POSTED BY (name):

(nupdate)
for shara adn bianca, here are the links to the GK thing i was talking about:
http://www.gawadkalinga.org/whatisgk.htm
it has seven pillars of infrastructure building-to improve quality of life
physically and mentally.

thanks!
marika
---------------------------------
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70667

KAMPALA, 13 March 2007 (IRIN) - The Ugandan government and Lord’s
Resistance Army (LRA) have agreed to resume peace talks after two months
of uncertainty following a rebel demand that the talks be moved from south
Sudan, whose leadership was mediating.

"We have agreed that the mediation of the southern Sudan government is
going to be beefed up with South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya and
the Democratic Republic of Congo," Interior Minister Ruhakana Rugunda told
reporters in Kampala on Tuesday, after returning from south Sudan, where
he led a government team that met the LRA leadership, including rebel
leader Joseph Kony.

In January, the rebels pulled out of talks being held in south Sudan's
capital, Juba, demanding a new venue and new mediators, on the grounds
that they had lost confidence in the mediators. The government dismissed
the demands as a "time-wasting ploy" by the LRA.

Rugunda said, however, the issue of the venue for the talks had been
resolved at a meeting in the bush near Sudan's border with the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC), and it was agreed that the talks, aimed at ending
two decades of conflict in northern Uganda, would continue in Juba.

"Both parties agreed to resume talks and proposed another meeting that
will be convened within the next two weeks for preliminary discussions,"
said Rugunda, the first senior government official to have met Kony.
"Legitimate issues raised by the LRA will be handled and resolved," he
said.

"The government of Uganda is working for an early resumption of the peace
talks. We also remain committed to an expeditious conclusion of a peace
agreement which will usher in durable and lasting peace in northern
Uganda, which will ensure peace and justice; see the end of our people
living in IDP [internally displaced persons] camps and resettling in their
villages to rebuild their homes and lead normal and productive lives,"
Rugunda added.

The government team that met the LRA leaders last weekend was accompanied
by representatives from Mozambique, the DRC and South Africa.

Previous rounds of the peace talks, which started in July 2006, led to the
signing of a cessation of hostilities agreement in August. The truce
lapsed at the end of February, but northern Ugandan has remained calm.

According to aid agencies, an estimated 230,000 internally displaced
people in northern Ugandan returned to their villages in 2006 thanks to
improved security once the talks began. However, up to 1.2 million more
remain in camps, while some have moved to satellite camps nearer their
villages to gain access to their farms.
-------------------------------------
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70669


Photo: Stephenie Hollyman/WHO
The distribution of insecticide treated bed nets is effective in the
battle against malaria
KAMPALA, 13 March 2007 (IRIN) - Ugandan health officials on Monday said
they would seek alternative funding for anti-malaria projects after the
Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria declined a grant
application of US$16 million because of concerns over financial
mismanagement.

Junior health minister Emmanuel Otaala said the government had received a
letter from the Global Fund stating that the funds would not be
forthcoming, but he declined to give reasons for the decision.

According to a newsletter published by Aidspan, a non-governmental
organisation that describes itself as an independent watchdog over the
Global Fund, the decision was made because of Uganda's "unsatisfactory
performance”.

The Global Fund has in the past questioned the Ugandan government over the
lack of accountability in implementing Fund projects. In August 2005 the
Fund suspended five grants worth $367 million on accountability concerns,
but reversed the decision in November 2005 after both parties agreed to
overhaul the management of the funds. A subsequent inquiry revealed gross
mismanagement.

The latest suspension of the anti-malaria grant suggests that not all the
problems have been ironed out.

Otaala said the Ugandan government had made a request for funding for its
TB and malaria-fighting component of the project. "We applied for funding
but they [Global Fund] were not satisfied and they communicated their
decision about two weeks ago," Otaala told IRIN.

"We can't force them. They sometimes give to some programmes and leave out
others, but we are now applying for the next round and our documents must
be submitted in the next two months. We also try to look for alternative
funding because we do not get funding only from the Global Fund. We also
get funding from USAID [US Agency for International Development] and other
donors. We shall look for alternative funding," said Otaala.

He said the $16 million was specifically for programmes to fight malaria,
but he declined to detail the Fund’s objections.

The findings of a judicial probe into the misuse of resources from the
Global Fund found three health ministry officials responsible for the
mismanagement and recommended sanctions against all those mentioned in the
scam. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni sacked the health minister Jim
Muhwezi and his two deputies, Mike Mukula and Alex Kamugisha, in a cabinet
reshuffle last May, but the report said they should probably face
prosecution for their role in the embezzlement of funds.

--------------------------------
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4320858.stm

A former Catholic altar boy from northern Uganda, Joseph Kony has waged
war against the government of President Yoweri Museveni for almost two
decades.

Kony is thought to have at least 60 wives

His Lord's Resistance Army movement has been demanding that Uganda be
ruled according to the Biblical 10 Commandments.

Born in the early 1960s in Odek, a village east of Gulu, Mr Kony is
remembered as an amiable boy.

"He played football and was a brilliant dancer," one of his former
classmates said, recalling the rebel leader's days at Odek primary.

He is thought to be the cousin of Alice Lakwena, a former prostitute who
formed the Holy Spirit Movement in 1986.

This group represented the Acholi people who felt excluded from power
after the overthrow of the northern leader, Milton Obote, by Mr Museveni.

Ms Lakwena promised her followers immunity from the bullets of the Ugandan
army, but Mr Museveni's troops defeated her movement in 1988 and she fled
to Kenya.

Spirit medium

After this defeat, Mr Kony founded his own rebel group which over the next
19 years went on to abduct thousands of children to become fighters or sex
slaves.


