The British government has denied a visa to Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesra, a leading LGBT activist in Uganda and the 2011 winner of the prestigious Martin Ennals award for Human Rights. She had been invited to open Foyle Pride in Derry, Northern Ireland, 24 August.

Over the years, we have been harassed, cajoled, insulted, discriminated against and referred to as beasts called inhuman, insane, sick, immoral and not upright thinking members of society.

Ugandan police have fired tear gas and water cannon filled with a pink dye to break up an opposition vigil near the capital, Kampala. Several hundred opposition supporters gathered for a 'light a candle' ceremony to mourn at least nine people killed during protests in April. Police said the meeting was illegal and could cause violence. The opposition has vowed to step up protests against President Yoweri Museveni's government.

Conservationists in Uganda have vowed to tackle President Yoweri Museveni head-on over his renewed plan to push through a proposal to give away part of Mabira Forest for sugar cane growing. Addressing district leaders and agriculturalists at Entebbe State House on Saturday, President Museveni said failure to give away the forest in 2007, is partly to blame for the current sugar crisis in the country. However, in what might lead to a repeat of the 2007 protests against the proposed give-away in which three people were killed, activists and politicians have condemned the President’s latest move and vowed to fight to save the forest.

Thomas Kwoyelo, former middle-ranking Lord's Resistance Army commander and allegedly captured in March 2009, was charged with war crimes and became the first person to be committed to the International Crimes Division. As part of their International Crimes Division monitoring initiative, the Refugee Law Project will update you with detailed newsletters and video documentaries based on the proceedings related to Kwoyelo's trial.

A sign of cordial relations between Rwanda and Uganda?

International NGO Human Rights First (HRF) has issued a call for pressure on the Ugandan authorities to properly investigate last week's break ins at the offices of LGBT groups Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) and Freedom and Roam Uganda (FARUG). And FARUG are calling for financial and technical support to replace their losses. The SMUG raid was thwarted by employees presence but the raid on FARUG led to the theft of computers, equipment, and the electronic database containing members' names.

Undeterred by police warnings, the opposition have said they are resuming nationwide protests to express their dissatisfaction with the government’s handling of the high and rising cost of living in the country. Masaka Municipality MP and national coordinator of Activists for Change pressure group, which is leading the protests, Mr Mathias Mpuuga, said that protesters would only bow to police attempts to stop their plans if police quoted the specific law empowering it to prevent them from exercising their constitutional right to hold a peaceful demonstration.

Ugandan Opposition leader Kizza Besigye has walked to partial freedom after the Magistrates Court in Kasangati, Wakiso District, acquitted him of charges related to the April walk-to-work demonstrations which at one point almost paralysed the country. The charges which had been preferred against Dr Besigye included alleged rioting after proclamation, incitement to violence, and disobeying lawful orders of a traffic police officer.

With the health of the country’s economy hanging in the balance and financial markets watching closely, President Museveni convened a crisis Cabinet meeting to try to come up with austerity measures that would deliver a blueprint for economic recovery. Across the nation, the rising public concern caused by double-digit inflation - currently standing at 18.7 per cent, is palpable. Of late, public employees, particularly teachers, medical workers and the business, are increasingly growing impatient as a result of the depreciation of the Shilling and the rising cost of living.

When it comes to sexual violence against women in Uganda, Doreen Lwanga says it is about time men start seeing women as human beings and not sexualised objects.

Uganda could be the next country hit by alarming malnutrition rates due to drought which has already sparked famine in southern Somalia and hunger in Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti, the United Nations warned. Pockets of food insecurity have already been detected in drought-hit northern areas of Uganda, east Africa's third largest economy, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said.

While members of Freedom and Roam Uganda (FARUG) are shaken by a break in and robbery at their offices, FARUG director Kasha Jacqueline says a 'Hate No More Campaign' will go forward as planned. The campaign launches on 10 August before the possible reintroduction of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda’s Parliament by far-right extremists.

Several districts in Uganda will need urgent relief aid to mitigate the risk of starvation following poor rains that have affected this year's harvest, the Minister for Disaster Preparedness warned. Most of the affected districts are in Karamoja where the situation was particularly unique because crop failure and a prolonged drought had aggravated the region's food crisis, Musa Ecweru said.

Inmates in Ugandan prisons are subject to brutal compulsory labour, frequent violence, miserable overcrowding, and disease, Human Rights Watch said in a report examining conditions in 16 prisons throughout the country. Over half of those in Ugandan prisons are in pretrial detention and may be held for years without having been convicted of any crime, Human Rights Watch said. Profits from prisoner labour often benefit individual prison officers, while prisoners suffer illness from inadequate food, water, and basic hygiene.

The government failed to stop a teachers’ strike last week after the ministers responsible insisted there was no money to meet their demands. Education Minister Jessica Alupo and other line ministers told MPs on the Parliamentary Social Services Committee that their hands were tied and that the matter had been forwarded to Minister of Public Service Henry Kajura, who asked teachers to be patient as there was no money.

Uganda has had a turbulent history of nation-building, with identity often rooted in ethnicity rather than notions of citizenship, notes Annelieke van de Wiel. This year’s International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) conference gave rise to numerous discussions on the need for the country to face up to its past and develop an inclusive Ugandan identity, van de Wiel writes.

Ethiopia and Uganda have signed bilateral agreements to cooperate in regional security operations. The deal also seeks to strengthen economic ties while allowing for the free movement of people between the two countries. Ethiopia's Foreign Affairs ministry said the agreement would enable the two countries to take a common position on regional security affairs. Among the issues to be prioritised are Somalia, South Sudan and Eritrea.

Having spent years uprooted by conflict, farmers in northern Uganda are again facing tough times – this time caused by the weather. In late June, Joel Lacung and Margaret Ataro of Got-Ngur village in northern Uganda’s Nwoya district, laboured under the scorching sun as they drove two pairs of oxen to prepare their land for the approaching second rice-planting season. They were among many rural farmers in Uganda whose livelihoods have been affected by increasingly erratic rainfall and high temperatures. Most were displaced by the years of conflict with the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and remain poor and unable to acquire farm inputs.

Uganda’s Constitutional Court on Monday 18 July began hearing a petition against the law that bars homosexuals from being employed and accessing equal opportunities. An LGBTI activist Mr Adrian Juuko, the Executive Director of Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF), petitioned the court to nullify section 15(6) d of the Equal Opportunities Commission Act 2007.