A shower of rain won't put a damper on Sydney's back-out-of-the-closet annual gay and lesbian Mardi Gras parade.
Neither will it scupper an attempt at a world record for the most people in one place dancing to the Village People's disco classic "YMCA," chief organizer Michael Woodhouse said yesterday.
It's the 26th anniversary edition of the world's favorite out-and-proud protest march, following two lean years in which terrorism fears and global recession thinned the ranks of both participants and spectators.
Woodhouse said this year's full-strength parade reflected a revival in the fortunes of the month-long Mardi Gras festival and a reprise in its attractiveness to overseas visitors.
"We've got more than 130 floats featuring more than 6,000 participants," he said. "These people have travelled to Sydney from all over Australia and we're going to show them that Sydney knows how to do a parade -- a little bit of water won't dampen our spirits."
He promised traditional favorites like the hard-bodied Melbourne Marching Boys in their skimpy swimming costumes and the Dykes on Bikes at the pointy end of the parade on their high-powered motorcycles.
The procession will be led by Monica Hingston and her lesbian partner, also a former nun. Hingston is protesting the refusal of her cousin, Cardinal George Pell, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, to bless her decades-long same-sex union.
Reflecting better times is the appointment of a creative director for the parade and a sell-out for the traditionally riotous post-parade party.
Takings from the all-night bash at Fox Studios will clear debts that have hobbled organizers for the past two years.
"Making that last payment will mean that we'll be in a situation where we don't have those extra one-off costs and liabilities," Woodhouse said. "It means that we can start experimenting and changing and taking new risks."
Organizers are hoping that 350,000 people will ignore weather forecasts of heavy rain to cheer on the marchers.
Newly appointed parade creative director Anthony Babicci appealed for a return to a sequin-festooned recent past where revellers vied with each other to have the most outrageous float and the most over-the-top costumes.
"We want people to go all out, be extravagant like the old days," Babicci said. "I don't want just banners and jeans."
Tipped to take top honors in the parade is a tribute to Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, who shocked his millions of fans earlier this year by feeding a snapping crocodile with his month-old son tucked under his arm.
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near Dhaka, the capital. Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
APPORTIONING BLAME: The US president said that there were ‘millions of people dead because of three people’ — Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths. Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden. Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.” “Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and
RSS