The UN refugee agency has recently resumed the repatriation of southern Sudanese refugees from the West Nile region of Uganda some six weeks after the programme was suspended due to an outbreak of meningitis.

The next round of talks between Uganda's rebel Lord's Resistance Army and the government is expected in the second week of April in an attempt to end a 20-year-old insurgency, a U.N. envoy said. Joacquim Chissano, the former president of Mozambique, told reporters on Thursday the talks would be a preliminary discussion to resuming the stalled negotiations in the southern Sudanese town of Juba.

Uganda's prime minister has approved a plan for thousands of hectares of a rain-forest to be replaced by a sugarcane plantation, a state-owned news agency told Al-Jazeera on Wednesday. Government officials said they were not aware of Apolo Nsibambi's decision to give part of Mabira Forest to a local sugar company.

Lack of progress in peace talks between Uganda's government and northern rebels has dismayed women uprooted by 20 years of war and they want to play a bigger role in the dialogue, aid workers said on Thursday.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/broadcasts/davidodwar.jpgDavid Odwar, an artist and cultural activist from Uganda, speaks to Robtel Pailey from Pambazuka News about his experiences of growing up in Uganda and his brother's abduction by the Lord's Resistance Army. He recounts his subsequent exile in the UK. David then returned to Uganda where he set up an arts centre for the local community to explore and express the traumas of war through art, and established the project ''.

Music in this podcast is brought to you by Busi Ncube from Zimbabwe, kindly provided by Thulani Promotions.

Ugandan health officials on Monday said they would seek alternative funding for anti-malaria projects after the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria declined a grant application of US$16 million because of concerns over financial mismanagement.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has backed a call by the Ugandan Journalists Association (UJA) for the government to protect media covering court cases against opposition groups and put an end to police harassment of journalists.

The rebel administration of Uganda's brutal Lord Resistance Army (LRA) has agreed to resume peace talks with the government aimed at burying the 20-year-old war provided certain conditions are met. The key condition has to do with the involvement of many African countries in the mediation team. These countries include South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya and the Congo Kinshasa (DRC).

An interim analysis from the Rakai Health Sciences Program Data and Safely Monitoring Board indicates that there may be a heightened risk of HIV transmission to female partners of recently circumcised men if sexual activity takes place before the surgical wound is completely healed. It also calls into question whether circumcision indirectly benefits uninfected female partners of HIV-infected men.

Around a quarter of patients receiving antiretroviral therapy at two of Uganda’s largest treatment centres reported the need to change at least one of the drugs in their antiretroviral regimen, and one in seven had discontinued treatment for at least one month due to the cost of medicines, drug side-effects or drug stockouts.

Uganda has just launched a government project to fight poverty. The project is locally referred to as "Bonna Bagaggawale" which literally means "let's all get rich." And to boost this rural financial scheme, government has also introduced a software system known as Loan Performer to ease the rural accounting system.

A cessation of hostilities in the 20-year civil war between the Ugandan government and Lord's Resistance Army has expired, with no new deal in sight. BBC reports that both sides have warned that they will retaliate if attacked.

Uganda has undertaken educational reforms that will see the country offering free secondary education to 250,000 students. The government programme began on Monday February 19, aiming at getting 90 per cent of children who pass their primary school exams to go on to secondary education.

The bishop of Uganda's South Rwenzori Diocese has warned Christians in Kasese against homosexuality and described the act as an abomination in biblical teachings and the African culture. “Since God created Eve as Adam’s companion, it means men are meant to marry women and not fellow men, or women marrying fellow women,” Bishop Jackson Thembo Nzere-Bende said on Sunday.

The Institute of Public Health (IPH), at Makerere University, and the Population Reference Bureau (PRB), are pleased to inform you of an upcoming sub-Saharan Africa regional workshop dedicated toward developing policy communication and advocacy skills among program officials, researchers, and advocates working in the area of gender-based violence. The workshop will take place in Kampala, Uganda, 23 April - 4 May 2007.

The introduction of tele-medicine facilities in two of Uganda's rural hospitals will close the distance between patients and doctors.

Fifty-seven people, including four soldiers, have died since Monday in clashes pitting the army against warriors belonging to the Karamojong community in Uganda's northeastern district of Kotido, the military said.

Drought cycles are coming more often to northeastern Uganda: every two years instead of every five, according to a Reuters report. This year, crops dried out when the rains failed, leaving about half a million people dependent on United Nations food aid.

In Eastern Uganda, for generations being a farmer meant growing and eating your own food. But buying and selling food is becoming more common, and it is bringing new worries. As Joe Nam reports for Panos, one of the biggest changes has come in the form of cash: farmers who once practised subsistence agriculture – consuming most of the little they produced – are now heading for the market to sell their crops.

As Uganda recovers from civil war, levels of poverty have fallen significantly. However, the extent to which economic growth can help sustain poverty reduction is debatable. Some people have escaped poverty, while others have become poor. Different factors are behind these economic shifts and different policy responses are needed.