🇺🇬 The State of the Nation 

Good morning ☀️ How was your weekend on a scale of 1 to End of the Road? Hit reply with an emoji that depicts your current situation. Ours is 🥲.

Messi’s legendary move to Inter Miami (more on this later) is already paying off for the club. Messi has driven:

• 6M new Instagram followers

• 4,500% increase in merch sales

• 1,200% jump in ticket prices

In the words of the legendary Bad Black: “Know your worthy”

— Gloria Mbabazi, Shem Opolot

Want your brand to reach thousands of readers weekly? Here’s your chance

Headlines

🇺🇬 The State of the Nation

President Museveni delivered a rather banal State of the Nation address at Kololo airstrip and waxed lyrical about the post-COVID economic recovery, improvements in the agricultural sector, the standard gauge railway, gun violence, and the flagging Parish Development Model (see our previous write-up here). However,… the real state of the nation is much sorrier, with fundamental sectors like health, education, and agriculture buckling under the weight of corruption, incompetence, and neglect. This op-ed encapsulates it all.
If you missed the address (and have no life), you can watch it here.

💉 No immunity to irony

After the Leader of the Opposition, Matthias Mpuuga protested the mandatory COVID-19 testing for anyone in President Museveni’s vicinity and advised MPs to boycott the tests he dubbed a waste of taxpayers’ money,…

…the President tested positive for COVID-19.

The President is on forced leave with many theories swirling around his illness—the most interesting being the President’s illness as a clever ploy to avoid the African Peace Initiative; a visit to Moscow next week by a few African leaders led by Ramaphosa.

Other headlines

RIP Kato Lubwama—a legend and an undisputed King of Comedy

NCHE replaces ‘expired’ courses label with ‘due for review’

Canada to provide amnesty to Ugandan sexual minorities

There’s a lot of money in State House Uganda

Survivors of the Al-Shabaab attack mistook the attackers for farmers

Pallaso vs. Alien Skin explained

Ham Kiggundu’s vs. DTB continues | The digital number plates myth

Beyond Borders 

🌍️ Africa

🇳🇬 Tingo’s tingles. In a damning report with more receipts than a Black Friday shopping spree, notorious whistleblower, Hindenberg Research accused Tingo Group; a NASDAQ-listed Nigerian agri-finTech firm of being an “exceptionally obvious scam.” Tingo Group denied the allegations, dismissing them as slander and hired a law firm to put a lid on the situation.

🇿🇦 Zoom to the rescue? This is why you should have separate group chats for your friends: South Africa (SA) is exploring possible ways to host a BRICS summit without President Putin attending. As a member of the ICC, SA would be mandated to execute the arrest warrant the ICC has out for Putin. SA is considering a virtual call or a shift to China. Domestic and Western critics have accused SA of having an "irrational Russian love affair" which resulted in Japan not inviting SA to the G-7 summit.

Other headlines

Sudan truce expires and crisis flares up; UN envoy booted

Africa’s biggest wind farm to be built in Egypt

US suspends aid to Ethiopia | Al-Shabaab attacks beach hotel in Mogadishu

Amnesty International calls for probe into Senegal violence

Red Cross evacuates 300 kids from Khartoum orphanage

Tanzanian maize banned from entering Kenya | Kagame fires top army men

🗺️ The rest of the world

🍎Apple goes Meta. Apple released its newest mixed-reality headset, the Vision Pro, which (in classic Apple HYPErbole) is said to be the “most advanced personal electronics device ever.”(Everything from WWDC). The Vision Pro costs $3,500 and will be released early next year, but there’s some scepticism about how successful it will be compared to the current industry players. History says betting against Apple is foolhardy though. One way or another, we might all be wearing glasses by 2030 🤓.

🇮🇷 Iran’s hypersonic missile. Iran's local media claimed the country built its first hypersonic ballistic missile—"Fattah" or “Conqueror.” This comes after Iran just kissed and made up with Saudi Arabia, and the talks over Iran’s nuclear program stalled. Hypersonic missiles can travel at 5 times the speed of sound (making them difficult to intercept) and have a range of 870 miles. Many nations are working to develop this military technology, including the US, China, Russia, and North Korea.

🇺🇸 Miami goes lefty like Lionel Messi. Lionel Messi announced he was turning down a $1Bn offer from Saudi Arabia to join David Beckham-owned Inter Miami in an unprecedented deal that’ll make you accelerate Project Mbappe:
Messi 🤝🏾 Adidas 🤝🏾 Apple: Excluding his salary, Messi will get a cut of the revenue from new subscribers to Apple’s MLS Season Pass, while a profit-sharing deal with Adidas simmers on the back burner.
Ownership stake: Like Beckham, Messi will also be offered a stake in an MLS team when he retires.

Nn’ebigenderako

Politics and Government

Poles protest the country’s path to autocracy

Hong Kong police arrested pro-democracy activists marking the Tiananmen Square massacre anniversary

For a billion dollars, China can spy on the US (?) via Cuba

China heatwaves could affect everyone | Boris Johnson resigns 

Trump indicted again | Ukraine war update

Children lost in the jungle for 40 days after a plane crash found alive

Sports

Zlatan Ibrahimovic retired | Saudi Arabia controls men’s golf now

Business and Finance

Sequoia Capital to split into 3 | UBS and the Swiss gov’t sign a $10Bn deal

Science and Technology

El Niño has come | Why REM sleep is important

The origin of pollination? | A 99% effective mosquito repellent 

Wildfires in Canada turned NYC into a scene from a drug cartel movie

First Binance, now Coinbase: the crypto crackdown continues

Does the US already have evidence of aliens’ existence?

Lifestyle and Entertainment

Rumours of moral decline have been greatly exaggerated

Procrastination corner

Games and Puzzles

Brought to you by Braingle.

The Pope has it but he does not use it.
Your father has it but your mother uses it.
Nuns do not need it.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has a big one,
Michael J. Fox's is quite small. What is it?

Answer at the bottom

Our picks

🩸 A breakdown of our body cells and how they work

🔥 A list of fires that are always burning

🧴 A guide to the top nude beaches in the world (a friend asked)

Games answer

Answer: A last name.

Have a good week!

— Too Long; Didn’t Read (TLDR)