Much of the growth in the telecommunications industry is coming from emerging markets - places like India and Africa and for many new consumers their first mobile phone experience is a shared one. This essay by Jan Chipchase uses the term sharing in the sense of primary usage orientated around borrowing and lending rather than 'let me show you the photos I took at last night's party'.

HIV-positive youth in Uganda are not receiving the support and education they need to avoid risky sexual behaviours that could lead to the infection of others, a new study has found. The adolescent sexuality study, released last week, was conducted by Uganda's Makerere University, in conjunction with the Paediatric Infectious Diseases Clinic (PIDC) at Mulago Hospital in the capital, Kampala, the country's largest referral facility.

A new comprehensive report by the the International Organization for Migration (IOM)has established that carriers of HIV/AIDS in Uganda’s northern war zone are facing significant difficulties in accessing assistance such as counselling, treatment and support.

While gays have been accepted in many countries, like South Africa which legalised same-sex marriages recently, homosexuals are still frowned upon in Ugandan society. However, a Ugandan lesbian is making news around the continent for being outspoken about her sexuality and other people like her. She was among the delegates who discussed gay issues at the recent World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya.

President Yoweri Museveni has blamed the Police for allowing the anti-Mabira demonstration that led to the death of an Indian national and two Ugandans last week. The President has also re-assured the Asian community that such incidents will not happen again. Addressing over 500 Asians at Hotel Africana in Kampala yesterday, Museveni castigated the rioters for the racist sentiments.

Uganda uses indiscriminate and excessive force in fighting bandits in its unruly northeast and 69 civilians have died in recent months as a result, the United Nation's top human rights official said on Thursday. U.N.High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, accused the Kampala government of ignoring her appeal in November "to respect its obligations to protect the human rights of all individuals".

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) reports that a shortage of contributions has forced it to cut food rations for 1.28 million people driven into camps from their homes during a 20-year rebellion by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

According to a new law passed by Uganda's parliament on 18 April, an HIV-positive person who wilfully infects a minor through sexual intercourse will face the death penalty. According to the new Penal Code Amendment Bill, an individual who is aware of their HIV-positive status and has sex with a child under the age of 14, with or without their consent, is guilty of "aggravated defilement" and, on conviction in the High Court, "liable to suffer death".

Women and children begging on the streets of the Ugandan capital of Kampala are being returned to their troubled home region of Karamoja in the northeast under a government initiative to resettle the pastoralists back home. Aid and human rights workers however say that with cattle raiding, gun violence and food insecurity still major problems in Karamoja, plans need to be properly agreed to ensure that the returnees find enough to keep them from migrating again. The region is Uganda's least developed.

Ugandan rebels demanded on Thursday a 12-month suspension of International Criminal Court arrest warrants against its top leaders, which are seen as the main hurdle to a deal ending one of Africa's most brutal wars.

The Ugandan government with the help of an American company called Inveneo Inc has invented a computer to aid rural Uganda. Uganda's Minister of State for ICT Alintuma Nsambu told Highway Africa News Agency that since early this year the government has been working with the Americans to develop the computer, the first of its kind on the African continent.

The campaign to save Uganda's Mabira, one of the biggest natural forest reserves in central and eastern Africa has intensified with the opening of protest websites, blogs and usage of SMS and e-mail protest messages.

Uganda's capital, Kampala, erupted into racial violence this week, with three people killed during a protest against government plans to allow Ugandan-Asian industrialists to grow sugar cane on protected forest land. In scenes described as reminiscent of 1972, when Idi Amin led a hate campaign against south Asian merchants, demonstrators attacked businesses and a Hindu temple, where police had to rescue more than 100 people seeking sanctuary.

A campaign backed by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) aiming to help school 450,000 children returning home from displacement camps in the war-torn northern region of Uganda has kicked off. Over the next two years, this scheme will also target 4,500 teachers in 650 schools in the Lango sub-region in northern Uganda.

Peter Wamboga-Mugirya reports for SciDev that scientists are challenging politicians over the planned give-away of a natural forest east of Kampala, Uganda, for a sugar plantation. The Ugandan state-owned newspaper The New Vision last month (20 March) reported that Uganda was in the process of leasing 7,100 hectares ? around a quarter ? of the Mabira Central Forest Reserve to the Sugar Corporation of Uganda, part of the international Mehta group.

Uganda wants to teach its children lessons in finance and in doing so hopes to create a generation of entrepreneurs. Ssemujju Ibrahim Nganda reports for PANOS from Kampala.

Last month saw the launch of free secondary education in Uganda, part of the government’s strategy to expand opportunities for young people and reduce poverty. The number of students is set to double. This PANOS feature looks at some of the challenges ahead.

Accustomed to their age-old freedom to roam, the nomadic pastoralists of Uganda are now having to cope with a law that seeks to settle and ‘modernise’ their communities. Sharon Lamwaka reports for PANOS on unforeseen implications for the survival of the long-horned Ankole cow, and for food security.

Hundreds of thousands of women worldwide die as a result of childbirth each year. Millions more survive life-threatening conditions to tell the tale. In this PANOS report, Ssemujju Ibrahim Nganda relates the stories of survival. Researchers believe maternal deaths could be cut with better understanding of the experiences of these women.

Uganda records an estimated 80,000 new cases of tuberculosis every year, half of them among people infected with the HIV virus that causes AIDS, health officials said.