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The news about the Spice Girls reunion has now become the talk of the town, as it has gone viral on social media worldwide.The '90s hit teen pop group, the Spice Girls, consisting of Mel
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Andreas Kluth, Tribune News ServiceIt has long been clear to anybody outside the die-hard MAGA scene that America First would sooner or later amount to America Alone. And still, the accelerating pace at which President
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Donald Trump was going to “drain the swamp” but that didn’t work too well with the green Lincoln reflecting pool. Maybe Lincoln had turned green in anger at was being done to his memorial pool
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Venezuela’s strongest earthquake in over a century is the biggest challenge to Delcy Rodriguez’s early leadership but could also allow the interim president to stamp her authority on a fractured government and begin rebuilding a broken country. After two earthquakes of magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5 struck Venezuela on Wednesday evening, it could take weeks for the full extent of the damage to become clear. US government data models suggested the death toll could ultimately exceed 10,000. Even so, some things were already clear. Rescuing those trapped, treating the injured and rebuilding homes and infrastructure will require a vast effort. That project has the potential to define Rodriguez’s political future. A close ally of US President Donald Trump, she has sought to portray herself as an agent of political change even though she served as vice president to her predecessor, socialist Nicolas Maduro, whom Washington ousted in January. “The narrative of a new Venezuela is based on reconstruction,” said Tony Frangie Mawad, a Caracas-based political scientist. “It ends up being somewhat ironic that the country now has to face, with great difficulty, a very literal reconstruction of its infrastructure.” Frangie said the rescue and rebuilding will face immense challenges given the country’s extended economic crisis and weakened public services. It could well end in failure. “However, if the government manages a recovery strategy well - especially with the international aid that is arriving - and handles the narrative effectively, it could use this moment to build a sense of national unity, a kind of ‘rally around the flag’ in the face of a natural disaster,” he added. Rodriguez is already attempting to do exactly that. “In unity, we will overcome this situation,” she said in the initial aftermath of the disaster. Major US support could tip the outcome. In 1999, late leader Hugo Chavez rejected US help after deadly landslides killed at least 10,000 people, an early signal of the anti-US posture that later deepened Venezuela’s isolation. “It’ll be big. It’ll be fast, and it’ll be effective,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday of the US response. Trump administration aid could increase both the US role in the country and the government’s reliance on Washington, according to analysts. “It’s a situation that is going to be very well exploited to increase the presence of the United States and its control over Venezuela. And also, for Rodriguez to lean on the United States as her primary ally,” said Ricardo Rios, head of Caracas-based consultancy Poder & Estrategia. Earthquakes have decided political futures in Latin America before. In 1972, a quake destroyed much of Managua, killing 5,000 to 10,000 people. The corruption-ridden response marked the start of the downfall of President Anastasio Somoza, who would be overthrown by the Sandinista revolution in 1979. In 1985, Mexico City was devastated by a massive earthquake that killed at least 5,000 people and left some 100,000 people homeless. The failures of the rescue effort were widely regarded as a turning point that led to the end of the PRI’s seven decades of one-party rule. In Venezuela, Rodriguez is likely to be the face of any missteps or mismanagement in the recovery, risking backlash that could shape her political future. “Venezuela’s capacity to handle emergency response has been hollowed out over 10 to 15 years of economic turmoil and displacement of 8mn people beyond Venezuelan borders,” said Paul Angelo, a Latin America expert at the Washington-based consultancy McLarty Associates who was in Caracas during the quake. “Without major international assistance, and without a consolidated plan and lots of money infused into a country that is purportedly $240bn in debt, this will be a long road to recovery.”
