President Yoweri Museveni yesterday told Uganda's donors and creditors that he was committed to fighting corruption in Uganda's "backward and pre-industrial society," writes John Odyek. "There is political will to fight corruption," Museveni said at the International Conference Centre. Earlier a senior economist with the World Bank, Satu Kahkonen, said many public officials ask for bribes to "grease the wheels of bureaucracy," thereby increasing the costs of doing business.

HAR's mission is to facilitate the recovery of abused children, women and their families through training, research, advocacy and provision of psychosocial suport services.

The Ugandan supreme court has upheld the re election of President Yoweri Museveni. His main rival, Colonel Kizza Besigye, had asked the court to annul the results of the March 12 elections, because he alleged they were rigged by Museveni's government.

The Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) have finalised a programme under which thousands of soldiers, including senior officers, will be demobilised as a way of modernising the institution, the 'Sunday Monitor' reported.

About one third of the more than 26,000 cases of abduction recorded to date in Uganda involved children under the age of 18, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said today in Geneva. Mary Robinson said that if there was no change in the situation, hundreds of children, both boys and girls, would be abducted by a rebel movement in the country known as the "Lord's Resistance Army" (LRA). "Many of them," she said, "will ultimately perish in the bush, either as a result of the harsh living conditions or at the hands of other captives."

We People Living with HIV/AIDS in Uganda wish to register our concern at the consistent derogatory remarks made by the President and members of his cabinet.
For a long time we have complained about the cynicism, conspiracy, discrimination and condemnation of People Living with HIV/AIDS. The
statements, which have been made recently by the President, are intended to incite the public and society to marginalize, discriminate and ostracize us.

Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni has filed his defense against a petition aimed at annulling his March 12 re-election that was lodged by rival Kizza Besigye.

Uganda's reform program has been one of the most successful in Sub Saharan Africa since the mid-1980s. From an early stance of rejection (1986) and reluctance (1987-1992) the government moved to a situation of full ownership of market-based reforms. The government has achieved both stabilization and substantial control of the economy.

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) today completed the second review of Uganda's performance under the third annual arrangement under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF). This will enable Uganda to draw SDR 8.9 million (about US$11 million) immediately from the IMF.

Ugandan authorities have fueled political and ethnic strife in eastern Congo with disastrous consequences for the local population, Human Rights Watch charged in a report released today.

Women rights activists have protested against President Yoweri Museveni's
decision to ask Parliament to restore the electoral college system for
electing district women MPs.

"We strongly support universal adult suffrage and the secret ballot as modes
of electing district women representatives. We therefore object to the
presidential veto against this (electoral colleges) and call upon MPs to re-
affirm the position they adopted in the Parliamentary Elections Bill 2000,"
the Coalition for Political Accountability to Women (COPAW) said yesterday.
New Vision.

Turnout was high in yesterday's presidential election in Uganda where the incumbent Yoweri Museveni is heading for another term in office in spite of having lost much of his popularity.

The main political opponent of Uganda's incumbent president Yoweri Museveni has hinted that he is to take "political action" to pressure the new leader to annul his landslide poll win this week following allegations of malpractice.

Monday March 12 2:31 PM ET By CHRIS TOMLINSON, Associated Press Writer KATETE, Uganda (AP) - Scores of would-be voters in southwestern Uganda, the home of President Yoweri Museveni's main challenger, said they were denied the right to vote in Monday's presidential election and claimed Museveni supporters stuffed the ballot boxes.

By Simon Denyer, Monday March 12 1:32 PM ET KAMPALA (Reuters) - Results trickled in from Uganda's hard-fought presidential election on Monday amid reports of vote rigging in one district and intimidation elsewhere.

KIGALI, Rwanda (Reuters) -- Rwanda has accused Uganda of harboring "anti-Rwanda elements" but said it would not be dragged into an unnecessary conflict with its neighbor and former ally.

Kampala (Reuters) - Uganda has put its neighbour and former ally Rwanda on a list of "hostile states" which are banned from financing candidates in the imminent presidential election, President Yoweri Museveni said on Sunday.

GEMENA, Congo, March 15 -- On the day all sides in the Congo war were to begin pulling back from front lines, several hundred Ugandan soldiers assembled on the steamy airport tarmac here singing and cheering. In two years, they had penetrated as far into Congo as any invader, and now they were preparing to go home.