The Ugandan government has announced that genetically modified (GM) foods can be imported into the country - but that they should be used " strictly for consumption", and not for cultivation. In a statement released last month, the government's National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO) says that the government "recognises the controversial nature of this subject and has therefore decided to proceed with caution, building consensus at all stages."

I-Network Uganda provides a platform for sharing knowledge and forming partnerships around the use of ICT for development. In the following case study, the “8 Habits of Highly Effective ICT-Enabled Development Initiatives” of Bridges.org were used as a framework to highlight what the initiative has done well. The bridges.org/IICD Case Study Series on ICT-Enabled Development sets out to illustrate how ICT contributes to development in Africa.

In Uganda when one talks about art it stipulates three things. One may think about the beautiful artefacts like mats, table spreads and baskets whose production occupies a good number of hours of many a housewife. Or better still the numerous utilitarian items like stools, headgear and body accessories made from beads most of which are imported from Kenya. The third and rather obvious evocation is the paintings, sculptures and drawings that are produced as a result of formal and informal training. Among artists and art promoters in Kampala, art refers to the paintings (Kampala artists are of late obsessed with painting; a tendency dictated by the ready market for them) and sculptures produced in conformity with western aesthetics. Read the rest of this article on the African Colours website.

President Yoweri Museveni has pledged to cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC) if it investigates his army's alleged involvement in war crimes. "I am ready to be investigated for war crimes ... and if any of our people were involved in any crimes, we will give him up to be tried by the ICC," Museveni told journalists at Okwang, northeast of Lira, where the Government has set up a forward base to direct the war against the LRA rebels.

In the most devastating attack on civilians in northern Uganda for nearly 10 years, rebels who have waged war in northern Uganda for 18 years, massacred at least 200 people in an internally displaced persons (IDPs) camp on Saturday, eyewitnesses said. Three bodies of those who died later at Lira referral hospital were being loaded by relatives on to a small truck on Monday morning to be taken for burial, while other injured IDPs were being treated by medical staff. Sam Ekomu, a survivor of the massacre, told IRIN his three cousins were among the dead.

Five people were killed in the northern town of Lira on Wednesday morning as thousands protested against the government’s "failure to protect its people from insurgency" and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army's (LRA) massacre of more than 200 internally displaced persons (IDPs) on Saturday.

A six-year-old boy abducted by rebels was made to walk about 400 km barefoot in a forced march before escaping last week and being brought to a rehabilitation centre. The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels seized Simon Atenon at the end of June after ambushing a bus he and his father were travelling on, killing most of the passengers.

Scores of internally displaced people (IDPs) living in camps near Lira town, on Tuesday took flight to seek refuge in the town centre after Saturday's massacre, alongside students from a nearby boarding school who also flocked in to join the thousands of other IDPs already living there. President Yoweri Museveni, who arrived in Lira on Monday night, visited Lira Referral Hospital the following morning and made a public apology for the massacre.

The RLP is currently inviting applications for the post of Research Fellow for citizens of the East African region. The Fellow would operate within the Department of Research and Advocacy and be responsible for assisting in the continual refining of the project's research agenda. The position would involve carrying out field research at both fundamental/policy and investigative/individual levels throughout Uganda, analysing collected data, and contributing to various publications of the RLP including its Working Paper series and Policy Paper series.

Of recent, there has been hullabaloo about abolition of the Uganda Human Rights Commission, a debate ignited by the Cabinet proposal to the Constitutional Review Commission for the amendment for the 1995 Constitution of the Republic of Uganda. The cabinet is proposing that the Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) should be abolished and its functions transferred to the Inspectorate of Government; another government body which noses into corruption and mismanagement of government resources. The evolution and globalization of Human Rights cannot leave Uganda behind the rest of the world, argues the author of this article from the Peace and Conflict Monitor. "Pillars of democracy like human rights, accountability and good governance cannot be fully sustained without resource investment. The choice is for all Ugandans, whether to slide back to anarchy or to promote and protect democratic principles."

The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, has said he will investigate the crimes committed on Saturday 21 February 2004 in Barlonya camp, North Eastern Uganda. The latest reports estimate the number of deaths at over 200. "These crimes are the most serious committed in the country since 1995, when 240 people were killed in Atiak, north of Lira," he said in a statement. The Court has responsibility for the prosecution of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, in order to bring an end to impunity for these crimes. "The Office of the Prosecutor will take steps to ensure that the crimes committed in Barlonya camp will be investigated and that those bearing the greatest responsibility will be prosecuted."

