADY

Brooks Nader stuns as she flashes her boobs and bum in see-through lace outfit

Her matching underwear cheekily peeked through under the fabric.

Brooks also ditched her bra for the occasion, baring her figure for all to see.

She finished the look off with a pair of black high heels and left her hair loosely flowing in a subtle wave down her back.

This isn’t the first time Brooks has been bold with her fashion choices.

The actress also features with her sisters in reality show Love Thy Nader Credit: Getty
Stunner Brooks is a lifeguard in the reboot of TV series Baywatch Credit: Splash

Less than two weeks ago she ditched her underwear again in France in a sexy white gown.

Brooks wore a white, T-shirt cut backless dress in the City of Love, which featured high cutouts on the sides of her hips and bum.

A large bruise was visible on her left buttock.

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Arab News | Slovenia turns Israeli ally with new embassy

LJUBLIJANA: A chill has set in between much of Europe and Israel recently over its treatment of Palestinians, but the Alpine nation of Slovenia is bucking the trend.

Under nationalist Prime Minister Janez Jansa Slovenia is launching a diplomatic reset of its relationship with Israel, which will send its foreign minister to open its first embassy in Ljubljana on Wednesday.

It is an about-face from the policies of the previous centre-left government, which had been one of the EU’s most critical voices on Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, which it described as “genocide”.

And it comes a day after the United Kingdom and other European countries provoked Israeli fury by banning imports from settlements in the occupied West Bank — the latest move by European governments grappling with growing international condemnation of Israeli policies towards Palestinians.

But in Slovenia, Jansa – who took office for the fourth time earlier this year, and who is often at loggerheads with the European Union – has instead received Israeli accolades for defying the EU over the West Bank settlements.

“Thank you PM Jansa for your courage and clarity amidst EU hypocrisy,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on X late last month, after Slovenia vetoed an EU statement condemning the settlements.

Under Jansa, Slovenia has also reversed its own ban on imports from the settlements, lifted its arms embargo on Israel and scrapped entry bans on Netanyahu and two of his ministers.

In his first official visit to the country, Israel’s top diplomat Gideon Saar will inaugurate the embassy Wednesday, with his ministry describing Jansa as a “friend of Israel”.

Jansa has said his government was “only normalising Slovenia’s foreign policy and fixing the damage” caused by liberal ex-prime minister Robert Golob.

“To fulfil its priority of improving the well-being of Slovenians, the government will carry out pragmatic policies,” Jansa said in another post earlier.

‘Instrument’

Not all Slovenians are on board, however.

A poll conducted by the daily newspaper Delo in June found that 56 percent of Slovenians opposed closer ties with Israel, while 14 percent supported them.

Several rights groups have announced protests against the embassy’s inauguration, which has also drawn sharp criticism from the opposition.

Golob’s party has described the new embassy as “a return of the favour” for Israel’s alleged support of Jansa during the March election.

The last days of campaigning ahead of the March 22 vote were overshadowed by claims of foreign interference, with authorities probing whether Israeli company Black Cube was behind secretly recorded videos alleging graft in Golob’s government.

Jansa – who faced accusations his party was linked to the videos – has admitted to having met a Black Cube official, but denied being behind the videos.

Daily Dnevnik’s columnist Darijan Kosir in a weekend commentary said Jansa was serving “as the US-Israel’s Trojan horse” in the EU, taking the place of Viktor Orban, Hungary’s long-time premier who lost April elections.

Former president Danilo Turk told AFP that Slovenia has “become an instrument of Israeli policy”.

“This is a very uncomfortable situation,” said Turk, an International Law professor at Ljubljana University.

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