In an unprecedented move, the Kenyan supreme court overturned the August 8th election results and called for fresh elections within sixty (60) days of the announcement. This was declared citing irregularities and illegalities harming the integrity of the election. Suffice to say there are as many people happy as there are sad about this verdict and turn of events. Chief Justice David Maraga noted in his now famous quote that:

“The greatness of a nation lies in its fidelity to the constitution and adherence to the rule of law and above all respect to God”

Opposition leader Raila Odinga called the decision “an unprecedented ruling and a triumph for the people of Kenya.” while Uhuru Kenyatta, the declared president elect, said of the verdict ‘The court has made its decision, we respect it.’

Kenya is the first African country to have its courts annul an election. However, some questions arise that the powers that be will hopefully address between now and the October 17th 2017 fresh elections.

• If one election was deemed invalid can the next election be trusted in its validity?
• What if the next election has illegalities too? Can the court be trusted to make the same call?
• Will a people with the history that Kenya has be able to keep the peace before, during and after the fresh elections?
• All these questions arise, and more.

Some youths approached said that electing again will be too much trouble and they will stay home on that day and not practice their constitutional right. However, many others have had their faith in the Kenyan institutions renewed by this verdict and plan to turn up in numbers come 17th October 2017 to (re)cast their vote. All camps hope for answers.

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Baba was appearing before parliament’s defence and internal affairs committee that is handling the petition on the extension of the act by religious and culture leaders from northern Uganda.

The leaders say the act was outlawed by the international laws to which Uganda has adopted and domesticated.

He said that after reviewing the Act together with the Justice Law and Order Sector, the ministry discovered that the granting of amnesty was a problem as it did not take into account the need for accountability for crimes committed during the conflict.

He says that the decision to halt part II of the act was meant to enable Uganda comply with national and international obligations to pursue justice and accountability.

On May 23rd 2012 government declared the lapse of part II of the Amnesty Act 2000 but allowed the rest of the act to continue functioning until May this year.

It is estimated that 26,300 ex-combatants have received amnesty to date and 5,335 are being re-integrated into their respective communities.

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A city lawyer Peter Kibirango has filed an application before court seeking to be allowed to serve the minister with the petition against her appointment through the newspapers.

Kibirango says he has taken all necessary steps to effect personal service to Nantaba in vain.

The lawyer filed a petition before court challenging the decision of Parliament’s appointment’s committee that cleared her to assume the position as minister.

He wants the decision of the committee that cleared Nantaba’s appointment to be set aside because it is inconsistent with several articles of the constitution.

Kibirango argues that the committee has already pronounced itself on the matter and has no mandate to revisit its mandate.

He says the matter should have been taken to the floor of Parliament for an appeal, which wasn’t done.

Kibirango is seeking interpretation of several sections of the constitution with a view of having Nantaba’s appointment cancelled.

The post Lawyer Peter Kibirango insists Aidah Nantaba was wrongly appointed Lands minister first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.

This follows the suspension of funds from UK and Ireland among other countries as a result of the mismanagement of funds by the office of the prime minister.

Speaking to journalists at parliament, Atengo said that the cuts will impact negatively on the people of Northern Uganda who have been benefitting.

She however says that negotiations are already underway to convince the donors reverse their decision.

She further expresses government’s commitment to ensure the recovery of the stolen money.

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Hult MBA Scholarship for African Students: Hult International Business School is offering scholarships to candidates living in Africa who demonstrate strong leadership and decision making skills.

Scholarships will be awarded to appropriate candidates who demonstrate the potential to be strong future leaders.

Candidates must have a scholarship interview with a Hult representative.

Scholarship Name: MBA Scholarships for African Students

Degree: MBA Degree

Study in: Boston, San Francisco, Dubai, London, or Shanghai

Scholarship Application Eligibility Criteria: Candidates must have 3 years of work experience, high performance at a 3+ year Bachelor program or equivalent, and carry out a scholarship interview with a Hult representative. Transcripts and CV/Resume will be required.

Scholarship Value: Scholarships vary on the strength of the candidate.

Apply for a scholarship interview using the “Online Application Form”.

Scholarship Deadline: Open

For more information and scholarship applications instructions, see: Hult MBA Scholarship for African Students

Call for applications at Hult International Business School

Hult MBA Scholarship for African Students: Hult International Business School is offering scholarships to candidates living in Africa who demonstrate strong leadership and decision making skills.

Scholarships will be awarded to appropriate candidates who demonstrate the potential to be strong future leaders.

Candidates must have a scholarship interview with a Hult representative.

Scholarship Name: MBA Scholarships for African Students

Degree: MBA Degree

Study in: Boston, San Francisco, Dubai, London, or Shanghai

Scholarship Application Eligibility Criteria: Candidates must have 3 years of work experience, high performance at a 3+ year Bachelor program or equivalent, and carry out a scholarship interview with a Hult representative. Transcripts and CV/Resume will be required.

