Four families seek damages and apology from Renee Bach, who settled two cases out of court last year
Four Ugandan families are taking legal action against an American missionary accused of taking part in treatments at a religious health centre she ran, despite having no medical qualifications.
Renee Bach founded the now defunct Serving His Children (SHC) centre in Jinja, a city in east Uganda, where the families took their children, three of whom later died.
Continue reading...As opposition leader’s home is surrounded by army and police he says he fears for his life
The party of the Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine says it is preparing to challenge President Yoweri Museveni’s election victory as it condemned what it called the house arrest of Wine and his wife.
Amid growing international concern about the conduct of the election, Wine said in an interview from his house, where he is surrounded by army and police, that he was “worried about my life and the life of my wife”.
Continue reading...The president ‘shut down’ the internet as he won the election. You don’t stay in power for 40 years by taking risks
Days before Uganda’s presidential election – voting took place last Thursday – the incumbent, 76-year-old Yoweri Museveni, ordered that social media be switched off. People found their way around that by using virtual private networks, bouncing back online with memes mocking the idea that anyone would think it possible to bar people from being on social media in this day and age. Then, the evening before elections, the internet in Uganda was totally shut down.
The election that saw Museveni win with nearly 60% was shrouded in darkness. It is strange to move from social media’s infinite flow of information to nothingness. Instead, just silence apart from the news the government wants you to hear. Media houses that dare not to toe the government’s straight line risk being stopped from covering elections or even shut down.
Continue reading...Opposition candidate urges citizens to reject result of ‘most fraudulent election in country’s history’
Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, won a sixth term in office on Saturday, extending his 35-year-rule in one of the country’s most turbulent election campaigns while his main rival Bobi Wine alleged widespread fraud and rejected the result.
Museveni won 59% of the vote, consolidating his grip on power and becoming one of the world’s longest serving leaders. Wine won 35%, according to the electoral commission’s final results from Thursday’s poll.
Continue reading...Bobi Wine, the Ugandan opposition leader, said soldiers were attacking his home. 'Our lives are in danger,' Wine said. 'Our only security is letting the world know what is happening.'
Lt Col Deo Akiiki, Uganda’s deputy military spokesperson, said the soldiers were at Wine’s house to protect him
Continue reading...Opposition leader tweets ‘we are under siege’, while President Yoweri Museveni takes early lead in election
Soldiers have stormed the home of Bobi Wine, the Ugandan opposition leader has said, as votes continued to be counted in the country’s election.
“We are under siege,” the pop star turned politician tweeted. “The military has jumped over the fence and has now taken control of our home.”
Continue reading...Bobi Wine’s challenge to Yoweri Museveni seen as emblem of Africa-wide generation gap
Ugandans have cast their votes after one of the most keenly watched and violent election campaigns in a generation, as the pop star turned politician Bobi Wine tries to unseat Yoweri Museveni from his 34-year rule.
Delays were seen in the delivery of polling materials in some places, including where Wine voted in the capital and opposition stronghold of Kampala. After he arrived to the cheers of a crowd and cast his ballot, Wine made the sign of the cross and then raised his fist and smiled. He said he was confident of victory.
Continue reading...Stella Nyanzi is Uganda's most outspoken, self-described radical queer feminist. She has been imprisoned for her activism and is known for her attention-grabbing naked protests and poetry. In an election campaign that has become increasingly violent, Nyanzi is standing to be the elected MP for Kampala, as part of the growing nationwide opposition to the 35-year presidency of Yoweri Museveni.
With most attention focused on Museveni's presidential challenger Bobi Wine, Nyanzi is on the streets and in the media campaigning for her own votes. She vows that, unlike other women who have been elected, she will not forget her commitment to feminism if she wins
Continue reading...A dealer who dreams of discovering the source of a mystical substance that lets you see the future heads deep into Africa
Drug smuggler Hugo (Nicolas Fagerberg) has “the connect”. Or he’d like to think he does. Certainly this debut feature from British director Dan Moss knows several good spots, guiding us through a series of impressive locations with the confidence of a seasoned traveller. After Hugo’s big-money hashish deal in a partly flooded Mumbai building site goes wrong, he’s introduced to Bulu, a blue-powdered hallucinogen with mystical properties. “They say it makes you see the future,” says his go-between (Ashish Verma). Could this mysterious substance make Hugo enough money to satisfy his UK-based bosses? He’ll have to track down a supply source first.
Everything about the London drug world that Hugo then stops off in – from the 80s punk get-ups of the big players to the readiness with which these supposedly shrewd operators approve Hugo’s wild goose chase – is risibly unrealistic. But he’s soon en route to “Fort Lugard, Uganda”, where the plot is on safer ground.