The Washington Post reported on 19 February 2004 that Uganda has seen a considerable decline in the taboos surrounding HIV/AIDS. Consequently over the last ten years, Uganda's HIV prevalence rate has dropped from 30 per cent to five per cent. According to the Washington Post the openness with which people discuss the disease is due in part to the fact that Uganda was one of the first countries in Africa to confront HIV/AIDS.

Isis-WICCE relocated to Kampala, Uganda at the end of 1993 with an objective of tapping African women's ideas, views and problems and sharing the information with women at the international level. Since the move to Kampala, Isis-WICCE started National-and regional level programmes to facilitate the flow of information from Uganda to other parts of Africa and the rest of the world, and to contribute towards the strengthening of the Uganda and African women's movement. Isis-WICCE exists to promote Justice, and empowerment of women globally through documenting violations of women's rights and facilitating the exchange of information and skills, to strengthen women's capacities, potential, and visibility.

Refugees in Uganda are instructed to stay in the rural agricultural settlements set up for them by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Ugandan authorities. Yet a substantial number of refugees are urbanites with entrepreneurial skills and technical qualifications. An estimated 15 000 refugees live in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, but are unable to fully use their skills for the benefit of their families or the Ugandan economy.

"We are going to shout about bride price across Africa and we are going to say 'no' to the sale of women,” exclaimed Atuki Turner to a crowded hall at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. Turner was speaking at the opening this week of the first international conference on the tradition of bride price. The groundbreaking event was organised by Mifumi, a women's non-governmental organisation (NGO) in rural eastern Uganda. It brought together activists from Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Rwanda and South Africa to discuss the effect that payment of bride price has on women. Delegates also talked about ways of eliminating this practice in Africa and elsewhere.

A group of opposition parties in Uganda have announced they intend to form a coalition in an attempt to defeat the Movement Party in the 2006 elections. The G7 in Uganda is set to include the Democratic Party, the Uganda People's Congress, the Conservative Party and the Reform Agenda.

The Ugandan Supreme Court has declared that the offence of 'publishing false news' was incompatible with the right to freedom of expression. This means that journalists in Uganda can no longer be charged with "publication of false news". Justice Joseph Mulenga, delivering the lead judgment, ruled that the right to freedom of expression protects not only that which can be proven to be true. He warned that the offence dated from colonial times and that the only reason why it was still on the books was because Parliament had not yet gotten around to reforming the law. He stressed that the prohibition of false news served no meaningful purpose. On the contrary, it was a vaguely formulated offence, open to misinterpretation and abuse on political grounds, that could not be reconciled with basic democratic principles and the right to freedom of expression.

Out in the green, rolling hills of eastern Uganda, near the city of Mbale in the shadow of Mount Elgon, the Abayudaya Jews live as Ugandans always have, supporting themselves through subsistence farming and struggling against the elements to bring in the next harvest. These rural Ugandans share much with their neighbours; the surrounding fields bursting with mango trees, sugar cane, banana trees and cassava, the frequent communal festivals to celebrate birth, marriage and death, the uncertainty of rapidly changing national politics and the exhaustion of poverty. A significant difference between the Abayudaya and their countrymen is that when they raise their heads to the heavens in prayer, their God is not Jesus, Allah or any tribal spirit, but the God of Israel. They set themselves apart through devout Judaism and their adherence to the belief that some day they will become an accepted part of the international Jewish community.

There is considerable optimism among Ugandans living abroad following the release of the Sempebwa Report, which recommends dual citizenship for those holding citizenship in another country. Currently only South Africa, Ghana and Egypt have the provision for dual citizenship written in their constitutions. In the amended Citizenship Act (Act 88 of 1995), a South African is allowed to retain his or her South African citizenship when becoming the citizen of another country. Meanwhile, with an estimated 1.5 million Ghanaians living abroad and contributing as much as $400 million to the national coffers annually, Ghana officially launched the Dual Citizenship Regulation Act on July 3, 2002. The only other African countries that informally allow dual citizenship are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Lesotho, Nigeria and Morocco.

With the support of the U.N. Population Fund, Ugandan first lady Janet Museveni initiated a campaign on Friday to eliminate fistula, a pregnancy-related disability. According to the UNFPA, fistula is caused by obstructed and prolonged labour and exacerbated by improper medical care. The problem is especially acute in Uganda, where only 38 percent of births occur with the assistance of a capable birth attendant and about 60 percent of babies are delivered at home, the UNFPA said.