Angola says death toll from fuel hike protests rises to 22
The unrest broke out on Monday when minibus taxi associations launched a three-day strike against a government decision to increase the price of diesel by one-third, part of efforts to curb costly subsidies and shore up public finances.
Looting, vandalism and clashes with police started in the capital Luanda, then spread to other provinces.
President Joao Lourenco's cabinet met on Wednesday and received an update on the security situation and police response.
A presidency statement said there had been 22 deaths, 197 people injured and 1,214 arrests. Sixty-six shops and 25 vehicles had been vandalised, and some supermarkets and warehouses looted, the statement said.
Angola has been gradually removing fuel subsidies since 2023, when a petrol price hike also triggered deadly protests, encouraged by the International Monetary Fund among others.
Subsidies amounted to as much as 4% of gross domestic product (GDP) last year, according to the Southern African oil-producing country's finance minister.
Investors are closely watching the drive to phase out subsidies.
Pieter Niesten, portfolio manager for emerging market debt at Neuberger Berman, told Reuters that fuel subsidies were estimated to account for 1.8% of GDP this year, contributing to fiscal pressures.
"Investors and international financial institutions regard subsidy reform as evidence of Angola's commitment to difficult structural adjustments," he said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
4 minutes ago
- Reuters
IMF lowers bar for Argentina reserves accumulation, next review due after local October elections
NEW YORK, Aug 1 (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund lowered the bar for Argentina's reserve accumulation targets through 2026 in its $20 billion program and removed a review that was due before the country's October legislative elections as detailed in a report published Friday. Net international reserves accumulation targets were lowered through 2026, leading to a steeper accumulation curve as the 2027 target was kept in place. "The NIR accumulation target for end-December 2025 has been lowered to mainly reflect the initial shortfalls, which are gradually being addressed through the agreed corrective actions," the report said. The announcement came a day after the IMF board completed the first review of the $20 billion program approved in April. Disbursements of around $14 billion have been made for Argentina so far as part of this new program. "While early efforts to re-access international capital markets are commendable, Argentina's capacity to repay its Fund obligations remains subject to exceptional risks and continues to hinge on strong policy implementation to improve reserve coverage and sustain market access (at more favorable terms) by the time repayments to the Fund come due," said the report from IMF staff.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Why the US is burning $10m worth of birth control
There are few better metaphors for the receding status of American women than one offered up by the Trump administration at a medical waste disposal facility outside Paris this week: rather than distribute nearly $10m worth of birth control, which had been purchased by USAID and was destined to be given to women in low-income countries, primarily in Africa, the Americans decided to burn it. The incinerated contraceptives included 900,000 birth control implants, 2m doses of injectable long-acting birth control, 2m packs of contraceptive pills and 50,000 IUDs. The medicine is just the latest in the far-reaching fallout from cuts made by the so-called 'department of government efficiency,' or Doge, a project in which Elon Musk and a group of his very young, overwhelmingly male acolytes unilaterally slashed congressionally appropriated funding to government programs they did not like. The cuts have been devastating for non-profits that work to improve women's health and safety worldwide. Sarah Shaw, an associate director at the global family planning group MSI Reproductive Choices, says that the cuts will put women at risk as they strain their health with unplanned pregnancies and seek out illegal abortions; other women who are denied access to birth control will lose out on the opportunities for education, professional development or remunerative work that can help them escape abuse, rise out of poverty, pursue their talents and ambitions and better provide for the children they already have. When MSI attempted to buy the contraceptives, the administration would only accept full price, which the organization couldn't afford, she said. Several non-profits, including MSI, had offered to pay to ship and repackage the supplies, according to another representative. But the Trump administration refused, partially due to federal rules the prohibit the US from providing such goods to groups that perform, provide referrals for or offer education about abortions. In addition to the cost of purchasing the contraceptives, American taxpayers will now be on the hook for about $167,000 for the cost of burning them. It's just the latest in a series of signs that the Trump administration is turning against the provision of birth control, particularly the safe, effective and woman-controlled hormonal methods that have been a cornerstone of healthcare policy for decades and which were a precondition of women's advancement in work and education over the past 60 years. In April, the Trump administration abruptly announced that it was suspending a large swath of the domestic service grants distributed under Title X, the program meant to help low-income Americans access birth control, STD treatment and other sexual and reproductive healthcare. Of the 86 Title X grants awarded for fiscal year 2024, nearly 25% were 'temporarily withheld', mostly based on highly suspect allegations that the grant-receiving institutions – including 13 Planned Parenthood affiliates – had failed to comply with Trump executive orders banning things like DEI programs. Eight states now receive zero Title X dollars: California, Hawaii, Maine, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Tennessee and Utah. Alaska, Minnesota and Pennsylvania have also lost most of their contraception funding. The domestic cuts – along with the exclusion of Planned Parenthood clinics from Medicaid reimbursements – mean that American women, too, are now facing dramatically greater obstacles to accessing birth control. Clinics that relied on Title X funding are now set to close: 11 Planned Parenthood clinics already have, including in Democratically controlled states like