A prominent refugee organisation in Uganda has condemned the government's refusal to listen to Sudanese refugees at a camp in western Uganda, who are unhappy over plans to move them north, closer to the Sudanese border.

The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, which unites leading NGOs working on this issue, is seeking candidates for the position of Great Lakes Regional Coordinator, with significant project management and capacity building experience.

The head of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), Carol Bellamy, has expressed concern over the renewed abduction of children and women by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) following the recent collapse of a ceasefire in northern Uganda.

Political parties can now operate freely, the Attorney General, Francis Ayume, said. Ayume, however, stressed that parties "whether old or new can only exist and operate after registering and paying the necessary registration fees."

Fifteen year-old Patrick Komakech lies on a bed, grateful for his freedom and more importantly for his life. He was brought to a rehabilitation centre in the northern Ugandan town of Kitgum after fleeing his captors, the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), two weeks after they abducted him from his school. He was among the lucky ones. Others in his group who had tried to escape, were recaptured and killed in front of their counterparts "as a lesson on what would happen to us if we tried to run away".

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) Uganda, in collaboration with the Associazione Volontari per il Servizio Internazionale (AVSI), is pursuing a United States Department of Labor solicitation entitled "Combating Child Labor Through Education." The primary objective of this proposal is to improve access to quality education as a means to combat child labor in Northern Uganda.

OneWorld seeks an online volunteer Editor for a new Country Guide for Uganda. This is a fascinating opportunity to share and expand knowledge in Ugandan affairs from the OneWorld perspective, and to contribute to one of the internet's best known sites covering human rights and sustainable development. The OneWorld Volunteer Editors Project aims to provide opportunities to people living and working in the developing world to bring their knowledge and enthusiasm to the online global audience of

Nigeria plans to learn from the experiences of Ugandan HIV/AIDS prevention programs to address its HIV/AIDS epidemic, Babatunde Osotimehin, chair of Nigeria's National Action Committee on AIDS, said on Monday, Xinhua News Agency reports.

The quarterly newsletter is one of the building blocks of I-Network Uganda, a platform for sharing knowledge and information on applying ICTs for equitable national development. The other building blocks are a website (www.i-network.or.ug), monthly seminars, and lobbying and advocacy in the field of ICT for development. Our network has nodes or special interest groups, such as the Junior node; the Media node; the Techie (technical node - ICT gurus); and other nodes are being developed. I-Network envisions a Uganda where at least 50% of the people are able to equitably tap the socio-economical benefits of the information age through the use of ICTs. The core objective of I-Network Uganda is to catalyse equitable socio-economic development through the sharing of knowledge and experiences where ICT has stimulated development.

Only days after the World Bank gave the Bujagali power project the go-ahead, environmental lobby groups have warned that the storm is far from over, reports Charles Wendo and Gerald Tenywa. The National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE) and the Save Bujagali Crusade on Monday said unless key concerns such as the unfair purchase agreement, absence of competitive bidding and environmental concerns were addressed, the project was doomed.

As Uganda prepared to withdraw some 2,000 troops from northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kampala warned that there would be "chaos" in the volatile Ituri region if a security vacuum was not quickly filled.

Without exception, the humanitarian organisations in Ituri District say security remains their uttermost concern in continuing their relief work in this part of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The killing on 3 April of Hema in Drodro town and 14 surrounding villages in Ituri underscored this concern and the continued danger to people of the district.

Although Uganda has been "hailed for several years as an AIDS success story," some HIV/AIDS advocates are concerned that the country's drop in HIV prevalence rate could lead to a "false sense of security," the Financial Times reports. The validity of the statistics, based on blood samples from prenatal clinics, "is open for debate," according to the Times.

Masindi Resident District Commissioner Betty Adima has said about 7,000 internally displaced persons are destroying Kinyara sugarcane plantation because they do not have enough food. "These IDPs have nothing to eat and are eating up the sugarcanes," Ms Adima said. She was addressing the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers at Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement Camp in Masindi district at the weekend.

Rwandese President Paul Kagame has said his country will try as much as possible to avoid war with Uganda. "I think we shall do everything to avoid it (war)," he told the South Africa Broadcasting Corporation after a peace summit in Cape Town last week. Tension between the erstwhile allies heightened last month with accusations that each harboured the other's dissidents, allegations both countries deny.

A report released this week by the Uganda Human Rights Commission has accused government security agents of torture. Margaret Sekagya, of the human rights commission told IRIN that the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) - a military intelligence security department in the Ugandan People's Defence Force (UPDF) - and the Internal Security Organisation (ISO) - part of the ministry of internal affairs, which controls internal security - had been heavily implicated in the report.

The rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has reportedly said the Ugandan government must declare an unconditional ceasefire before it will nominate a peace negotiating team.

Human Rights Watch is writing to express our serious concern about the widespread killings of civilians and other abuses being committed in the areas controlled by the Uganda military (UPDF) in the Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. We therefore urge you to ensure that your military forces and those of all your allies in Ituri respect international humanitarian law and protect civilian lives.

The UHRC seeks assistance from an international advisor with the purpose to enhance its organisational capacity to fulfilling it's mandate and carrying out it's activities. The advisor will report directly to the chairperson of UHRC (who is based in the Central office in Kampala) and will assist in designing and implementing organisational developments initiatives within UHRC. Such activities will address a wide range of strategic, managerial and administrative issues including financial management.

Ugandan forces and their allies must prevent the killing of civilians in Ituri in northeastern Congo, Human Rights Watch said in an open letter to President Museveni of Uganda this week after information of yet another massacre of civilians surfaced over the weekend. The killing of civilians in Drodro and Blukwa in Ituri, northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on April 3 is the latest in a surge of killings and other serious human rights abuses that have taken place in the area.
Related Link:
* Report says 996 die in Massacre
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=515&ncid=723&e=3&u=/ap…