Scholarship Value: Scholarships vary on the strength of the candidate.

Apply for a scholarship interview using the “Online Application Form”.

Scholarship Deadline: Open

For more information and scholarship applications instructions, see: Hult MBA Scholarship for African Students

The post Call for applications at Hult International Business School first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.

Peoples’ money in Uganda is spent extravagantly. We have been told that the swearing in ceremony of the new Makerere University Guild President, Ivan Kata has cost the university 200 millions. The money has been used to buy eats, buffets, sodas and beers just to please the students.

The swearing in ceremony took place at Makerere University’s main hall on Friday and the guest of honour has been Democratic Party President Norbert Mao.

Ivan Kata is a member of the Democratic Party. But the NRM members and leadership in Makerere have condemned the university’s decision to use 200 millions in organising a students party when some halls of residence are leaking, students eat poorly and some corners of the university have no security lights. The critics say that the university would have used only 20 million shillings in organising the party.

Kata thanked the students’ leadership for intrusting him with the mandate to lead the ivory tower (Makerere University). He promised to cough fire when president Museveni’s government or the ministry of education and or Makerere University passes anti students policies.

The post President sworn in at Makerere first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.

The government banned them on Tuesday, a decision that left many boda boda riders disappointed. Fred Kaggwa, a boda boda operator in Entebbe told our informer that a demonstration is likely to erupt at Entebbe Airport anytime if the ban is not reversed.

The ban was instituted by joint security committees at Entebbe international Airport with effect from Wednesday this week in a bid to ensure security.

Moses Kafeero, the Entebbe Airport police commandant confirms that the boda boda riders have been stopped from accessing the airport.

The ban followed security reports that the notorious Al Shabaab fighters in Somalia were plotting to bomb Uganda over its involvement in the Somali insurgence.

The post Boda boda riders to demonstrate at Entebbe airport first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.

Top scientists will tomorrow (20 February) urge governments to replace GDP as a measure of wealth, end damaging subsidies, and transform systems of governance to set humanity on a new path to a better future — or risk climate, biodiversity and poverty crises that will spawn greater problems worldwide.

These are among the messages from a new paper by 20 past winners of the Blue Planet Prize — often called the Nobel Prize for the environment.

Bob Watson, the UK’s chief scientific advisor on environmental issues and a winner of the prize in 2010, will present the paper to government ministers from around the world at the UN Environment Programme’s governing council meeting in Nairobi, Kenya on 20 February.

“The current system is broken,” says Watson. “It is driving humanity to a future that is 3-5°C warmer than our species has ever known, and is eliminating the ecology that we depend on for our health, wealth and senses of self.”

“We cannot assume that technological fixes will come fast enough. Instead we need human solutions. The good news is that they exist but decision makers must be bold and forward thinking to seize them.”

Watson’s co-authors include  James Hansen of NASA, Emil Salim, former environment minister of Indonesia, Susan Solomon of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and José Goldemberg, who was Brazil’s Secretary of Environment during the Rio Earth Summit in 1992.

Their paper comes ahead of the 20th anniversary of that summit – the Rio+20 conference in June this year – when world leaders have an opportunity to set human development on a new, more sustainable path.

The paper urges governments to:

• Replace GDP as a measure of wealth with metrics for natural, built, human and social capital — and how they intersect.

• Eliminate subsidies in sectors such as energy, transport and agriculture that create environmental and social costs, which currently go unpaid.

• Tackle overconsumption, and address population pressure by empowering women, improving education and making contraception accessible to all.

• Transform decision making processes to empower marginalised groups, and integrate economic, social and environmental policies instead of having them compete.

• Conserve and value biodiversity and ecosystem services, and create markets for them that can form the basis of green economies.

• Invest in knowledge — both in creating and in sharing it — through research and training that will enable governments, business, and society at large to understand and move towards a sustainable future.

“Sustainable development is not a pipe dream,” says Camilla Toulmin, director of the International Institute for Environment and Development. “It is the destination the world’s accumulated knowledge points us towards, the fair future that will enable us to live with security, peace and opportunities for all. To get there we must transform the ways we manage, share and interact with the environment, and acknowledge that humanity is part of nature not apart from it.”

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said: “The paper by the Blue Planet laureates will challenge governments and society as a whole to act to limit human-induced climate change, the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of ecosystem services in order to ensure food, water energy and human security. I would like to thank Professor Watson and colleagues for eloquently articulating their vision on how key development challenges can be addressed, emphasizing solutions; the policies, technologies and behaviour changes required to grow green economies, generate jobs and lift people out of poverty without pushing the world through planetary boundaries.”