 I will communicate with Museveni through the holy spirits and not through
the telephone

Joseph Kony

Mr Kony himself is thought to have at least 60 wives, as he and his senior
commanders take the pick of the girls they capture.

He sees himself as a spirit medium.

Young abductees, who have escaped from the LRA, say that Mr Kony would
tell them he got his instructions from the Holy Spirit and would often
preach in tongues.

"I will communicate with Museveni through the holy spirits and not through
the telephone," he once said.

He has created an aura of fear and mysticism around himself and his rebels
follow strict rules and rituals.

"When you go to fight you make the sign of the cross first. If you fail to
do this, you will be killed," one young fighter who escaped from the LRA
told Human Rights Watch.

"You must also take oil and draw a cross on your chest, your forehead, and
each shoulder, and you must make a cross in oil on your gun. They say that
the oil is the power of the Holy Spirit."

Mr Kony appears to believe that his role is to cleanse the Acholi people.

He uses biblical references to explain why it is necessary to kill his own
people, since they have - in his view - failed to support his cause.

"If the Acholi don't support us, they must be finished," he told one
abductee.
---------------------------------------------------
In a world exclusive first interview, the leader of Ugandan rebel group,
the Lord's Resistance Army, has dismissed accusations he is responsible
for atrocities.
Joseph Kony has been blamed for thousands of deaths and abductions - many
of children - and for maiming civilians in his twenty year campaign of
terror. The latter he blames on the forces of Ugandan President Yoweri
Museveni.

"That is not true. It's just propaganda," he says. "Let me tell you
clearly what happened in Uganda. Museveni went into the villages and cut
off the ears of the people, telling the people that it was the work of the
LRA. I cannot cut the ear of my brother; I cannot kill the eye of my
brother."

Along with four of his most senior commanders, Kony is now top of the
International Criminal Courts warrant list. Kony alone is wanted for 33
counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Speaking in the jungle of the Democratic Republic of Congo, surrounded by
some of what he estimates as 3,000 heavily-armed fighters, he insists he
is not the monster he is portrayed to be.

Spiritual leader

Grinning and exposing two chipped and blackened front teeth he looks
younger than his 46 years - despite spending so long in the bush.


 I did not kill the civilian of Uganda. I kill the soldier of Museveni.

Joseph Kony


Profile: Joseph Kony
Kony innocence 'ridiculous'
"I am a human being like you," he declares. "I have eyes, a brain and wear
clothes but they are saying we don't talk with people, we eat people. We
are killers. That is not true. Why do you meet me if I am a killer?"

The scarcely-educated spiritual leader who launched an uprising in the
northern Uganda region of Acholi after Museveni seized power in 1986,
claims his forces have only targeted government troops.

"It is Museveni who is oppressing the Acholi people and driving the
villagers into camps. Our wealth, our property, was destroyed by Museveni.
He want to destroy all Acholi so that the land of Acholi will be his
land... I did not kill the civilian of Uganda. I kill the soldier of
Museveni."


Youths joined the LRA voluntarily but were never abducted, he claimed, "I
don't have acres of maize, of onion, of cabbages. I don't have food. If I
abducted children like that, here in the bush, what do they eat?"

Asked about the ICC charges, he insisted: "I am not guilty. I am not
guilty. I am not guilty. But we want the people of Uganda to be free. We
are fighting for democracy."

First interview

He says he is guided by spirits, "I don't know the number but they speak
to me. They load through me. They will tell us what is going to happen.
They say 'you, Mr Joseph, tell your people that the enemy is planning to
come and attack'."

The interview is the first Kony has given to a journalist, he says, adding
that claims that he has given telephone interviews to radio programmes are
false and the interviews were not given by him.

The timing of the interview is no accident. Kony has offered the Ugandan
government peace talks and has a negotiating team waiting in Juba, the
capital of southern Sudan.

But President Museveni seems deeply sceptical of his intentions and is
reluctant to engage.

Uganda's Night commuters
Kony's child soldiers
"Peace talks are good for me," Kony says. "If Museveni can agree to talks
with me it is only a very good thing, which I know will bring peace to the
people of Uganda."

Kony's LRA subsequently received weapons and other support from the
Sudanese government to punish Uganda for supporting southern Sudanese
rebels.

The LRA have combined the fanaticism of a cult with ruthless military
efficiency, and while its apparent aim is to impose the Ten Commandments
on Uganda its means could scarcely have been more evil.
----------------------------------------------
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4482456.stm
"Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni has for years been hailed by western
donors as part of the "new breed" of African leaders but many now say his
halo has slipped."(old articel from 2005)
----------------------------------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoweri_Museveni

The NRA subsequently earned a reputation for respecting the rights of
civilians, – although Museveni later received criticism for using child
soldiers. Undisciplined elements within the NRA's soon tarnished a
hard-won reputation for fairness. "When Museveni's men first came they
acted very well – we welcomed them," said one villager, "but then they
started to arrest people and kill them."[18][19]

In March 1989, Amnesty International published a human rights report on
Uganda, entitled Uganda, the Human Rights Record 1986–1989. It documented
gross human rights violations committed by NRA troops. In one of the most
intense phases of the war, between October and December 1988, the NRA
forcibly cleared approximately 100,000 people from their homes in and
around Gulu town. Soldiers committed hundreds of extrajudicial executions
as they forcibly moved people, burning down homes and granaries.[20]
However, there were few reports of the systematic torture, equivalent to
those committed during Amin and Obote's regimes. In its conclusion, the
report offered some hope:

“ Any assessment of the NRM government's human rights performance is,
perhaps inevitably, less favourable after four years in power than it was
in the early months. However, it is not true to say, as some critics and
outside observers, that there has been a continuous slide back towards
gross human rights abuse, that in some sense Uganda is fated to suffer at
the hands of bad government.