The cholera outbreak reported in Kampala and Wakiso has spread to six other districts, health minister Jim Muhwezi says.

The decision last month to extend Operation Iron Fist into 2003 is more likely to subject women and girls in Northern Uganda to further violence than bring peace to the region. In March, the Ugandan government obtained approval from the Sudanese government to launch a military offensive against the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), whose bases are located in southern Sudan.

The rampant corruption in government departments will scare away donors if not tackled, French ambassador Jean Bernard Thiant has said. He queried the way the Government had handled the US$100m grant from the World Health Organisation to the health ministry. He said the fund, meant for the fight against malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/Aids, had been diverted to other sectors.

Makerere University in Kampala (Uganda) has been chosen as the site of the first women-oriented facility established by the ITU Internet Training Centres Initiative for Developing Countries (ITCI-DC). The ITCI-DC is an initiative between ITU and the private sector in which Cisco Systems Inc. is a key partner.

South African electricity giant Eskom, which last week won generating and distributing rights from the Uganda Electricity Board, has been warned to keep clear of the controversial Bujagali Dam project by environmental and anti-corruption pressure groups.

The war in Nothern Uganda has created a generation of conflict-affected youngsters who will grow up emotionally, physically, and economically blighted in displacement camps, according to a report by the The Civil Society Organisation for Peace in Northern Uganda (CSOPNU).

The Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) has lifted the three-month suspension on the export of wildlife. President Yoweri Museveni wrote to the authority saying the Government could not stop export of wild animals reared on private farms.

Programs to assist and protect refugees worldwide currently face a financial crisis, says the US Committee for Refugees. Funding by donor nations for international refugee programs has been seriously inadequate during 2002, triggering major assistance cutbacks in refugee camps around the world.

Tens of thousands of refugees in the capitals of Kenya and Uganda are living in dire and dangerous conditions, and national governments are taking insufficient steps to address their plight, Human Rights Watch says in a new report. Human Rights Watch also criticized intergovernmental agencies for neglecting their responsibilities to protect and assist refugees in Nairobi, Kenya and Kampala, Uganda.

The Sudanese government has agreed to allow Ugandan soldiers to continue an offensive against Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels inside Sudan, just a few days after ordering them to leave. Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF) spokesman Major Shaban Bantariza told IRIN on Monday that Khartoum had agreed to allow the UPDF to continue to operate in southern Sudan for as long as it took to wipe out LRA bases there.

A new study reveals that Ugandans will pay hundreds of millions of dollars in excessive power payments if the World Bank-financed Bujagali Dam proceeds according to plan. The study, released by International Rivers Network (IRN), demonstrates that the agreement between the dam's private developer and the Government of Uganda falls short of international standards. "The review of the project contract demonstrates that the Bujagali dam is fundamentally flawed, and would only add to Uganda's debt burden," comments Peter Bosshard of International Rivers Network. "It is disturbing to see that the World Bank has supported such a sweetheart deal for a private company, and has misled the public about the true cost of the project."

The UPDF on Monday afternoon killed 28 LRA rebels and injured many others in fierce fighting in Lamon-Ojwir, Parabongo sub-county, Kalongo township in Pader district. A UPDF spokesman in the north, Lt. Paddy Ankunda, said the fight took place at about 2:30pm. Four soldiers were killed and seven injured.

HIV/AIDS has claimed 94,755 Ugandan children aged below 15 years since its outbreak in the early 1980s, the HIV/AIDS surveillance report recently released by the Ministry of Health indicates. According to estimates of the HIV/AIDS epidemic as of December 2001, children make up about one tenth of the people who have died of AIDS.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said in Entebbe, Uganda, at a meeting of the Commonwealth Regional Health Community for East, Central and Southern Africa that HIV/AIDS and malaria are stressing Uganda's health ministry and costing the country more than $1 billion in lost wealth each year, the Associated Press reports.

An "urgent and rapid response" to emergency needs in the conflict-affected north would be the main focus of humanitarian efforts in Uganda in 2003, the United Nations said on Tuesday as it launched its US $89 million appeal for the country.

Since the mid-1990s, the northern and western districts of Uganda have been plagued by high levels of insecurity resulting from armed insurgencies and rebel attacks on civilian targets. The Acholi people of northern Uganda have borne the brunt of the violence, with some 500,000 people - roughly half the Acholi population - forced to remain in "protected camps" guarded by the Ugandan military.

Sixteen years of conflict in the north has cost the Ugandan economy about US $1.33 billion, more than the sum spent on health care, according to research just published. "The cost of the war is greater than central government spending on health. All Ugandans are paying for this war," Phil Vernon, Country Director for CARE International in Uganda, said in a statement on Thursday.

Some 40 coffee farmers in Mubende have benefited from a government donation of sh50m. This is in pursuit of the strategic policy of planting better quality clonal coffee which is more resistant to disease than the traditional varieties. He added that the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) had distributed about 40,000 seedlings to the farmers as they wait for more seeds later this month. He also added that private nursery operators had been approached to supplement seeds from UCDA.

The Lake Victoria Region Local Authorities Co-operation (LVRLAC) is to expand to include Rwanda and Burundi, in a bid to protect and conserve the waters and surrounding areas of Lake Victoria. Dr. Julius Odongo, LVRLAC's secretary general, says the organisation took this decision because both Rwanda and Burundi partly share the waters of the lake. "What these countries do in regard to their environment ultimately affects Lake Victoria and its surroundings," he says.

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