Karamoja roads impassable as bus operators threaten to quit

 Passengers try to remove a bus stuck in the mud in Lokdudu village on Moroto-Mbale road via Nakapiripirit on Wednesday.

Moroto/Nakapiripirit - Travelling from the central region to Karamoja has again become difficult following the current rains that have cut off all the roads leading to the sub-region.
Travellers and motorists are stranded as sudden seasonal heavy rains have caused flooding, rendering roads impassable.
Early this year, Karamoja was cut off from the rest of the country after floods destroyed all the bridges.

Although the government is currently tarmacking the Moroto-Nakapiripirit road, construction works will only stop at Nakapiripirit Town Council, leaving Nakapiripirit-Bulambuli road.
Vehicles that got stuck on Moroto-Soroti road have blocked movements.

The Nakapiripirit Resident District Commissioner, Mr Godfrey Aluma, who was part of the travelers on Wednesday, spent the night in Lokudud village on Nakapiripirit-Mbale road after he got stuck.

He decried the state of the roads, saying it will slow business.
He appealed to the government to repair the road saying the current state of the road was a security threat.
“The road is terrible and for the next one week it will become a garden because it is being worsened by heavy trucks that are transporting marble stones from Kosiroi in Moroto District to Tororo for making cement,” he said.

Mr Sam Lorot, a trader in Moroto, said the prices of food in Karamoja are most likely to increase because of the challenges that traders could face in transporting food should the rains continues.

Mr Hassan Mohammed, a bus conductor, said the road conditions are worsening, adding that during the previous rains their company encountered a lot of issues on Karamoja roads. “We were supposed to pick passengers and continue to various destinations this morning, but it has not been possible due to the muddy roads,” he said.
Mr Mohammed said they might suspend business until the rainy season ends if floods continue.

The Uganda National Road Authority engineer on Moroto-Nakapiripirit road, Mr Hassan Ssentamu, said the road was is under construction by Chinese.
He also advised the bus companies and drivers to use strong tyres.

Twitter Bomb Threat Sent To Prof Mary Beard

 Twitter Bomb Threat Sent To
Prof Mary Beard

Classics expert Mary Beard has revealed she was sent a bomb threat on Twitter hours after a personal apology from the site's UK boss over attacks on women by "trolls".

Ms Beard, a professor of classics at the University of Cambridge, said she had contacted police after a message on Saturday night claiming a bomb had been left outside her home.
But on Sunday she was subjected to more threats through her Twitter account.
She wrote: "Planned to be off Twitter, but I've had more threats this morning (rape and worse). It IS still going on. Tried to report to Twitter, failed."
She had earlier written: "Just got one of these messages. A bomb has been placed outside your home. It will go off at exactly 10.47pm and destroy everything. Told police.
"OK all, it's 11.00pm and we are still here. So unless the trolling bombers' timekeeping is rotten ... all is well. But how stupidly nasty."
Speaking to BBC Radio Five Live, the 58-year-old added: "There's something very strangely and awkwardly insidious about it.
"It is scary and it has got to stop.
"I didn't actually intellectually feel that I was in danger but I thought I was being harassed, and I thought I was being harassed in a particularly unpleasant way."
Earlier this week, Prof Beard silenced an internet troll after naming him on Twitter.
She retweeted the "highly offensive" post from Oliver Rawlings, who swiftly apologised after another user threatened to tell his mother.
Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman, Independent columnist Grace Dent and Time magazine's Catherine Meyer, as well as a number of other women, have previously said they have been the subject of bomb threats on the site.
Two others received threats of rape.

Tony Wang, Twitter UK general manager, posted a series of tweets on Saturday saying abuse was "simply not acceptable".

His messages came after the website clarified its rules on abusive behaviour amid a growing backlash over a series of attacks.
Mr Wang wrote: "I personally apologise to the women who have experienced abuse on Twitter and for what they have gone through.
"The abuse they've received is simply not acceptable. It's not acceptable in the real world, and it's not acceptable on Twitter.
"There is more we can and will be doing to protect our users against abuse. That is our commitment."
The company has updated its rules to make it clear that abuse will not be tolerated and has put extra staff in place to handle reports of abuse, it said.
Ms Mayer, Europe editor at Time, said she had still not heard anything from the company after reporting the incident.
She told Sky News Online: "I think the in-tweet button to report abuse is a good idea, provided Twitter really does staff up enough to respond quickly and appropriately to complaints.
"Twitter has supposedly issued a personal apology to the women who received abuse, including me presumably.
"But although I notified Twitter of the bomb threat on Wednesday, I have yet to hear anything directly from the company."
The move comes as Scotland Yard said its e-crime unit was investigating allegations by eight people of abuse on the microblogging site.
An online petition calling for Twitter to add a "report abuse" button to tweets has already attracted more than 124,000 signatures.
An "in-tweet" report button has been added so people can report abusive behaviour directly from a tweet, Twitter said.
In separate incidents, Labour MP Stella Creasy and campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez, who successfully fought for a woman's face to appear on £10 banknotes, were threatened on Twitter with rape.
Two arrests have already been made in relation to those threats.
The anonymous Twitter accounts from which the bomb threats originated were suspended, although screen grabs were widely circulated online.
Scotland Yard said an investigation into eight allegations had been launched.
The force said: "The Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU), who hold the police national cyber crime remit, is now investigating allegations made by eight people that they have been subject to harassment, malicious communication or bomb threats."

