By Mubatsi Asinja Habati The difference 30 years makes In 1980 Kamwokya was a bushy swamp, populated by hunters and migrant Bafumbira yam growers. The area of the Ministers’ Village in Ntinda looked like a forest reserve, its bushes alive with the music of playful monkeys. Kiwatule was then a …
Read More »One in 7 billion
By Rukiya Makuma An “unexpected” baby girl upsets her parent’s precarious livelihood and opens debate on whether Uganda can afford its population growth In the small one-roomed tenement, Mary Aheebwa lies on a small bed, her parents’ most valuable possession. Born early morning on Oct. 31, Aheebwa weighed in at …
Read More »Will American hand finally deliver Kony?
By Mubatsi Asinja Habati If you asked Gen Ham Carter, commander of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), he will tell you that all evil in this world “exists in the person of Joseph Kony”. On July 19, Gen Ham told Ugandan journalists at AFRICOM’s Stuttgart headquarters in Germany that he …
Read More »Cooking up rankings?
By Haggai Matsiko Experts say the Mo Ibrahim Index’s latest ranking of Uganda would be flattering if it weren’t so fictitious Experts have criticized the latest rankings of the Mo Ibrahim Africa Governance Index as a fiction, out of touch with realities in Uganda. The main bone of contention is …
Read More »Understand the transparency initiative on oil
By Deus Mukalazi Supporting the EITI is a good thing; understanding how it works is even better One of the resolutions passed by the 9th Parliament on Oct.11 was a demand for the government to join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). Seeing and hearing the members of Parliament chorus …
Read More »The other Horn of Africa
By Ahmed M. Mohamoud Silyano Obsessed with Mogadishu, the UN and AU are blind to growing sanctuaries of progress in the Horn – escpecially Somaliland Drought, famine, refugees, piracy, and the violence and terrorism endemic to the shattered city of Mogadishu, a capital ruined by civil war: these are the …
Read More »Police engaged in political contest
By Mubatsi Asinja Habati Inspector General of Police and the Director of Public Prosecution have charged demonstrators in the renewed Walk-to-Work campaign with treason – attempting to overthrow the government of Uganda. Livingstone Sewanyana executive director of the local NGO Foundation for Human Rights Initiative told The Independent’s Mubatsi Asinja …
Read More »Milton Friedman’s magical thinking
By Dani Rodrik But it is nearly impossible to be a Friedmanist in the original sense of the word Next year will mark the 100th anniversary of Milton Friedman’s birth. Friedman was one of the twentieth century’s leading economists, a Nobel Prize winner who made notable contributions to monetary policy …
Read More »Why go for Mabira? It has the poorest soils
By Owen E. Sseremba Forest soils are only ‘fertile’ for one type of sustainable land use, that is; forestry. Several writers on the contested give away of Mabira forest have not given the public: obvious, basic knowledge, and facts about the soil ecology of rain forests. Mabira is a rain …
Read More »The simple words we tell people can have lasting impressions on them
By Julius Mucunguzi Shaka Ssali and Andrew Mwenda: My two mentors On Sept.20, while in Washington DC for the annual meetings of Commonwealth finance ministers, I met two men who have been my professional mentors: Dr Shaka Ssali of Voice of America, and Andrew Mujuni Mwenda of The Independent Magazine. …
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