👚 Fashion forward

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Good morning 🌤️ How desperate was Heineken to leave Russia? ‘Willing to leave $325 million on the table’ desperate. After being criticized for taking too long to pull out of Russia, Dutch brewer Heineken finally sold its Russian operations for, wait for it, 1 euro, incurring a loss of 300 million euros.

You can leave that toxic relationship for free.

—Gloria Mbabazi, Shem Opolot

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Headlines

🥷🏾 Now you see it, now you don't

In a plot twist that even a telenovela scriptwriter would envy, Uganda's Minister for Internal Affairs, Maj. Gen. Kahinda Otafiire, told a tale of cyber intrigue involving Joint Stock Global Security Company (JSGC), the Russian company tasked with conjuring digitalized number plates. A couple of weeks after GOU defended the punitive costs of the digital plates, here’s what we know:

1. JSGC’s legitimacy is questionable at best, with some calling it a briefcase organization

2. JSGC ostensibly attempted to hack into police systems

3. JSGC was supposed to produce samples of the plates by June 1^st, but has delivered the same results as Operation Wealth Creation—zero

Here’s a timeline of events since the public-private partnership was signed in 2021.

👚 Fashion forward

Slaying on a 10K budget might soon become a thing of the past if President Museveni has his way and bans the importation and sale of second-hand clothing. Speaking at the Sino-Uganda Industrial Park in Mbale City, where he commissioned a number of factories, the president said second-hand clothing once belonged to dead white people. While it’s hard to confirm whether these clothes were once draped on dearly departed donors, Mr. President probably meant to say the sale of second-hand clothing stifles the local textile industry. But if we know Uganda, this will likely go the way of the severally banned polythene bags, aka buvera.

In 2016, the East African Community agreed to a complete ban on used clothing imports by 2019, but Rwanda was the only country to enact it.

🚬 High stakes

Parliament passed the Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances (Control) Bill, 2023, after a marathon of discussions, and the bill packs quite the punch. Reintroduced in May 2023, two weeks after it was voided in court for passing without quorum, the newly passed bill is tighter than a high school dance just before the bus arrives; there is no wiggle room: (1) Khat and marijuana can only be grown under a special license for medicinal purposes, and (2) The punishments stipulated are pretty high, er, sorry, steep. For example, under clause 7, a pharmacist who prescribes any of the prohibited drugs and substances under the Act will suffer a Shs. 1 billion fine, 10 years in jail or both.

🇰🇪 Kenya

During the second Uganda-Kenya Coast Tourism Conference held at the Kenyan coast, Consulate General Paul Mukumbya of Uganda in Mombasa disclosed that the count of Kenyan tourists who explored Uganda in the year concluding in December 2022 surged by 40,000, rising from 336,294 in 2021 to 376,294.

🇷🇼 Rwanda

Pakistani-Rwandan ties are flourishing after the opening of the Pakistan High Commission in Rwanda. The move will significantly improve the 60-year bilateral relationship between the two countries, leading to increased trade and business exchanges.

🇹🇿 Tanzania

Tanzania launches a charm offensive on port trade with Uganda with a 30-day free storage perk in a bid to lure it from Mombasa.

Other headlines

Bitature ordered by London court to pay Shs. 244Bn

Bus operators call off strike

Masaka mayor under fire over sale of children’s park

16 factories commissioned by Museveni in Mbale

Ngamba Island celebrates silver jubilee

Nyege Nyege postponed and set for November

World Bank still giving Shs. 1.9 trillion loan for Kampala Metropolitan roads

Bobi Wine announces nationwide mobilisation campaign

Mosquitoes are evolving to defeat malaria tools

Parents protest scholarship offers granted to ‘Ghetto’ Kids at Kampala Parents School

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Beyond Borders 

🌍️ Africa

🇬🇦 Dictators and dynasties. Gabon has, for the past 56 years, been a dynasty in everything but name. The same family has ruled Gabon since 1967, with the presidency passed down from father to son like an heirloom. Yes, we’re still talking about Gabon. This past week, Gabon held an election that featured 19 opposition members, but surprisingly, the opposition mobilized and fielded one candidate (this is where the similarities stop)—Albert Ondo Ossa—to run against the incumbent, Ali Bongo.

