🎬Don't "Visit Rwanda"

February 03, 2025

Good morning. To answer the question on your mind, Yes. We’re hoping February flies by like January did.

— Edna Akanni, Benyin Ogar.

CURRENCIES

Currency exchange rates against the dollar as of market close. Here’s what these numbers mean

SPORTS
DR Congo asks clubs to end “Visit Rwanda” sponsorship

Rob Stevens/Getty

The Democratic Republic of Congo wants you to have one less holiday destination: This weekend, DR Congo’s foreign minister, Therese Wagner, called on Arsenal, Bayern Munich, and Paris St-Germain to end their sponsorship deals with Visit Rwanda amid a worsening humanitarian crisis in the country.

In her letter to Arsenal, Wagner stated that Rwanda's "culpability" in the ongoing conflict "has become incontrovertible" after the UN reported that 4,000 Rwandan troops are active in the DRC.

A reasonable call? This past week, hundreds of thousands of Congolese civilians were displaced from the eastern boundary town of Goma after M23, a rebel militia supported by Rwanda invaded and took over command. In the days that followed;

  • President Ramaphosa called M23’s attacks on South African ‘peacekeeping corps’ stationed in the DRC, a ‘declaration of war’.

  • Rwandan President, Paul Kagame retaliated in a speech on X saying that “South Africa has no business with peacekeeping in DR Congo”.

  • Last night, the Congolese Ministry of Health reported more than 700 deaths since the conflict started a week ago.

“The deals are controversial”

According to critics, who have labeled Rwanda’s tourist campaigns as ‘sports washing’. Human Rights Watch spokesperson, Lewis Judge said last month that “there is an increasingly shrinking space for political autonomy and freedom of expression in Rwanda” in an interview granted to BBC Sports. According to him, these deals and events help hide Rwanda's "abysmal track record" on human rights.

Looking ahead. Despite all the calls, Rwanda’s appeal seems intact. On Friday the UCI, cycling's world governing body, said there were no plans to relocate the World Cycling Championships in September away from Kigali. Rwanda is also in consideration to become a Formula 1 host country. -BO.

DIGITS
1.3% chance of impact

Budaraki/Getty Images

Things that have about a 1% chance of happening: You getting that job without writing a cover letter, your Fantasy Premier League team winning, and an asteroid pummeling Earth in December 2032.

The 1.3% chance that asteroid 2024 YR4 strikes the planet may not seem very high, but it’s high enough that scientists gave it a 3 out of 10 on the Torino Scale—the second-highest rating ever given to an asteroid. A 0 on the Torino Scale means there’s no threat, while a 10 is essentially “goodbye Earth,” so a 3, though of mild concern, suggests there’s no reason to panic.

The good news is that even in the 1.3% chance that YR4 makes an unwelcome rendezvous with Earth, the space rock is small enough (~130 to 330 feet long) that NASA’s DART mission may be able to go Minecraft mode and deflect it. If it were to hit Earth, it wouldn’t be an extinction-level event, but it could destroy an entire city. But, again, just 1.3%.

SHOWER THOUGHTS

“The stairs at the top and bottom of a staircase get more traffic than the stairs in the middle.”

NEWS
Round the continent

Nosa Oke-Hortons

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