One of Africa’s leading HIV doctors says that efforts to scale up antiretroviral treatment in sub-Saharan Africa risk being undermined by inadequate preparation throughout the health care system for drug side-effects. Dr Elly Katabira of Makarere University, Uganda, told the Sixth International Workshop on Lipodystrophy and Adverse Drug Reactions in HIV in Washington DC, USA, that doctors risk undermining patient confidence in antiretroviral drugs if they are not prepared properly for drug side-effects in the first months of treatment. Global pressure to scale up treatment, said Dr Katabira, was in danger of ignoring the higher risk of drug side-effects in patients eligible for treatment.

Following on from the Refugee Law Project ( RLP) Working Paper No. 8, "Land Problems in Nakivale Settlement and the Implications for Refugee Protection", the RLP returned to Nakivale settlement in September 2004 to investigate news reports of land grabbing and the repatriation of Rwandan refugees. This document focuses on land grabbing and ownership and is based on interviews with settlement and district officials, refugees, and Ugandans living in the area.

On his retirement, Uganda's anti-corruption czar says no-one has dared tempt him with a bribe. But Jotham Tumwesigye, who has been fighting sleaze for eight years, says despite investigating 10 government ministers none had been charged. Those in top jobs are good at hiding evidence needed for court action, he told the BBC. During his tenure, he said he has made many enemies and attempts were made by some to reduce his powers.

An estimated 2,000 people, mainly women and children, have entered Uganda during the past three months after fleeing hunger in southern Sudan, local officials in northern Uganda said on Friday. "We estimate that up to 2,000 of them have crossed over to Moyo district," Akumu Mavenjina, the Resident District Commissioner in charge of Moyo told IRIN by telephone from Moyo town.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) will not prosecute child soldiers and will work with local elders striving to end northern Uganda's brutal 18-year-old war, Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo said on Monday. Uganda's government has praised the ICC probe but some northern religious leaders have criticised it, fearing it will create a crisis of confidence and stall further surrenders by rebels of the cult-like Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

The Ugandan government is to investigate a corruption charge against former vice president Speciosa Kazibwe charged with using public money of 2.5 billion shillings (1.45 million US dollars) for her studies in the United States. Minister of State for Ethics and Integrity in Office of the President Tim Lwanga was quoted Tuesday by state-owned newspaper The New Vision as saying that "if there is something wrong, we shall rectify it and move on."

At least 20,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in northern Uganda were left homeless after a rainstorm wrecked thousands of grass-thatched huts in their camp in the district of Gulu, relief agencies in the area said on Monday. "Three people were injured while about four thousand huts had their roofs blown off when a strong storm swept through Pabbo IDP camp on Sunday evening," Coreen Auma of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), said by phone from Gulu. Pabbo camp, situated about 400 km north of the capital, Kampala, is home to 62,000 people displaced by the 18-year old war between government forces and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

In September 2004, the Ugandan government began to integrate traditional medicine in the national health system by setting up a commission to develop standards and decide which practices should be authorised. Uganda is also one of the first African nations to include traditional healing in its schools' national curriculum.

The biggest HIV/AIDS training centre in sub-Saharan Africa opened in Uganda on Wednesday with officials hopeful it will significantly boost the continent's ability to fight the deadly pandemic. The Infectious Diseases Institute, largely funded by drug giant Pfizer, aims to teach hundreds of health care workers advanced techniques in fighting a disease the United Nations estimates has infected 26 million people in Africa.

The incumbent is responsible for overseeing the implementation of a STAR (dynamic approach to empower communities in the face of HIV/AIDS), a two-year pilot project in Nigeria, Uganda and Mozambique. All candidates must be within the ages of 30 - 42 years old.

Torture by State agents continues unabated in spite of government assurance that there is no institutionalised sanction of its use, the 2003 Uganda Human Rights Commission report has revealed. "Going by the complaints at the Commission, torture seems to be a method of work in some security organs. It is either presented as part of training, or a learned practice that is indispensable in the operations of some security organs," the 6th annual report said.

Uganda loses between Shs200 billion to Shs350 billion a year in corruption, the Executive Director of Uganda Debt Network, Mr Zie Gariyo, said yesterday. He was speaking at a two-day workshop on the role of the media in fighting corruption. He said corruption is in the form of outright fraud and embezzlement, illegal payments, payment of ghost employees, false declaration of customs entries, poor contracting systems and fraudulent procurement.

The Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE) invites applications for a scholarship of £10,000 to support Africans wishing to pursue economic research at the University for the degree of DPhil. Candidates will be drawn from students accepted for D Phil research by the University of Oxford. The thesis topic should be of relevance to African economies. Museveni Scholars will be attached to the CSAE and will normally be supervised by members of the research team. The CSAE will now consider a new round of applications for the Museveni Scholarship for the academic year 2004-2005. The closing date for applications is 29 October 2004. Applications, which should include a copy of your research proposal together with your c.v. and details of other applications for funding and/or funding obtained for your DPhil studies should be sent to the Administrator, CSAE, Department of Economics, Manor Road Building, Oxford OX1 3UQ.

People are confined in the camp, straying is paid for with your life, yet they have to leave the camps to get food for their families. And the rebels come into the camps too. So there is no safe place. In the camps, if the rebels don't kill you, diseases will. Hunger and poor hygiene are the bane of the camps. In the absence of water and soap, fungi has spread through the human population. Scabies cover the children's arms and hands.

President Yoweri Museveni has admitted that he blindly supported the United States-led invasion of Iraq. "I supported the Americans in Iraq, but I didn't even know what they were fighting for," he said. "What I knew is that Saddam [Hussein] was a friend of Bashir, and Bashir was my enemy." When referring to weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Museveni said "I don’t know whether it was true or not." He said he figured that if Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, they could have easily ended up with the Sudanese President Omar Bashir and that was why he supported the American invasion of Iraq.

Uganda will hold the 4th National AIDS Conference (NAC) in March 2005. NAC brings together policy makers, researchers and AIDS practitioners to share knowledge and experiences about the epidemic and the response. NAC resolutions feed into policy and programme development, and service delivery processes for an evidence-based response.

President Museveni hit out U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland for suggesting that the suffering caused by war in northern Uganda was comparable to that in Sudan's strife-torn Darfur. Egeland urged the international community last week to focus on northern Uganda and the atrocities of the Lord's Resistance Army. Museveni questioned, "In what way is it like Darfur? True, people are in camps because of attacks by the terrorists. But it seems some people don't want us to defeat the terrorists."

Winrock International is currently seeking applications for three positions related to a new project to conduct impact monitoring and evaluation for a national rural energy program in Africa: 1) Chief of Party; 2) Data Collection Coordinator; 3) Short Term Consultant - project design and proposal writing. To apply, please email us your CV, cover letter and reference list with the appropriate title in the subject line. Deadline: October 23, 2004

Puberty can have a severe effect on girls' performance and attendance in upper primary schools in Uganda. In many schools, girls are absent for an average of three to five days a month because they do not have access to adequate protection such as sanitary towels or pads. For some subjects, the result of such regular absenteeism can be devastating as girls miss out on vital stages of the syllabus, resulting in gaps in the learning stages, which they find hard to catch up on later.

The Ugandan Health Ministry is to start distributing free insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) to children under five years and pregnant women in two million households in an effort to fight malaria which kills between 70,000 to 100,000 people annually. The ministry's programme manager for malaria control, said the US $6 million that will be used in the exercise was secured from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and would buy an estimated 4.5 million ITNs in order to reduce the extent of malaria infestation in the country.