Mayuge district has 31,000 farming families served by just nine agricultural extension workers. In Wainha village, an internet centre run by the Busoga Rural Open Source and Development Initiative is more than filling the gap in assisting farmers. Joseph Wangolo is still mesmerised by the computers, six years after he first saw one. "That thing is so clever it will give you information about anything. It knows even our village, can you imagine?" he says.

Ugandan AIDS activists have expressed concern over a decision by the Ministry of Health to back an HIV/AIDS bill that would criminalize the deliberate transmission of HIV. Last week, State Minister for Health in charge of General Duties, Richard Nduhura, appeared before the parliamentary committee on HIV to explain the government's position on the HIV and AIDS Prevention and Control Bill (2009). Nduhura backtracked on his earlier position that portions of the bill would lead to discrimination and undermine the rights of people living with HIV.

A group of Ugandan human rights organizations called on the Ugandan authorities to commit to improvements to protect human rights as part of their campaign for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council. In a letter sent to the Ugandan government yesterday, the organizations, as part of a wider international coalition working around the Council elections, called for national legislation to comply with core human rights treaties.

US lawmakers called on President Barack Obama Thursday to quickly sign legislation mandating his administration develop a strategy for battling Uganda's rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). "Congress is committed to ending the LRA's reign of terror," said Democratic Senator Russell Feingold, a key author of the measure, which cleared the House of Representatives late Wednesday.

Government indifference threatens to put an end to the Uganda Millennium Science Initiative (MSI) project, says former executive director of the Africa Academy of Sciences, Tom Egwang. The US$30 million MSI programme, financed by the World Bank and launched in 2006, has made great progress in many areas including malaria vaccines, fisheries, climate change and agri-biotechnology, says Egwan.

Supporters of Uganda's ruling party, including government officials, are threatening and intimidating journalists in an effort to curb criticism of the government, Human Rights Watch said. Human Rights Watch urged the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) government to honor World Press Freedom Day on May 3, 2010, by publicly condemning such practices and amending laws to protect free expression in the lead-up to the 2011 elections.

Deportations to and from Uganda encompass a largely unreported world of human rights abuses, writes Bernadette Iyodu. Those returning are commonly immediately regarded as a threat as potential political dissidents, while those deported from Uganda face a murky world of debilitating bureaucracy and detention.

Cultural leaders in the country have, for the first time, spoken out on the contentious Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009, urging the MPs to pass it in order to safeguard the country’s values and traditions. Under their umbrella body, ‘Forum for Kings and Cultural Leaders in Uganda,’ the custodians of culture expressed anger with the way western countries have put the government on pressure to throw out the Bill.

Uganda's Vice-President Gilbert Bukenya and several other ministers should be prosecuted for embezzling government money, a leaked MPs' report says. The allegations against them centre on contracts awarded for the Commonwealth summit held in Uganda in 2007. The 174-page draft report was given to Uganda's two main newspapers ahead of the president's meeting with parliament's public accounts committee.

A Cabinet committee has recommended changes to Ndorwa West MP David Bahati’s anti-gay legislation that preclude the possibility of discarding it, Daily Monitor has learnt. But the report, which is yet to be discussed by Cabinet, indicts Mr Bahati for not applying the kind of sophistication that would have anticipated the international condemnation that came after the draft legislation was tabled in Parliament last year.

A protest march will take place in Pretoria on Freedom Day, April 27, to demand equality for lesbians and gays in both the U.S. and Uganda. Organised by Up & Out, the University of Pretoria's gay organisation, the protestors will march from the Ugandan Embassy to the U.S. Embassy. The U.S. has been slammed by the organisation for its continued refusal to grant same-sex couples federal marriage rights and benefits. "How can a supposed first world nation decide to do such things?" asked Up & Out in a statement.

Since its first edition in 2008, Bayimba Cultural Foundation has organised a number of workshops prior to the annual Bayimba International Festival of Music and Arts with a view to stimulate artistic creativity and to ensure that all disciplines of arts find their way to the Festival. For 2010, Bayimba Cultural Foundation decided to include a Photography Workshop prior to the 3rd edition of the Festival (scheduled for 17-19 September, 2010). The results of the workshop will be exhibited during the Festival and in other locations after the Festival.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is launching a new livelihood programme designed to address the underlying causes of food shortages in Karamoja, the poorest and most marginalised region in Uganda which has not had a successful harvest in five years and where more than 80 per cent of the population lives in poverty.

Uganda's main opposition leader Kizza Besigye had told the BBC of his anger that proposed electoral reforms have not even been debated in parliament. Dr Besigye was talking after being re-elected leader of his Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party

The proposed media law is a monster, says Dr George Lugalambi, chair of a coalition fighting to preserve press freedom in Uganda. Publishers and journalists would have to apply annually for a licence, which could be revoked at will in the interests of "national security, stability and unity," or if coverage was deemed to be "economic sabotage."?

Uganda expects to stop importing fuel in five years when the east African nation anticipates to start fully producing petroleum products from a planned refinery, a senior government official said on Thursday.

At least 400 children, mostly pedestrians, die in road accidents in Uganda every year, the Minister of Works and Transport has announced. 46% of those injured road accidents are urban children and it is twice the percent of falls and burns added together, according to the Injury Control Centre of Uganda report.

A network of community knowledge workers (CKWs) in Uganda uses a suite of mobile applications to give farmers a broad range of information. The CKWs can provide farming advice, market data, pest- and disease-control training, plus weather forecasts. Working with GPS, they have also collected survey data to supply agricultural researchers with detailed, location-specific information on diseases affecting local crops.

Thick dust clouds obscure the horizon as the convoy of UN military observers sets off to patrol the oil-rich, yet desperately underdeveloped Unity State in Southern Sudan. In these borderlands, monitoring a 2005 deal that halted decades of war between north and south is a major undertaking.

Three Ugandan journalists were arrested by the Police over an alleged seditious story concerning the Kasubi tomb fire. The three, Dalton Kwesiga, Ben Byaruhanga and Johnson Taremwa work for The Red Pepper. Their troubles stem from a story titled ‘Police quizzes Mengo ministers over Kasubi fire’.