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Just two days after SpaceX made its historic market debut, a Chinese space startup held an investor roadshow for its maiden fundraising round by touting a mission to help China catch up with the US in the race to the heavens. The mission for Tectronic Maritime Space Systems, a Shanghai-based company that focuses on launching rockets from the sea, is to “build the Maersk of global commercial space flight,” finance manager Gu Mei told roughly 50 venture capital investors. To achieve that goal, Tectronic, established just three months ago, needs to raise 150mn yuan ($22mn) at a valuation of 1.5bn yuan, according to its investor presentation. It plans three additional funding rounds totaling 3bn yuan over five years before targeting a 2032 listing at a valuation of about 50bn yuan - more than 30 times its current level, the presentation showed. “Demand is inelastic, supply is limited and the clock is ticking,” Gu said at the event on June 14. “Investors participating in this round of financing are expected to get returns of 26.7 times.” The aggressive fundraising pitch highlights a scramble among what Beijing refers to as China’s “strategic emerging and future industries,” which include startups focusing on space, quantum technology, nuclear fusion and brain-machine interfacing. While the rush to raise funds by companies like Tectronic is creating potentially lucrative opportunities for local venture firms — struggling to recover from a years-long downturn — the fever is also inflating startup valuations and stirring fears of a forming bubble. In China, venture capital and private equity investments in the first five months of this year totaled 620bn yuan ($91.6bn), jumping nearly 60% from a year earlier, according to ChinaVenture Investment Consulting. Newly registered venture capital funds in the world’s second-largest economy totaled 154bn yuan during the first five months of 2026, already in excess of last year’s total, according to China’s fund industry association. “The level of frenzy (in China) is something I have never seen in my entire career,” said Yan Kai, a veteran venture capitalist and partner at Ivy Capital in Shanghai. A startup with no revenue can raise billions in a first funding round and before that deal is completed, investors line up for the second while talks have already started for the third, said Yan, whose firm makes tech-focused investments. ‘PULLING THE TRIGGERS’A pickup in venture capital investments comes as Beijing has highlighted the need to bolster its “future industries,” a grouping that also includes biomanufacturing and hydrogen energy, in its next five-year plan, published in March. The development blueprint also identified sectors like robotics and aerospace as strategic emerging industries earmarked for priority development. China also published rules this month to support domestic stock market listings of “future industry” startups, typically firms working on frontier technologies that have no profit or revenue. “Our strategy is to move with the trend — follow guidance of national strategy, while selecting investment targets using a market approach,” said Huang Yan, co-founder of Shanghai-based Lantern Capital. Huang, who expects a return of nearly 100 times from his decade-old investment in LandSpace — China’s closest answer to SpaceX — said “the key is to marry what that state wants with what the market needs.” Raymond Feng, a partner at Atom Ventures, said competition among venture funds to invest is fierce in the areas of nuclear fusion, quantum tech and embodied AI, as “everyone is throwing money at future industries.” Ni Zhengdong, chairman of Beijing-based venture capital consultancy Zero2IPO Holdings, said there is a strong sense of FOMO — a fear of missing out — among early-stage investors in China, with some funds “pulling the triggers more often.” NARROWING TECH GAP WITH USWhile most venture capital deals involve local, yuan-denominated funds amid the intensifying Sino-American tech rivalry, five China-focused dollar-denominated funds raised a combined $4bn as of June 12, Preqin data showed. That already exceeds the annual total for each of the past two years. Venture funds including ZhenFund, Qiming Ventures and Capital Today are back in the market raising new funds, people familiar with their plans said, riding the surge of recovering global investor interest in China tech. The sources were not authorized to speak to the media. The three firms did not reply to Reuters requests for comment. Some industry participants, however, say the industry’s present trajectory is too fast and furious. “A photonic chip project was worth 1bn yuan last year, and is now worth 10bn,” said Yu Tiecheng, head of Guanghui M&A, a think tank. “A rocket satellite project was valued at 5bn at the start of the year and is now worth 20bn.” If a hoped-for listing at an even higher valuation fails to materialise, “such investments would look extremely dicey,” he said. But for now, the representatives of the so-called “emerging and future industries,” like Tectronic, are capitalising on the Chinese government’s push to narrow the country’s gap with the US in areas including AI and space. There is heated competition for orbital space globally, “so there’s strong government support for private capital to participate” in companies like Tectronic, said Chief Financial Officer Wu Qunhui.
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The 7.2 on the Richter scale quake followed by a 7.5 one near capital Caracas in Venezuela was a deadly disaster. Even the best equipped countries would have been battered. But in rich countries like
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Josh Boak, The IndependentThe United States is hurtling towards an artificial intelligence-driven future, largely unprepared for the potential for widespread job displacement. While some warn of "doomsday scenarios" reminiscent of science fiction, proponents argue AI
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Hollywood veteran actress Angelina Jolie has a special place in the hearts of her fans worldwide (“Angelina Jolie turns personal pain into performance for ‘Couture’ film,” June 25, Gulf Today website).According to the report, Academy
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Georgia Bates, The IndependentBritain's largest ambulance service has urged the public to drink responsibly and avoid outdoor exercise as a punishing heatwave continues to grip the nation, bringing record-breaking June temperatures. The country endured a