Gabon's government also blocked internet access and imposed a curfew (back to the similarities).

🇿🇼 ZANU-PF Party continues. In an unsurprising encore, Zimbabwe's elections commission awarded Emmerson Mnangagwa the lead in the presidential race with about 53% of the vote. However, the opposition and analysts raised doubts about the result due to alleged bias in favor of the ruling ZANU-PF party. Mnangagwa, who took over after Robert Mugabe, faced claims of rigging in the 2018 election, which the constitutional court upheld.

Other headlines

EACRF endorsed for a longer stay in Eastern DRC by defense chiefs

Second phase talks of ATMIS drawdown from Somalia begin

Inside EAC’s expansion ambition

African Union suspends Niger following coup

Kenyan court orders 21-day mediation in Meta labour dispute

At least 13 killed in Madagascar stadium stampede

Prigozhin’s death and the future of Wagner in Africa

Nigeria seeks to restart four state oil refineries by end 2024

Taiwan president to visit last African ally Eswatini

Boko Haram frees 49 kidnapped women

Sudan's military ruler Burhan begins tour as UN warns of war spreading

🗺️ The rest of the world

🇺🇸 The most famous mug shot in the world. Most Africans’ favorite U.S. President, Donald Trump, who was listed as 6’3”, ~98 kg, and taller than your crush, was arrested and had his mug shot taken in Atlanta, Georgia, for allegedly conspiring with 18 others to reverse the 2020 election results in Georgia. Trump’s mug shot, which he himself posted on X/Twitter within seconds of being released, quickly spread across the internet, and many online sellers such as Etsy intend to capitalize on the schadenfreude. Despite this being Trump's fourth set of criminal charges in five months, his brushes with the law only serve to increase his popularity, as evidenced by his dominance in Republican primary polls.

🇷🇺 Prigozhin plane crash. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the former head of the Wagner Group, who mobilized his paramilitary group to march to Moscow in the famous coup in June that could’ve been an email, reportedly died in a plane crash near Moscow. The crash came a day after Prigozhin made his first public appearance after the attempted rebellion against Vladimir Putin, and rumors and unconfirmed reports are swirling, indicating that Putin might be behind the crash.

🧱 BRICS expansion. The BRICS alliance, a bloc of developing economies made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, announced the addition of six new members: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, Argentina, and the United Arab Emirates. The bloc, which plans to grow, um, bric by bric as over 40 countries expressed interest in joining, amounts to 46% of the world's population and more than 30% of the global economy. With the chief goal of anti-Americanism and de-dollarization trading in alternative currencies, the group dreams of counterbalancing Western dominance in international affairs. Clearly, Ethiopia’s letter was lost in the mail.

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Nn’ebigenderako

Politics and Government

Japan to release radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean

Business and Finance

Subway sold to private equity firm

Shein + Forever 21 = really fast fashion

Science and Technology

Russia didn’t stick its moon landing | India stuck its landing, though

YouTube wants you to identify songs by humming

WHO’s first global summit on traditional medicine

Meta added Threads for web | Meta releases AI code writer

Breakthrough in brain-reading tech | Wind-powered cargo ships are here

Sports

The Messification of MLS | Magnus Carlsen wins the Chess World Cup

Sha'Carri Richardson wins gold at 100-meter final at the World Athletics Championships

Lifestyle and Entertainment

Super Mario voice actor retires

Procrastination corner

Games and Puzzles

From Braingle.

In this teaser, you’re given two definitions. Each pair of definitions is for two unrelated words. Your task is to discover what these two words are. In the answer to the second word, I took the first word but changed one of its letters to make a completely different word. (i.e. table - fable)

1. An instrument used to measure time - an outer garment.
2. An instrument used in woodworking for smoothing wood - a shallow dish used for eating food.
3. A deep basin used to hold liquids or food - to utter a loud, prolonged cry.
4. A position of authority - a group of singers.

Answer at the bottom

Our picks

🖼 Paint a forgery of the Mona Lisa

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🏙 Europe’s most artistic cities

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Games answer

Answer:

1. clock - cloak
2. plane - plate
3. bowl - howl
4. chair - choir

Have a good week!

— Too Long; Didn’t Read (TLDR)

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