Continue reading...One of Africa’s most prominent literary figures says the election will be crucial for the continent
Global outrage at the storming of the US Capitol risks diverting attention from repression by Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, the Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka has said on the eve of Uganda’s election.
Soyinka, a Nobel laureate and one of Africa’s most prominent literary figures, described Thursday’s election as “crucial for the African continent”, and called for the 76-year-old Museveni and other older African leaders to step aside for a younger generation.
Continue reading...Presidential challenger Bobi Wine has been protesting against corruption and youth unemployment
As Uganda readies for an election on Thursday, President Yoweri Museveni is doubling down on his main rival and preparing himself for a sixth term in office.
After 35 years in power, he faces a powerful opponent, the popular singer Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, 38, known by his stage name Bobi Wine, who has captured the hearts of a new generation by protesting against corruption and youth unemployment.
Continue reading...As a campaign marred by violence comes to an end, Bobi Wine warns President Museveni to learn from history
Millions of voters in Uganda will cast their votes this week in an election pitting a 76-year-old president seeking his sixth term against a former popular musician half his age.
The contest between Bobi Wine, 38, and Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power since 1986, is being keenly watched across the continent, where veteran leaders are coming under pressure to give way to politicians more representative of Africa’s increasingly youthful, urban and educated population.
Continue reading...Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, known as Bobi Wine, is the Ugandan presidential hopeful trying to unseat the long-serving president, Yoweri Museveni.
The candidate was dragged from his car as he announced a petition to the international criminal court to investigate rights abuses in the country
Continue reading...Presidential candidate dragged from car during online press briefing calling for investigation into rights abuses
Police in Uganda have confronted the presidential candidate Bobi Wine during an online press conference where he announced a petition to the international criminal court to investigate rights abuses in the country.
Related: Bobi Wine likens Uganda election to 'a war and a battlefield'
Continue reading...Donald Trump’s departure will alter the face of geopolitics. The climate crisis and Covid response will affect all nations – while others face very particular challenges. Observer correspondents examine the 12 months ahead
A potent mix of hope and fear accompanies the start of 2021 in most of the world. Scientists have created several vaccines for a disease that didn’t even have a name this time last year. But many countries, including the UK and the US, are still stumbling through the deadliest period of the pandemic.
The shadow of Covid will not begin to lift, even in richer countries, for months. Britain was the first to approve a vaccine and has secured extensive supplies, yet Boris Johnson’s suggestion that life might be returning to normal by Easter is widely seen as optimistic. Other countries, particularly in the south, face a long wait to get vaccines, and help paying for them. The rebuilding of economies shattered by Covid everywhere will be slow; even countries that managed to contain it have taken a hit, from Vietnam to New Zealand.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Reggae singer turned opposition leader tells of how he fears for his life
Bobi Wine, the former reggae singer turned Ugandan opposition leader, has spoken about his country’s bitter and violent presidential election campaign as it moves into its final two weeks.
“The campaign is crazy. It’s like a war and a battlefield,” Wine said in an interview conducted before he was detained for a third time in two months on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Twenty-one people rescued after sinking in high winds, with official saying no more survivors expected
At least 26 people died when their boat sank on Lake Albert, which marks the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ugandan officials have said.
The boat was carrying passengers between two Ugandan locations in the lake’s north-east on Wednesday when it “hit a strong wind” and went under water, local official Ashraf Oromo said on Friday.
Continue reading...Uganda has never acknowledged the sporting legacy of athlete ‘Sunlight’ Okiror. Almost 30 years after his death, his son hopes this might change
My father, Samson “Sunlight” Okiror, lived an extraordinary life. He was a soldier, a rebel and one of Uganda’s most famous sportsmen.
A wrestler and heavyweight lifter, he could lift a car off the ground. He could tie a rope to a Land Rover and stop it from moving when the engine was turned on. He could stretch steel chains and springs. He travelled across east Africa and to Europe to train and perform.
Continue reading...Human rights organisation says allegations that Nicholas Opiyo withdrew over $300,000 in funds are ‘frivolous’ and ‘fabricated’
Nicholas Opiyo, one of Uganda’s most prominent human rights lawyers, has been charged with money laundering.
Opiyo, known for representing LGBTQ+ people, appeared before magistrates in Kampala on Thursday and was remanded in custody until 28 December.
Continue reading...Joe Biden’s election as US president raises reproductive funding hopes – but some caution that reversing rule’s impact will not be quick
Nelly Munyasia breathed a huge sigh of relief when Joe Biden won the US election in November.
“I am excited and I am hopeful that things are going to be better. We are going to access funding and we are going to save the lives of women and girls,” she says, before explaining how tough the past four years has been.
Continue reading...