California. Planned Parenthood says that cumulatively, the cuts could lead the organization to close about 200 of its 600 clinics nationwide – a devastating cut to abortion providers in particular that will make a wide range of reproductive services inaccessible to women regardless of where they live. But the Trump administration is not merely forcing these programs for women's health and dignity go up in flames. They are redirecting them to better suit their preferred cultural outcome: one in which women's lives, ambitions and talents are all subordinated to the task of childbearing. The New York Times reported last month that the White House is redirecting Title X funds that once went to birth control to instead fund an 'infertility training center' and programs in something called 'restorative reproductive medicine'. If Title X's original aim was to help American women control their fertility so as to build healthier families and to enable them to pursue other aims – like learning or work – in the new administration's version, the program exists mainly to encourage women to have more children. But the switch should not be seen as a genuine investment in infertility, an often devastating condition with which many Americans struggle. Because the new Title X priorities do not, by and large, direct more money to IVF. Trump promised, on the campaign trail, to make IVF free. But the procedure, which has opponents on the Christian right, is not included in the administration's new priority of 'restorative' reproductive medicine, a practice that avoids controversial fertility treatments; instead, doctors seek the 'root cause' of a woman's infertility, which may involve telling them they can conceive with proper diet and exercise. In government, money allocation is a statement of values. With its dramatic cuts to contraceptive funding at home and abroad, the Trump administration is making its values clear. It does not value women's health; it does not value their dignity, their control over their own lives, their aspirations, their earning potential, their desire to be freed from ignorance, or poverty, or the abuse they suffer under the hands of husbands and fathers. It does not value their ability to control their own bodies, and by extension, it does not value their ability to enter the public sphere. It does not value their dreams, their gifts, their hard work or invention or aspiration to anything other than making babies. American women, like women everywhere, depend on birth control to live lives of freedom and to pursue their dreams. But because of the Trump administration, those dreams are going up in smoke. Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
The Independent
3 hours ago
- The Independent
Lawyer says he's not been allowed to see 5 immigrants deported by the US to a prison in Eswatini
Five immigrants deported by the United States to Eswatini in a secret deal last month had served their criminal sentences before they were sent to be held in a prison in the African country, a lawyer working on their cases said Friday. The Eswatini lawyer also said the men from Cuba, Jamaica, Laos, Yemen and Vietnam sent to southern Africa under President Donald Trump 's third-country deportation program have been denied access to legal representation while being held in Eswatini's main maximum-security prison. The lawyer, Sibusiso Nhlabatsi, said he hasn't been allowed to see the men and that he filed court papers Thursday against the head of Eswatini's correctional services department and the country's attorney general, demanding access to them. He said he is representing them on behalf of lawyers in the U.S. and was prevented from seeing them by Eswatini prison officials on July 25. It's unlawful for the men, who have been in Eswatini for around two weeks, to be denied access to a lawyer, he added. The Eswatini government has said the men will be held in solitary confinement until they can be deported to their home countries, which could take up to a year. 'They have served their sentences,' Nhlabatsi told The Associated Press. 'If a person has committed a crime and they have served a sentence, why are you then keeping them in a prison?' Nhlabatsi said the men have not been able to communicate with their families or receive visitors since arriving in Eswatini, although prison officials said they were in the process of setting up devices to allow them to speak with their families. He alleged their ongoing detention could have legal implications for Eswatini, a small country bordering South Africa and one of the world's last absolute monarchies, ruled by a king accused of cracking down on dissent. The Trump administration has come under scrutiny for its choice of African countries to strike deportation deals with. It deported eight immigrants described as violent criminals to South Sudan in early July in an operation that was halted by a legal challenge in the U.S. The eight were held for weeks in a converted shipping container at an American military base in nearby Djibouti while the case was decided. A Supreme Court ruling eventually cleared the way for them to be sent to South Sudan. Both South Sudan, which is in danger of tipping into civil war, and Eswatini have poor rights records and governments accused of being repressive. Critics say the deportees, who the administration says were in the U.S. illegally, will likely be denied due process in those countries. The five sent to Eswatini were also described by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as serious criminals. Their convictions included murder and child rape, the department said in social media posts, calling them 'uniquely barbaric." The department, which did not say if they had completed their sentences, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday. An Eswatini government spokesman also declined to comment on Nhlabatsi's allegations, saying it was now a matter for the courts. Nhlabatsi said the deportees are being held at the Matsapha Correctional Complex near the administrative capital, Mbabane, the same prison said to hold pro-democracy activists on trumped up charges. The government has declined to say where the five men are being held, citing security concerns. Eswatini's statement about the five men ultimately being deported to their home countries appears to contradict claims by the U.S. that their home countries refused to take the men back. Activists in Eswatini have demanded that the details of the agreement with the U.S. be made public but the government has said they are 'classified.' South Sudan has also declined to give details of its agreement to take deportees from the U.S. ___
