Conservationists in Uganda have asked the government to intervene to prevent further killing of animals by herdsmen living in the country’s second-largest game park. The Basongora cattle herders are believed to have poisoned 80% of hyenas in the area and at least 15 lions.
Uganda’s lions appear to have become the main casualties in a dispute between landless herdsmen and the authorities managing one of the country’s biggest reserves. And with Britain’s queen due later this year to visit the park that was named after her, the pressure is on to find a solution.
Uganda’s flower industry needs government incentives and preferential European Union access to succeed, say members of the East African nation’s floricultural sector. Uganda is Africa’s fifth-largest flower exporter, dealing solely in roses and chrysanthemum cuttings.
Ugandan police are holding a Ghanaian preacher over a stage magic device they fear may dupe people into believing they have experienced miracles. Customs officials seized the Electric Touch device — which magicians use to give small electric shocks to volunteers — from ”Prophet” Obiri Yeboah at the airport last week.
Rebels responsible for waging a brutal 20-year battle in northern Uganda might be spared punishment by the International Criminal Court, according to a new agreement signed last Friday. In terms of the deal the Ugandan government has agreed to handle the war crimes of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) under an ”alternative justice mechanism”.
The Ugandan army said on Thursday it killed eight armed Kenyan bandits and lost one of its own soldiers in a gun battle on the two countries’ border. Army spokesperson Major Felix Kulayigye said Pokot cattle raiders from western Kenya crossed the border and launched two attacks on Ugandan army positions on Tuesday, killing an officer.
Surging demand for African coffee is a unique opportunity for producers, but they must not let quality slip or assume processing is the best way to capitalise on it, a coffee official said on Thursday. East African Fine Coffees Association director Philip Gitao told Reuters Africa’s market has come of age.
An anti-gay Ugandan Cabinet minister vowed on Friday to continue to fight homosexuality in his country despite his claim that he receives daily hate mail from gay people around the world. ”The mail is from outside not from Uganda and I receive these mails every day,” Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo said.
As the miracle-healer descended from the sky in an immaculate white helicopter, his disciples cheered with joy: ”Hallelujah! Praise Jesus.” Gospel songs thundered through the speakers as televangelist Benny Hinn landed outside Uganda’s national stadium last month, before addressing 40Â 000 enraptured faithful.
Rwanda and Burundi officially joined the East African Community (EAC) on Monday, signing accession treaties that will expand the regional economic bloc to five nations and boost trade. Officials said their entry into the EAC, alongside Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, would be effective from July 1.
Government plans to convert thousands of hectares of rainforest on an island on Uganda’s Lake Victoria into a palm-oil plantation have been shelved, officials said on on Saturday. The environment minister said the Kenyan company that applied for the licence backed off, fearing negative publicity about the project.
Some members of the Asian community in Uganda’s capital kept their children home from school, failed to report to work and left their shops shuttered on Friday, a day after a protest ignited racial violence. The demonstration in Kampala on Thursday was against a company’s plans to cut part of a prized rainforest.
Uganda’s Constitutional Court on Thursday scrapped a law against adultery because it found it discriminated against women, in a victory for female activists after a year-long battle. In the same ruling, the court also voided parts of succession law that gave more rights to men on the death of their wives than to widows.
At a rally denouncing a government raid on Uganda’s High Court, a lawyer beaten by security men during the invasion held aloft his bloodstained shirt as colleagues shook their heads in disgust and anger. Kiyimba Mutale suffered head wounds during an hours-long siege at the court on March 1 aimed at re-arresting bailed treason suspects.
The Ugandan government has approved the clearance of thousands of hectares of protected rainforest for a sugar plantation, a state newspaper said on Wednesday. The government is set to seek Parliament’s permission to clear about 7 000ha of 30 000ha in Mabira Forest Reserve, east of Kampala.
Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army rebels said on Friday they would return to peace talks in south Sudan if the government there increased security to keep the Ugandan army from attacking them. The rebels quit talks with Uganda in the south Sudanese capital, Juba, in January, denting hopes for an end to two decades of bloodshed in northern Uganda.
Stalled peace talks to end a brutal 20-year insurgency by the Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army are to resume, government officials said on Tuesday. ”Both parties have agreed to resume talks,” Ruhakana Rugunda, head of the government negotiating team and Minister of Internal Affairs, told journalists.
