The Monocle Minute

If there’s one thing that Kenya’s president, William Ruto, has perfected since assuming office in 2022, it’s the art of public diplomacy. While traditional diplomatic heavyweights such as South Africa, Nigeria and Ethiopia have been preoccupied with domestic problems, Kenya has been projecting an image of being the champion of the continent’s great causes. From organising a summit on climate change in Nairobi in September to announcing a surprise public holiday on 13 November dedicated to tree planting, it has made headlines both at home and abroad.

Ruto’s latest idea was announced during a state visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo in October. From 2024, Kenya plans to allow visa-free access to all African citizens. The dream of a visa-free Africa is not new: it’s a key aspiration of the African Union’s Agenda 2063. While ageing Europe is increasingly being accused of being a fortress, in Africa, the continent with a younger population than any other, aspirations for free movement are very much alive. The Seychelles, Benin and the Gambia have already scrapped visa requirements for Africans. Soon, Rwanda is planning to join them.

But Ruto’s commitment is significant: with a GDP of about €106bn, Kenya is by far the largest economy in East and Central Africa, and the biggest economic player on the continent to remove travel barriers for its citizens. By opening its borders, Ruto is not just wielding Kenya’s growing soft power. His hope is that the removal of visa barriers will accelerate the creation of a continental free-trade area in Africa. But at home the announcement hasn’t been greeted with universal enthusiasm. Faced with high taxes, a currency crisis and rising inflation, some Kenyans fear that opening the borders could lead to wages being undercut. While the dream of African free movement might still be alive in Kenya, concerns about its effects echo those in Europe.

Naveena Kottoor is a freelance journalist based in Nairobi. Monocle’s December/January issue, containing our annual Soft Power Survey, is on newsstands tomorrow. Subscribe today so that you never miss an issue.

The hottest party in Bangkok this Friday night will be taking place in a shopping centre. At the grand opening of The Emsphere on Sukhumvit Road, events will be held on various levels across the six-storey complex, which includes a 6,000-seat concert hall and an Ikea.

Supaluck Umpujh, chairwoman of property developer The Mall Group, will be leading the celebrations at Tribe, her “beach club” on the fifth floor. The Emsphere is the third and final part of her “Em-district” in the Phrom Phong neighbourhood and the swim-up pool bar at Tribe is as good a place as any to take it all in. Emporium, across Benchasiri Park, is for luxury shopping, while Emquartier offers lifestyle brands. The new Emsphere will serve as the group’s entertainment hub. Given Umpujh’s impressive track record, industry rivals will be watching closely to see whether this new opening can pull in the crowds.

The first transatlantic flight by a large passenger plane powered only by alternative fuels took off from London’s Heathrow yesterday afternoon, bound for New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport. Virgin Atlantic’s Boeing 787 had no paying passengers onboard and was filled with 50 tonnes of sustainable aviation fuels, which can be made from crops, household waste and cooking oils.

But not all aviation analysts are convinced. “Virgin is pretty confident that this will be like any other normal flight,” Murdo Morrison, head of strategic content at Flightglobal, tells The Monocle Minute. “The fuel is different but it performs in more or less the same way. The issue is the availability. No matter how virtuous the industry wants to be, there just isn’t sufficient sustainable aviation fuel. But this is the only solution that airlines have at the moment, apart from operating fewer flights.”

For more on Virgin’s green flight, tune in to Tuesday’s edition of ‘The Briefing’ on Monocle Radio.

British director Joanna Hogg’s The Eternal Daughter stars Tilda Swinton as a mother and daughter who book into a grand but chilly country house hotel for a birthday holiday. Robert Bound is joined in the studio by Clarisse Loughrey and Christina Newland to review the eerie new film, which swirls in a gothic fog.