By Timothy Nsubuga

1^st Nov 2010

MP Mike Hancock

The British government has expressed serious concerns over the uneven political playing field in Uganda’s February 2011 general elections.

Responding to a question about “…the prospect of free, fair and peaceful elections in Uganda” tabled in the British parliament [The House of Commons] by Mr. Mike Hancock, the Liberal Democrat party MP for Portsmouth South last week, Britain’s Foreign Office Minister Henry Bellingham said:

“…we do retain concerns about the evenness of the playing field between Government and Opposition, (more…)

By Sharon S. Tibenda

1^st Nov 2010

File Photo, Didier Drogba taking a shot

English Premiership football superstar Didier Drogba on Thursday 28^th Oct kicked off a United Nations sponsored campaign to push for free and fair elections in developing countries.

The Ivorian striker and Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Development Programme unveiled a poster in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) with a message urging voters to “Get on the pitch, and be a player. Register, Vote, Be heard.”

The poster features Drogba, (more…)

By John Stephen Katende

1^st Nov 2010

A tortured Ugandan man

A staggering one in every ten member states of the United Nations still torture their citizens, a UN rights expert has said.

Addressing Journalists in New York on 26^th Oct on what he called the “global crisis of detention”, Mr. Manfred Nowak, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment said he “…estimates that one out of every 10 UN Member State practices torture”.

He said of the 18 countries he had visited in his capacity as Special Rapporteur, all except Denmark carried out torture.  He also called for a global convention on the rights of detainees to ensure that their human rights are respected.

He said (more…)

By George Murumba

1^st Nov 2010

A spate of gun crime in Lira district has been blamed on the wide availability of weaponry left over from Uganda’s civil war, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting [IWPR] has reported. (more…)

By Sharon S. Tibenda

1^st Nov 2010

The world should revise its ambitions and abandon efforts to eradicate malaria and concentrate on controlling it instead, malaria researchers have said. (more…)