By Barry Eichengreen The US debt-ceiling fiasco has raised doubts about the advisability of holding dollars, while Europe’s debt crisis has fueled doubt on the euro’s survival. For more than a half-century, the US dollar has been not only America’s currency, but the world’s as well. It has been the …
Read More »Conflict between nation state and ethnic state
By Elia Kisembo The role of cultural leaders needs to be revised to cater for both the traditional and modern states. Recent years have witnessed a resurgence of pre-colonial political institutions across Africa. The governments of both Uganda and Ghana took a lead in constitutional reforms in the 1990s restoring …
Read More »Give ordinary peasants a voice
By Andrew M. Mwenda Politics everywhere tends to be rigged in favour of the powerful. But in Uganda it has been made worse. Last week, the mass media reported that the vast majority of rural Ugandans are at risk of malnutrition, especially in the northern region. It was a simple …
Read More »Mubarak’s last laugh?
By Omar Ashour His public trial shows what united demands can achieve. Unity can bring justice and freedom later. Polarisation will bring none. August 3, 2011, will be remembered as a historic day in Egypt. Former President Hosni Mubarak was put on public trial, together with his two sons and …
Read More »Why Rwanda’s story leaves the world divided
By Deogratias Harorimana The African development model is increasingly moving towards the Asian Tigers’ to seek solutions from within. When the North African public protests escalated into the greatest mass social revolution in the Arab world’s history, Western powers were surprised and many development partners remained cynical about its success. …
Read More »Museveni’s visit to Rwanda
By Frederick Golooba-Mutebi Unravels the mystery of cattle kraal diplomacy As soon as it was announced in print media in both countries, President Yoweri Museveni’s recent visit to Rwanda became the focus of attention for journalists and watchers of the two countries and the Great Lakes region in general. It …
Read More »Besigye’s choice on Shs 20m bribe
By Andrew M. Mwenda The only difference between our politicians is one of power, not policy; eating, not serving Last week, the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) held a meeting to discuss whether its members of the 8th Parliament who took the Shs20m “bribe” from President Yoweri Museveni to pass …
Read More »The beautiful garden that can’t feed the hungry
By Enock Musinguzi Uganda cannot sit on a green belt and continue to sit on its hands as the terminally arid region starves to death. In his ‘My African Journey’, Winston Churchill wrote “My journey is at an end, the tale is told………concentrate upon Uganda! Nowhere else in Africa will …
Read More »Who will defend the rural poor?
By Andrew M. Mwenda The benefits of high food prices go to the rural poor (the majority) while the costs are incurred by urbanites, a minority. As I write this article, food prices in Uganda are falling rapidly. For instance, the farm-gate price of a kilogram of maize in Kiryandongo …
Read More »From lanky patriot of 1975 to “Heavy” baron today
By A Correspondent Glued to their seats in a classroom that was the biggest in this rural primary school of Bubangizi, were parents fearful of what was going to befall their school since the lanky undergraduate of political science at Makerere University had decided to say what everybody had on …
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