The rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has intensified its attacks in northern Uganda in recent weeks with the main objective of forcing internally displaced persons (IDPs) out of camps protected by the Ugandan army, the Uganda Red Cross Society (URCS) has said.

Anti Mines Network Rwenzori (AMNET-R), a Kasese-based non-governmental organisation has received a donation of Shs 30 million from Human Rights Network to help rehabilitate formerly abducted women and their children.

Is changing sexual behaviour an effective tool for reducing the levels of HIV infection? If so, how can behavioural change programmes best be implemented at community level? Research by the Medical Research Council (UK) Programme in Uganda explores the implementation of a randomised controlled trial (RCT) set up to study the effects that community Information, Education and Communication (IEC) and improved management of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) can have on STD and HIV infection rates on a rural population in south west Uganda.

World Bank projects costing hundreds of millions of pounds and aimed at cutting malnutrition among children in developing countries have completely failed to make any difference, according to a new report. Save the Children UK claims that the bank has not only continued with costly but failing projects in Bangladesh and Uganda but it is planning to expand, with a scheme billed for Ethiopia.

A Bank has donated Shs5 million to Uganda Women's Effort to Save Orphans (Uweso). The bank's head of marketing, Mr Charles Nsubuga, handed over the cheque to Ms Camille Aliker, the chairwoman of the fundraising committee.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has expressed alarm that Ugandan authorities have closed the Catholic Church-owned Radio Kyoga Veritas FM, in the north-eastern town of Soroti. The station was reportedly closed for airing reports about fighting in the region between government forces and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

Amnesty International is gravely concerned at the persistent reports of torture by members of Uganda's Violent Crime Crack Unit (VCCU). "The recent death of Nsangi Murisidi as a result of torture at the hands of VCCU officers is further confirmation of an entrenched pattern of torture of detainees while in custody," the organisation said. Nsangi Murisidi, a small business holder, was picked up by the VCCU officers from his place of work in Owino Market in Kampala on 14 June 2003, the last day he was seen alive.

The Ugandan opposition party, the Ugandan People’s Congress (UPC) – headed by exiled twice-former Ugandan president Milton Obote – has confirmed that it plans to hold a demonstration against US President George W. Bush’s visit to the country, scheduled for mid-July.

Ugandan officials accuse Islamic fundamentalist forces in the Sudan government of trying to scuttle an agreement Khartoum and Kampala signed three years ago and a protocol that improved relations between the two countries. Ugandan Defence Minister Amama Mbabazi said that the country was seeking clarification from Sudan about reports that elements in the Sudanese army, possibly those allied to Bashir's political opponents, had resumed arms supplies to rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) fighting the Ugandan government in the north of the country.

Continuing with his national campaign against corruption in local governments, an angry President Museveni directed local governments to prosecute Chief Administrative Officers (CAOs) who embezzle government funds.

Uganda's well-documented fight against HIV and Aids will take a strange turn if a recommendation, by the Education Service Commission, to ask teachers living with the disease to resign is implemented. The Commissioner for Secondary Education and HIV/Aids co-ordinator in the Ministry of Education, Mr Yusuf Nsubuga, said on Wednesday that the recommendation would affect teachers who have been on sick leave for six or more months.

The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers has stated that the recent abduction of girls from a boarding school in Lwara, Kabermaido district, Northern Uganda, signals a sharp jump in child abduction and recruitment by all parties to the conflict. “This incident is part of a generalized problem of escalating conflict fuelling unprecedented levels of child abductions and recruitment in Northern Uganda, and now spreading to Eastern Uganda,” said Geoffrey Oyat, Coordinator of the Ugandan chapter of the Coalition.

The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers has stated that the recent abduction of girls from a boarding school in Lwara, Kabermaido district, Northern Uganda, signals a sharp jump in child abduction and recruitment by all parties to the conflict. “This incident is part of a generalized problem of escalating conflict fuelling unprecedented levels of child abductions and recruitment in Northern Uganda, and now spreading to Eastern Uganda,” said Geoffrey Oyat, Coordinator of the Ugandan chapter of the Coalition.

Uganda will receive US$200,000 (about sh400m) in military aid from the US following the non-surrender agreement the two governments signed last week. President Yoweri Museveni, while on a visit to the US, signed the non-surrender pact with Secretary of State Collin Powell, exempting US soldiers on international combat assignments from prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Sudan has strongly denied accusations, made on Monday by the Acholi Religious Leaders’ Peace Initiative (ARLPI) in northern Uganda, that the Sudanese army is continuing to arm the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebel group.

President Yoweri Museveni, on a state visit to the US, has accused Sudan of secretly arming Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army and fuelling the insurgency in northern Uganda in a bid to expand her borders.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who is in Washington, D.C., this week meeting with government and business leaders, including President Bush, to discuss AIDS, trade and terrorism, said in an interview with the Washington Times that "AIDS is not a serious sickness ... because it's not very contagious" and that people can easily avoid acquiring the virus.

African commodities and raw materials are processed in wealthy nations and then resold by companies and corporations in those nations at prices many times greater than what is paid to the producers, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said Tuesday night at a well-attended reception just hours after his meeting at the White House with President George W. Bush.

People living with HIV/AIDS take up about 80 percent of Ugandan hospital beds. This was revealed by Major Rubaramira Ruranga of the Uganda Joint Clinical Research Centre (UJCRC) during an aids awareness conference recently. "80 per cent of the hospital beds are occupied by people living with HIV/AIDS in Uganda. This shows that the disease is still an epidemic," said Mr Rubaramira.

"Knowledge and information are power," said Uganda’s Education Minister, Khiddu Makubuya. "Our future is in our youth and we must offer them the best possible start in life". One would be forgiven for thinking that the words refer to kindergarten or primary school education in Africa. But he was talking about secondary schooling at the opening, Monday, of the first regional conference on secondary education in Africa, being held in the Ugandan capital, Kampala. To date, secondary schooling has played second fiddle to primary education, which has attracted most of the funds and attention of both donors and African governments in recent years.