Victim or villain as 100 are killed in Kasese massacre? On Nov. 14, two police officers on guard at Queen Elizabeth National Park in Kasese district were attacked and killed by unknown assailants who grabbed their two guns and disappeared. This was just two days after Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga …
Read More »What is at stake in ICC trial of LRA’s Ongwen?
Trial to open of former child soldier turned LRA warlord The Hague, Netherlands | AFP | Dominic Ongwen, the former child soldier who became a Lord’s Resistance Army warlord, will go before war crimes judges on Tuesday in a trial which presents the International Criminal Court with its “most difficult …
Read More »Gambia’s new leaders push for political prisoners’ release
Banjul, Gambia | AFP | The Gambia’s President-elect Adama Barrow held talks with his team Saturday to plot his transition to power, with the release of political prisoners emerging as a top priority for the new administration. Barrow’s shock election victory ended the iron-fisted 22-year rule of Yahya Jammeh on …
Read More »Kasese comes to terms with assault on Rwenzururu palace
Kasese, Uganda | AFP | Outside the mortuary in Kasese, grief-stricken families wait to find out if their missing relatives were among scores killed by Ugandan security forces at the weekend. Huddling in groups, some pull clothes over their mouths and noses to mask the sickening stench of the …
Read More »Police foils Besigye plans to fundraise for Makerere University
Police officers in Kampala spent the better part of Friday morning and afternoon, arresting prominent opposition members who were planning to hold a fundraising campaign to raise money for the re-opening of Makerere University. The planned activities were scheduled to take place at the university’s freedom square. Former presidential candidate …
Read More »Angola’s President Dos Santos to stand down in 2017
Luanda, Angola | AFP | Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has ruled for 37 years, will stand down before next year’s general election, state radio said Friday citing sources in the ruling MPLA party. The autocratic Dos Santos, 74, became president in 1979, making him Africa’s second-longest serving …
Read More »Opposition wins Gambia presidential poll with 45.54%
Gambian president Jammeh ‘concedes’ defeat in election Banjul, Gambia | AFP | Gambian President Yahya Jammeh has conceded defeat to the opposition, the chairman of the electoral commission said Friday, bringing a dramatic end to his 22 years in power. “It’s really unique that someone who has been ruling this …
Read More »IN THE INDEPENDENT: Rwenzururu Omusinga Mumbere
Rwenzururu Omusinga Mumbere – Villain or victim? COVER STORY Inside Kasese massacre: What the government feared from Mumbere. COMMENT Killings in Kasese: Why Museveni in 2016 looks exactly like Obote in 1966 and how Kabaka Mutebi’s handling of the 2009 Buganda crisis yielded better results than the Rwenzururu King Mumbere’s …
Read More »Uganda’s Madi music and dance put on UNESCO heritage list
Paris, France | AFP | Ugandan traditional music, which is dying out partly because it requires materials from endangered species, has been placed on UNESCO’s protected “Intangible Cultural Heritage” list, along with Portuguese pottery and Ukrainian Cossack songs. A UNESCO world heritage committee, meeting in Addis Ababa Tuesday, decided to …
Read More »Cloud hangs over ICC as Ongwen trial starts Dec 6
The trial in the case of Dominic Ongwen, a top commander of Uganda’s rebel Lord’s Resistance Army, is scheduled to open at the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday, December 6 – 2016. The Prosecutor versus Ongwen case will be before Trial Chamber IX of the ICC, composed of presiding Judge …
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