Scientists have called for the international community take more interest in sleeping sickness, according to a report on the Science and Development Network website. They warn that drugs currently used to treat the disease are old and toxic, adding that sleeping sickness warrants a higher research priority because of its threat to health.
Ugandan government troops on Thursday scouted the volatile north of the country after the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army refused to renew a ceasefire that ran out at midnight local time. ”The situation is calm, we have not heard of any incident,” said army spokesperson Lieutenant Chris Magezi.
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/ 28 February 2007
The Ugandan government and northern rebels on Wednesday traded barbs ahead of a midnight truce expiry, raising fears of fresh clashes that could wipe out a stalled peace process to end two decades of war. The rebel Lord’s Resistance Army vowed not to renew the truce and to counter any army raids.
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/ 28 February 2007
Lord’s Resistance Army rebels will not renew a truce with the Ugandan government set to expire on Wednesday, raising fears of a new chapter in the brutal 20-year war in northern Uganda. They have refused to resume talks unless another venue outside Sudan is found, a request Kampala rejects as a time-wasting tactic.
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/ 27 February 2007
More than half the children in refugee camps in Africa’s troubled Great Lakes region have been victims of some form of sexual abuse, a report by aid agency World Vision said on Monday. Some of them are forced to have sex just to get food because conditions in the camps are so wretched, the charity said.
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/ 23 February 2007
The Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) on Friday said it would not renew a truce with the government due to expire next week in a blow to a stalled peace process aimed at ending two decades of war. LRA deputy commander Vincent Otti blamed Kampala for violating the truce that was the only significant achievement of peace talks that began last July.
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/ 22 February 2007
Just days before Hollywood’s elite gathers for this year’s Oscars, Ugandans hailed best actor nominee Forest Whitaker’s portrayal of Idi Amin — though were quick to frown on the sympathetic portrait of the former dictator. Whitaker is seen by many as the front-runner for the best actor Oscar for his role in The Last King of Scotland.
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/ 19 February 2007
An earthquake with a magnitude of 5,7 struck the Lake Albert region of western Uganda and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Monday, officials said, but there was no immediate word of casualties or damage. ”An earthquake passed here but it did not hurt anyone or destroy any property,” Andrew Diboi, police chief for western Uganda, told Reuters by telephone.
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/ 6 February 2007
Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels will resume an offensive against the government unless Kampala agrees to move faltering peace talks to a new venue outside south Sudan. The Ugandan rebels have said they would not return to talks in Juba after Sudan’s president vowed to ”get rid of the LRA from Sudan”.
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/ 4 February 2007
Alice Lakwena, a Ugandan warrior priestess who led an ill-fated insurgency to topple President Yoweri Museveni in the 1980s, was laid to rest on Saturday at a funeral attended by several hundred followers. An enigmatic leader, Lakwena inspired her poorly equipped troops with claims that spirits spoke through her.
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/ 19 January 2007
Uganda’s ruling party has approved a plan to send peacekeeping troops to Somalia, officials said on Friday, making the deployment almost certain to go ahead. President Yoweri Museveni has pledged 1Â 000 troops to a proposed 8Â 000-strong peacekeeping force under a United Nations-approved plan.
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/ 17 January 2007
Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels have rejected south Sudanese Vice-President Riek Machar as chief mediator at talks to end one of Africa’s longest wars. LRA second-in-command Vincent Otti said the rebels would permanently abandon talks with Uganda’s government in Juba if an alternative venue cannot be found.
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/ 15 January 2007
Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels said on Monday they want to leave assembly areas in south Sudan agreed under a truce and head back to Uganda in a move the army warned would restart the country’s 20-year war. ”We are unwelcome in Sudan so [we] have to go back to Uganda,” LRA spokesperson Obonyo Olweny said.
Improved security in war-ravaged northern Uganda following peace talks between the government and rebels allowed 230Â 000 internal refugees to go home in 2006, the United Nations World Food Programme said on Friday. Talks are set to resume in south Sudan this month after the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels agreed to extend a landmark ceasefire with the government in December.
Uganda is unwilling to contribute to a peacekeeping mission for Somalia unless its mission and an exit strategy are clearly defined, a government official said on Tuesday. After routing rival Islamist leaders from their Mogadishu stronghold with military backing from Ethiopia, Somalia’s interim government now faces the huge task of trying to secure the gun-infested capital.