HUMOR – THE WEEK THAT WAS:  MPs’ expenditure, oil refinery and Chinese contractors Russia demands fresh deal for fresh oil refinery after pulling out earlier. Five Chinese road contractors have returned Shs35 billions taken from UNRA with Shs1.5 b earned as interest on fixed deposit. Research has shown that MPs each spent …

UN chief hopes South Africa will reconsider ICC withdrawal Dakar, Senegal | AFP |  The International Criminal Court on Monday urged member states to seek a consensus with critical African nations, while stressing that South Africa and Burundi’s announced departures would not take place for at least year. “Today more …

VIDEO: Officials from the directorate of citizenship and immigration control have failed to explain how they spent sh83 billion on the National Identity card project. Appearing before the parliament’s public accounts committee, the officials could not give a breakdown of their expenditures let alone those they engaged in the procurement procedures. The anomalies …

How Ugandans love of the good life is driving café culture Endiro coffee is easy to miss. Although the tiny café is right at the entrance to the Kisementi shopping and entertainment area of Kampala City’s Kololo suburb, it is hidden in thick shrubbery. Once inside, rustic wood and metal …

Slippery slope: the more we lie, the easier it gets Paris, France | AFP | Whether cheating on taxes or one’s lover, the little lies we tell can quickly escalate into big ones, according to a study released Monday that describes dishonesty as a “slippery slope”. Serial untruths, moreover, register …

Manila, Philippines | AFP | Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s fiery rhetoric and deadly crime war are becoming a growing concern around the world, the top US envoy for Asia warned on Monday in Manila. US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Russel met the Philippines’ …

London, United Kingdom | AFP | Heading a football can significantly affect a player’s brain function and memory up to a day, a study by researchers at Scotland’s Stirling University has said. Memory performance was reduced by between 41 percent to 67 percent following heading practice, according to the research, …

Baghdad, Iraq | AFP |  Iraq launched a broad offensive to retake Mosul from the Islamic State group a week ago. Here is what we know so far about the country’s biggest military operation in years: What have Iraqi forces retaken? Federal forces operating out of the main staging base …

Nice, France | AFP |  The head of a five-star hotel in the French resort town of Cannes was kidnapped on Monday, the local prosecutor said. Jacqueline Veyrach, 76, president of the Grand Hotel in Cannes, was seized from her car in the middle of the day near her home …

Palermo, Italy | AFP | More than 1,000 migrants sang hymns, danced and clapped as they sailed into Palermo on Monday, along with the corpses of 17 people who did not survive another series of tragedy-tainted rescues in the Mediterranean. Starting with the sick, women and children, several hundred of …