The full paper will be ready for media around 5pm (UK time) on Friday – to request a copy email one of the following:

• Tetsuro Yasuda (The Asahi Glass Foundation, Japan) yasud@af-info.or.jp
• Shereen Zorba (UNEP, Kenya)   shereen.zorba@unep.org
• Mike Shanahan (IIED, UK)            mike.shanahan@iied.org
• Patricia Yakabe Malentaqui (Conservation International, USA)    p.malentaqui@conservation.org

NOTES TO EDITORS

The Blue Planet prize laureates who contributed to the paper are:

• Professor Sir Bob Watson, Chief Scientific Adviser of the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)
• Lord (Robert) May of Oxford, former Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government and President of Royal Society of London
• Professor Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University
• Professor Harold Mooney, Stanford University
• Dr Gordon Hisashi Sato, President, Manzanar Project Corporation
• Professor José Goldemberg, secretary for the environment of the State of São Paulo, Brazil and Brazil’s interim Secretary of Environment during the Rio Earth Summit in 1992
• Dr Emil Salim, former Environment Minister of the Republic of Indonesia
• Dr Camilla Toulmin, Director of the International Institute for Environment and Development
• Mr Bunker Roy, Founder of Barefoot College
• Dr Syukuro Manabe, Senior Scientist, Princeton University
• Dr Julia Marton-Lefevre, Director-General of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature
• Dr Simon Stuart, Chair of the Species Survival Commission of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature
• Dr Will Turner, Vice President of Conservation Priorities and Outreach, Conservation International
• Professor Karl-Henrik Robèrt, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Founder of The Natural Step
• Dr James Hansen, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
• Lord (Nicholas) Stern of Brentford, Professor, The London of Economics
• Dr Amory Lovins, Chair and Chief Scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute
• Dr Gene Likens, Director of the Carey Institute of Ecosystem Studies
• Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway and Director-General of the World Health Organization, now Special Envoy on Climate Change for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
• Dr James Lovelock, independent scientist and proponent of the Gaia Hypothesis

ABOUT THE BLUE PLANET PRIZE

In 1992, the year of the Rio Earth Summit, the Asahi Glass Foundation established the Blue Planet Prize, an award presented to individuals or organizations worldwide in recognition of outstanding achievements in scientific research and its application that have helped provide solutions to global environmental problems.

The Prize is offered in the hopes of encouraging efforts to bring about the healing of the Earth’s fragile environment. A full list of its past winners is online here.

The award’s name was inspired by the remark “the Earth was blue,” uttered by the first human in space, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, upon viewing our planet. The Blue Planet Prize was so named in the hopes that our blue planet will be a shared asset capable of sustaining human life far into the future.

2012 is the 20th anniversary of the Blue Planet Prize. The Asahi Glass Foundation wishes to mark this anniversary with a fresh start in its efforts to help build an environmentally friendly society.

Contact Information:

The Asahi Glass Foundation: 2^nd Floor, Science Plaza, 5-3 Yonban-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-0081 Japan

Secretary General  Tetsuro Yasuda (Mr.) TEL: 03-5275-0620 FAX: 03-5275-0871

e-mail：post@af-info.or.jp

URL：http://www.af-info.or.jp

The post Top scientists urge end to policy and governance failures to tackle social and environmental crises first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.

Study Subject: Management
Course Level: Postgraduate
Scholarship Provider: Aston Business School

Eligibility:

• Scholarships are only available to students applying for the fulltime MBA commencing September 2011
• Scholarships are only available for students who are self-funded (ie not sponsored by an organisation)
• All applicants will be informed of our decision early in August
• The decision of the Business School Scholarship Panel is final
• Aston Business School reserves the right to conduct a phone interview with suitable candidates
• Since these scholarships are limited, it is essential that you let us know by email if you wish to be considered within 10 days of your offer letter.

Aston graduates-A 10% discount on fees is available for all graduates of Aston University on all MBA programmes. If you want to be considered for a scholarship, you should submit an essay along with your completed application form. Please state clearly which scholarship you are applying for. If you have already submitted an MBA application form you are welcome to apply for a scholarship separately. Please ensure you state your full name and contact details (as stated in your MBA application) on your essay before submission. Separate scholarship applications without these details will not be considered.

Application Deadline: 30 June 2012

Further details:
http://www1.aston.ac.uk/aston-business-school/programmes/aston-mba/fees/scholarships/

The post MBA Scholarship at Aston Business School in UK first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.

Alupo says that unlike in the previous years, Mathematics and Information Communication Technology subjects will be compulsory for all Senior Five (S.5) and Senior 6 students across the country. The academic year for Senior 5 and Senior 6 begins on Monday next week.

Ultimate Media

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