In The Magazine

ANDREW MWENDA: Why the belief that Ugandans are angry because youth lack jobs and other economic opportunities is mistaken THE LAST WORD | ANDREW MWENDA | Last week, President Yoweri Museveni inaugurated a $600 million fertilizer and aluminum plant in Tororo. A few days before, he had opened a new $150 …

BOU: Leaked documents raise concerns about the central bank Kampala, Uganda | HAGGAI MATSIKO | Fear of heads rolling at BoU has intensified ever since it was confirmed that the Inspector General of Government (IGG) was looking into the accounts of top officials of the central bank, including the Governor Tumusiime …

THIS WEEK; Jay Bolsonaro is Brazil’s next President Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | It is a hard time for liberals in Brazil as Jay Bolsonaro, dubbed by some as Latin America’s Doanld Trump, won the presidential election on a campaign to radically reform Brazil’s socio-economic structure. Bolsonaro is known for …

THIS WEEK: e-passports for January Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The government has said Ugandan citizens will start receiving electronic (biometric) passports beginning January 2019. “Uganda is ready to migrate from the current machine readable passports to e-passports in January 2019,” Dr Benon Mutambi, the Internal Affairs ministry’s Permanent Secretary, …

THIS WEEK: Pre-entry exams will frustrate new LDC centres- minister Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Kahinda Otafiire, the minister for justice and constitutional affairs says pre-entry exams for students who wish to do a bar course will frustrate the government’s efforts at decetrnalising Law Development Centre (LDC); the institution accredited …

THIS WEEK: 60 FDC leaders quit FDC for Muntu’s group Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) is dealing with another defection after 60 district leaders announced they had quit the party to join Mugisha Muntu’s New Formation at an event held in Mbarara. The leaders led …

THIS WEEK: Bamugemereire attacks judges over land evictions Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Justice Catherine Bamugemereire (Pictured), the chairperson of the commission of inquiry into land management has attacked fellow judges for “catalysing rising land distress, grabbing of protected and fragile areas causing landlessness and a state of lawlessness.” Bamugemereire …

Kampala, Uganda | MOTORING GURU | Many drivers do things on the road that they should not be doing. Some are mistakes, results of ignorance, and outright recklessness. As a consequence, many motorists end up in the garage when they would not if they were just a bit more careful, cautious, …

Africans are now confronting a new and serious threat to our land, biodiversity, rights, and food supply COMMENT | MARIANN BASSEY-OROVWUJE | First, the agribusiness giants came to take our land and disrupt our food systems with synthetic pesticides, fertilisers, proprietary seeds, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Now, these firms’ hired …

Discrediting, constraining, or otherwise silencing independent journalists is a key tool of repression COMMENT | DAOUD KUTTAB | The London-based daily Al-Araby Al-Jadeed recently published a cartoon, by the Jordanian artist Emad Hajjaj, depicting a faceless man wearing a red and white keffiyeh and sweeping his brown thawb in such a …