🛢️ (C)rude exits

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Good morning 🌤️ You probably won’t ever get to fly to space for several reasons: you don’t have money, you’re in Africa, you’ve never seen your grandmother’s knees…Should we keep going? But for zero shillings, you can get your name etched on a spacecraft bound for Europa, one of Jupiter’s largest moons, 1.8 billion miles from Earth. If the spacecraft disintegrates mid-flight, your name will still have a place among the stars and the quiet humming of space. Win-win.

In other news, Tuesday set the record for the hottest day on Earth. Gloria (one of our writers) says her crush apologises for the inconvenience caused.

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Headlines

🛢️ (C)rude exits

Uganda's refinery project is a well-oiled machine missing the third gear of investor confidence. Despite the government’s best-laid plans to build an oil refinery in Hoima District, challenges in finding a lead investor to finance the project are, well, crude. The government of Uganda (GOU) was working with the Albertine Graben Energy Consortium (AGEC) to develop the refinery, but the Project Framework Agreement (PFA) between the two parties expired on June 30^th.

GOU is now looking for a new lead investor to finance the $4.5Bn project. Investing in the refinery project is like striking oil: a potential gusher of profits or a dry well of disappointment. The previous lead investor, RT Global Resources, failed to finance the project due to sanctions imposed on its executives, and GOU is considering three options: working with AGEC, financing the project alone, or finding a new partner.

💻 Taxation & technology

The government of Uganda is packing its catapult (URA) with big boulders and aiming it directly at foreign-owned digital companies with a 5% tax, hoping to eke out a cool Shs. 5Bn. The debate over taxing foreign-owned digital companies in Uganda underscores the government’s constant grappling with the amorphous digital world. Both sides have valid arguments, and it's a delicate dance between income generation for the government and regressive policy that punishes the ordinary Ugandan. Now’s a good time to remind you that Facebook is still blocked in Uganda, and that’s the reason you don’t always get the DMs from your Instagram crush in time.

Other headlines

Tycoon Aponye dies in road accident

UPC’s Eunice Otuko Apio wins Oyam by-election | Trade Ministry PS Ssali under fire over Shs. 400M

Government extends the deadline for Namboole renovation

NFA impounds 200 tons of charcoal in Gulu | 2 Kenyan fishermen shot dead by UPDF officer

Child rights activists raise concerns over DNA testing | Gov’t considers whitelisting Khat drug

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Beyond Borders 

🌍️ Africa

🦟 A malaria vaccine. In news we can relate to, twelve African countries will receive 18 million doses of a malaria vaccine, Mosquirix®️. Of the 12, Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi are already administering the RTS,S/AS01 vaccine as part of a pilot program, while nine other countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Niger, Sierra Leone, and Uganda) wait in line to get their shot by 2025. The global demand for malaria vaccines is expected to skyrocket to 40–60 million doses annually by 2026.

🇸🇳 Macky Sall to step down. In news we can’t relate to, Senegal’s President Macky Sall declared he wouldn’t seek a contested third term in office, and a collective sigh of relief (and disbelief) could be heard from Dakar to Timbuktu. However, Macky Sall's critics canned any commendatory comments directed towards the president, arguing that he was fulfilling his obligations, and his decision was forced by public pressure.
Meanwhile, Macky Sall’s fiercest opponent, Ousmane Sonko, wants to run for the presidency despite facing a sexual abuse jail term. Ousmane promised “indescribable chaos” if the government blocks his candidature in next year’s presidential election.

Other headlines

Sudan's army calls for “volunteers” | Tensions in Tunisia flare

Zulu king treated for suspected poisoning

Kenyans protest (again) | Nigeria to tax ‘informal traders’

South African firefighters in Canada | Burundi’s worrying spurn of UN meeting

Russia resisting grain deal extension | S. Sudan President Kiir to stand in 2024 elections

Ramaphosa visits DRC | MSF orders resumption of Ethiopian food aid

 Ruto woos Comoros to join EAC bloc | The EU’s interest in Eastern Africa

Botswana-De Beers Diamond deal | SA Opposition coalition against ANC

🗺️ The rest of the world

🧵 vs. 🐦. The highly-touted cage match between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, which we all hoped would culminate in them just sending us MM (mobile money), might’ve turned into a proxy war for your thumbs between old dog turned foe—Twitter, and new dog and blatant copycat—Threads. More than all the other little-known apps (Mastodon, Bluesky, etc.) that tried to steal Twitter’s lunch, Threads poses a legitimate threat since Instagrammers can use Threads to post to the following they've already built rather than starting from scratch. Threads, which only needs to convert 18% of Instagram users to equal Twitter’s size, is the latest imitation out of Zuckerberg’s playbook of copying and pasting popular features of other platforms into his own (Think—Stories from Snapchat and Reels from Tiktok).

🇺🇳 Making the UN great. While calls for the reform of major international institutions have long simmered on the stove in the backroom, the failure of the UN Security Council to respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine created a violent boil and fresh urgency. However, the topic of reform is more complex than a page of syndicate in a primary school classroom. But here’s what you need to know:

• The failure of the UN Security Council to respond to Russia's invasion of Ukraine has reignited calls for reform, with demands for increased representation and changes to the veto power.

• The obstacles to reform are significant, including procedural hurdles, divergent member state positions, and uncertainties about the impact of any changes on the council's functioning.

• The performance and legitimacy of the Security Council have declined, and pressure for reform will continue to grow as global power dynamics and security threats evolve.

• The US has been working on plans to transform the U.N. Security Council

• Britain called for India, Germany and Japan to be added to the Council

• Germany pushed for the African Union to be added to the G-20

• The overall stance pushed by the US puts Russia and China on the defensive

While the West ostensibly favours making international institutions more inclusive, some analysts view this less as a vote for equality and more as a ploy to alienate China and Russia (Read more).

Nn’ebigenderako

Politics and Government

Vietnam boycotts Barbie | Israel ends 2-day West Bank onslaught

Ukraine war update | King Charles III got more bling

China escalates trade war | US Treasury Secretary visited China

US considers giving Ukraine cluster bombs | US destroys chemical weapons stockpile

Business and Finance

Twitter rate limits | Meta launched Threads

Goldman Sachs looks to end Apple partnership | The rich got richer

Japan Air will give you clothes so you can travel baggage-free

Rolls-Royce’s first EV | Lamborghini’s first fully gas-powered supercar

China picks Brazil for EV plant

Science and Technology

Japan gets green light to deposit radioactive waste in the ocean

Sports

Wimbledon update | Wimbledon changes 146-year-old dress code

The NBA created its own FA Cup

Lifestyle and Entertainment

Indiana Jones flops | Watch Kizazi Moto on Disney+ (with a VPN)

Haute Couture fashion week begins in Paris

The world’s largest spherical structure | The Running of the Bulls festival

Procrastination corner

Games and Puzzles

From Braingle

The same five-letter word can be added to either the front or back, but not both, of the following words to create four new words. Can you determine what the five-letter word's identity is?

KEY
WALL
GEM
WASHED

Answer at the bottom

Our picks

🐝 How to remove a wasp’s nest for dummies

🎬 This website will spoil the ending of any movie

🔎 Guess how Google autocompletes searches

Games answer

Answer:

The word you need is STONE.

KEYSTONE
STONEWALL
GEMSTONE
STONEWASHED

Have a good week!

— Too Long; Didn’t Read (TLDR)

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