Azonto Star To Rock Green Festival

 UK based Ghana born ‘Azonto’ singer, Fuze ODG will be in Kampala come September


We have learnt that UK based Ghana born ‘Azonto’ singer, Fuze ODG is set to rock the second edition of the annual Green Festival organised by Mase Consultants in September. According to sources, Fuze is expected to dance with kids and families as they celebrate tree planting at Kololo Airstrip.
Unconfirmed rumor has it that the event will be covered by experts from Voice of America and snoops further intimate that President Museveni is expected to grace the do as the Chief Guest like he did at last year’s event in December.
The Green Festival which will see every child at the event walk away with a fruit tree seedling is a culmination of the efforts of Uganda’s superstar kids to restore the beauty and green that makes the country the Pearl of Africa under the My Kid is a Superstar umbrella and Uganda’s little Hands go Green.

South Africa advises Uganda against land giveaways

Kampala.

Uganda should not give away the land but instead use it for agriculture development, which is currently operating below its potential, South Africa’s minister for National Planning Commission has said.

Answering questions after delivering the 21st Joseph Mubiru, Memorial Lecture, on August 2 at Kampala Serena Hotel, Mr Trevor Andrew Manuel said: “Uganda’s agricultural sector is operating below its potential in the range of 5 to 10 per cent. You should not give away the land but instead develop it. Ugandans are good at farming.”

On several occassions, the government has given away land to foreign investors either to set up hotels, factories or to grow crops to provide raw material for their industries a development which has seen schools losing land to investors.
This, together with the land tenure system in place continues to hinder agricultural development in the country, according to analysts from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund who have often called for land reform policies in order for Uganda to realise agricultural development.

Mr Manuel said that government needs to support agricultural development by investing in it because the sector has a lot of potential in supporting Uganda’s economic development.
At the continent level, Manuel said Africa has great potential to raise the volume of and value of its agricultural production, and to expand related business activities, especially in agro-processing with high levels of positive outcomes; from raising rural incomes to boosting GDP growth, and creating business opportunities.

Mr Manuel further stated that many farmers can’t buy expensive machinery, high yield seeds, and fertilizers because of inadequate finance systems.

“All of this is compounded by the land tenure system. African countries have spent decades trying to jump-start agricultural production, if over these problems Africa can become a bread basket of the world,” he said.

Mr Manuel added: “African economies need to use the mineral wealth to invest in the infrastructure that will allow them to diversify our economies, and pay for our capability upgrade.”

Makerere University ranked fourth in Africa

 

 Main administrative building at Makerere University

 

Makerere University’s has leaped from the ninth to the fourth highest ranked institution of higher learning in Africa.

Makerere stormed into the top-five tier of universities in Africa after beating competition from four South African universities to make it to number four in just seven months, according to ranking released by Webometrics, an organisation that monitors university performance worldwide.

Globally, Makerere was ranked 696 out of over 21,000 universities.  Makerere leapfrogged the University of the Witwatersrand, University of Pretoria, University of Western Cape, Rhodes University and the University of South Africa to move from its ninth position to the fourth.

Out of over 30 universities in Uganda, Makerere is the only one that made it to the top 50 in Africa this year.  Gulu University came at 79, MUBS at 122, Mbarara University of Science and Technology garnered number 134.

Meanwhile, Mountains of the moon was ranked 173rd, Uganda Christian University came at 179th, Kampala International University was 250th, Kyambogo ranked 330th, Busitema came 357th, Uganda Marty’s 377th and IUIU was in the 378 position.

In the past, Uganda Martyrs University, Nkozi and Uganda Christian University had made it to the top 50.


Webometrics does the ranking twice a year according to the number of times a new article appears on the Internet about research done at the institution.

This is considered an indicator of the impact and prestige of the university and its commitment to disseminating research outcomes. When the rankings were first published in 2004, Makerere was 18th position. It slipped to 23rd in 2005, 24th in 2006 and 54th in 2007. 

'9 000 Nigerians are in jail abroad'

Abuja - Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Olugbenga Ashiru has said that about 9 000 Nigerians are in various prisons abroad,The minister, who disclosed this at a conference in Abuja lamented that the major problem confronting the foreign policy was the predicament of Nigerians abroad.

In view of this, he said that there was need to device a strategy to proffer solution to the alarming numbers of Nigerians in detention abroad.

Wife kills husband over sexual demands

Jos - The Plateau Police Command on Wednesday in Jos said it had arrested a 17-year-old minor who allegedly killed her husband over his sexual demands.

The minor allegedly killed Lawal Bala, 26, in his sleep on their matrimonial bed on July 8.

The Commissioner of Police in the state, Chris Olakpe, said the police had also arrested some suspected criminals.

The minor, who spoke from the police custody, told newsmen that he was sleeping with me six times in a day.

"I kept complaining to him that I could not stand his sexual urge but he refused to listen to my plea; no family member was ready to help me, so I did what I did."

She said that she regretted killing him, but that she thought that was the only option left for her to free herself from the pains she was passing through.

According to her, I have realised my mistake and have repented of my sin; all I want is for the authorities to allow me to go home.

The suspect said she was already two months pregnant for her late husband and would want to go home to take care of herself till delivery.

Earlier, Olakpe had said that when the matter was reported, and the minor was arrested, she denied committing the offence.

"But in the cause of investigations, she later confessed to committing the crime and gave reasons," he said.

Olakpe, who said that the offence was a culpable homicide, added that she would soon be prosecuted at the Juvenile Court.