auto-update week 33

africa/ug.json

@@ -1226,6 +1226,17 @@
       "text": "<p>the UPDF’s missions include defending the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Uganda, assisting the civilian authorities in emergencies and natural disasters, and participating in socio-economic development projects; it supports the police in maintaining internal security and participates in African and UN peacekeeping missions; it is a key contributor to the East Africa Standby Force; the UPDF also has considerable political influence; it is constitutionally granted seats in parliament and is widely viewed as a key constituency for MUSEVENI; it has been used by MUSEVENI and his political party to break up rallies, raid opposition offices, and surveil rival candidates <br><br>the UPDF is viewed as a well-equipped force with considerable operational experience; from 2012-2017, it led regional efforts to pursue the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a small, violent group of Ugandan origin that conducted widespread attacks against civilians in much of Central Africa; Uganda intervened in the South Sudan civil war in 2013-2016, and UPDF forces have clashed with South Sudanese forces along the border as recently as 2020; it is also conducting operations along the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) against a DRC-based (and formerly based in western Uganda) Ugandan rebel group, the Allied Democratic Front (ADF), which has been designated by the US as the Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham in the DRC (see Appendix T); in December 2022, Uganda sent about 1,000 UPDF troops to the DRC as part of a regional force to assist the DRC Government in combating the M23 rebel group; in addition, elements of the UPDF are deployed in the northeast region of Karamoja against cattle rustlers and criminal gangs<br><br>the Land Force has 5 light infantry divisions, including one trained for mountain warfare; it also has independent armored, artillery, and motorized infantry brigades, as well as a marine force for patrolling Uganda’s lakes and rivers; the special forces command has armor, artillery, commandos, motorized infantry, and presidential guard forces; the Air Force has small numbers of largely Russian-made combat aircraft and helicopters</p> the military traces its history back to the formation of the Uganda Rifles in 1895 under the British colonial government; the Uganda Rifles were merged with the Central Africa Regiment and the East Africa Rifles to form the King’s African Rifles (KAR) in 1902, which participated in both world wars, as well as the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya (1952-1960); in 1962, the Ugandan battalion of the KAR was transformed into the country's first military force, the Uganda Rifles, which was subsequently renamed the Uganda Army; the UPDF was established in 1995 from the former rebel National Resistance Army following the enactment of the 1995 Constitution of Uganda (2023)"
     }
   },
+  "Space": {
+    "Space agency/agencies": {
+      "text": "no national agency; the space program resides under the Ministry of Science, Technologies, and Innovation (MoSTI) (2023)"
+    },
+    "Space program overview": {
+      "Space programs overview": {
+        "text": "has a nascent program focused on acquiring remote sensing (RS) satellites for monitoring agricultural usage, land, natural disasters, water bodies, and weather, as well as border security, infrastructure planning, and mineral mapping; has sent personnel to universities in Japan and Russia for technical training for space applications; building a ground station at Mpoma in Mukono for command, control, and management of satellites (2023)"
+      },
+      "note": "<strong>note:</strong> further details about the key activities, programs, and milestones of the country’s space program, as well as government spending estimates on the space sector, appear in Appendix S"
+    }
+  },
   "Terrorism": {
     "Terrorist group(s)": {
       "text": "al-Shabaab; Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham - Democratic Republic of Congo (ISIS-DRC)",
@@ -1238,7 +1249,7 @@
     },
     "Refugees and internally displaced persons": {
       "refugees (country of origin)": {
-        "text": "882,765 (South Sudan) (refugees and asylum seekers), 491,893 (Democratic Republic of the Congo), 69,535 (Somalia), 41,863 (Burundi), 32,871 (Eritrea), 23,457 (Rwanda), 7,787 (Ethiopia) (2023)"
+        "text": "891,331 (South Sudan) (refugees and asylum seekers), 494,874 (Democratic Republic of the Congo), 69,614 (Somalia), 42,641 (Burundi), 32,871 (Eritrea), 23,457 (Rwanda), 7,787 (Ethiopia) (2023)"
       },
       "stateless persons": {
         "text": "67,000 (2022)"