By Maya Prabhu Uganda is one of the world’s top banana-growing countries, producing as many as 10 million tonnes of the fruit each year, but the banana market is under-exploited. Its potential to act as a bastion of food-security and create lucrative openings for ambitious entrepreneurs requires innovation in the …

By Harold Acemah In Issue No. 101 of The Independent (March 5 , 11, 2010), Abbey Kibirige in an interesting and otherwise balanced article raised, in my view, a false alarm about ‘Mao’s motives in taking over DP’ and concluded that Mao could have a hidden agenda to use his leadership …

By Patrick Kagenda The Independent’s Patrick Kagenda talked to the new UPC president Ambassador Otunnu about the party’s future. Word around is that you are targeting the national presidency and that if you should fail, then you will return to exile. What is your position? I decided after a long …

By Maya Prabhu On March 1, Speaker of Parliament Edward Ssekandi was presented with a petition bearing the signatures of 450,000 people calling for the rejection of the Anti Homosexuality Bill, 2009. The petition was written, and undersigned, by a group referring to themselves as AIDS service providers, spiritual mentors …

By Maya Prabhu The rains have come. The streets of Kampala run fluid brown, ladies heads are half-hidden under thin plastic bags as they hop from island to island along the roadsides, and inside-out umbrellas quiver uselessly in the hands of miserable boda-boda passengers. Early in the hours of Feb. …

By Patrick Kagenda Members of the Uganda Clearing and Forwarding Association (UCFA) are fighting a new requirement for all car imports into the country to go through the government’s Inland Car Port in Mombasa. The Ministry of Trade last week announced that all car imports to Uganda must pass through …

By Agencies It may happen but it’s not something we’re terribly focused on-BP boss Tullow Oil’s shares have jumped 3% last week on the back of rumors that BP was planning on submitting a bid for the Irish independent. According to rumors, BP is planning to offer Tullow £15 per …

By Agencies Ghana’s total revenue from the oil and gas find will represent less than five per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), according to the Energy Minister, Dr Joe Oteng-Adjei. With the country’s current GDP at well over $18 billion, Dr Oteng-Adjei said the total revenue to …

By Rukiya Makuma WFP moves to answer that question with sensitisation and food support Kambasa Salimu is severely malnourished. At five years old, he has a body mass index of a four months old child. Weighing only 8.4 kg and 85 cm in height, he is emaciated with a protruding …

By Jocelyn Edwards Children pushed and shoved each other, with their hands outstretched, as Joseph Makwa, the head teacher at the secondary school where victims of the Bududa mudslide have been sheltered, handed out biscuits. Last week there were signs that bureaucracy and corruption have prevented villagers from getting the …