Netanyu’s on arrival at Entebbe airport as welcomed by Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda

At Entebbe airport, Mr. Netanyahu who is  companied by  his wife, Sarah Netanyahu,  was welcomed by Prime Minister Ruhakana, state minister for foreign affairs Okello Oryem among other officials.

“I am setting out for another visit to Africa, my fifth in three and a half years,” Netanyahu was quoted by local media before taking off from Tel Aviv.

“Israel is making a big return to Africa, and Africa has already returned to Israel. These are important ties politically, economically and in terms of security,” he said, adding that he hopes to have good news upon his return.

Netanyus disembark from the plane at Entebbe airport

In July 2016, Natanyahu participated in a ceremony in Uganda to mark the 40th anniversary of Operation Entebbe, a hostage rescue by Israeli commandos at Entebbe Airport in 1976.

The operation, which aimed to rescue 106 passengers of an Air France flight that was hijacked by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, succeeded in freeing 102 of the hostages. Netanyahu’s brother Yonatan, who led the mission, was killed.

It has also been reported that in the past, Israel contacted the American administration and other foreign governments in an attempt to encourage them to improve their relations with Sudan and to make overtures in its favor, in light of the severance of ties between the Arab-African country and Iran.

Reports in Israel and abroad in recent years have said that Israel might renew its diplomatic relations with several Muslim countries on the African continent, including Mali, Niger and Sudan.

Prime Minister, Ruhakana Rugunda welcomes Israeli’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Entebbe airport

After Netanyahu visited Chad in 2019, it was reported that Israel was working to formalize ties with Sudan, and Israeli officials spoke about it publicly on several occasions, especially after the ouster of dictator Omar al-Bashir.

Haaretz previously reported that Israel had secretly deported asylum seekers from different African countries to Uganda.

To this day, asylum seekers are being deported to Uganda in what Israel has called “voluntary departure.”

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Boys’ dormitory at Namirembe Hillside High School goes up in flames

February 

18^th February – Fire burnt a dormitory at St. Anthony Roman Catholic Primary School in Nakasongola District, destroying property worth millions. According to the school head teacher, Ms. Allen Musoke, by the time the dormitory caught fire, the pupils had gone for morning lessons at about 5: 30 am and no one was injured. The dormitory was housing boys in Primary Five, Six and Seven.

20^th February – Fire gutted a boys’ dormitory at Najjanankumbi City Academy in Makindye Division in Kampala, destroying lots of property including books, suitcases, utensils and beddings.

21^st February – Fire gutted a dormitory at St Jude Primary School in Nakasongola District and claimed the life of Favor Itaro, a Primary One pupil. Itaro died of suffocation, according to a postmortem report released by police. Seven pupils were injured. District authorities closed the school for one week. The ill-fated dormitory had burglar proof windows, which could have made it difficult for the pupils to escape the fire.

24^th February – A boys’ dormitory at Sembabule Parents Primary School was destroyed by fire when pupils were attending evening classes. The affected dormitory was housing 35 boys and a lot of property was lost.

28^th February – Another fire gutted St. Anthony Roman Catholic Primary School in just a space of 11 days, leading to its closure. The Thursday fire destroyed the girls’ dormitory housing over 18 pupils.

March

20^th March – Fire gutted a boys’ dormitory at St James Secondary School in Mubende District, destroying property worth millions of shillings.

April

4th April – Property worth Shs800 million was destroyed in a dormitory fire at Forest Hill College Mukono (State minister for higher education JC Muyingo’s school). The boys’ dormitory was housing at least 225 students of senior three to senior six. Authorities say no one was hurt by the fire that destroyed students’ mattresses, books, jerrycans, clothes and money, among others.

May

27^th May – Fire gutted a boys’ dormitory at Kisoso Parents Primary School, a day after pupils reported for second term, destroying some property including suit cases which involved pupils’ belongings and beddings. According to the Southern Police spokesman Paul Kangave, the incident happened at around 7:30pm on Monday. It is suspected that the fire could have been a result of a wrongly installed solar panel system at the dormitory, according to Charles Nsereko, the school director.

Mr. Kangave said the dormitory accommodates about 160 pupils, but by the time of the incident, only 60 had reported and none were injured.

July

20^th July – Fourteen students were injured in Nakaloke Islamic School in Mbale District after a fire suspected to have started from one of the dormitories near the mosque reduced properties to ashes before it was contained by the Police Fire Brigade. Textbooks, classroom work, mattresses, case boxes, clothing and utensils, belonging to 50 students were all destroyed.

25^th July – students of Namirembe Hillside High School in Kitetika, Wakiso District lost property worth millions of shillings after a fire gutted one of their dormitories.

Property worth Shs800m destroyed in a dormitory fire at Forest Hill College Mukono

September

18^th September – Pupils of Happy Times SS, Masajja in Wakiso District lost a lot of property when fire gutted one of the dormitories.

21^st September – Just three days later, another fire gutted a dormitory at Kyotera Infant and Primary School. The fire started at the door of the boys’ dormitory and quickly spread to the rest of the facility. No lives were lost but pupils’ belongings such as mattresses, shoes, suit cases, clothes and books were burnt to ashes.

Caution is needed

This alarming rate of fire outbreaks calls for more caution from school authorities to always ensure that they have working firefighting equipment, and that learners have the knowledge of how to operate it.

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Bobiwine was arrested by police on his way to the police Criminal Investigation Department (CID) headquarters in Kibuli,where he was summoned to answer related charges including possession of dangerous weapons and taken to Nagalama police station in Mukono district .

His arrest caused a lot of havoc in town as his supporters protested and blocked roads forcing the police to fire teargas to disperse the crowd.

Bobi Wine was welcomed with praises by prison inmates as they sung his freedom tunes to and fro the Buganda Road court.

Grade One magistrate Esther Nahirya, read Kyagulanyi’s cases where he is of holding a public meeting (anti-social media tax demo) on July 11, 2018 without notifying police contrary to provisions of the Public Order Management Act (POMA) and also failed to cooperate with police to ensure that all demonstrators are unarmed.

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Through a partnership with the Uganda private sector dealing in quality rice and coffee processing, UCU is set to train agribusiness students unique ways of adding value to rice and coffee by processing quality products.

According to Samuel Kalimunjaye, a lecturer at the university, students are taken on ground where farmers are growing rice ,mainly in eastern Uganda and Elgon areas where Arabica coffee is grown.

“We usually organise the farmers to process quality rice and we are particularly interested in Super rice. When these farmers are threshing rice, we bring the students on ground to participate in the exercise. When the rice is milled, students are involved in screening by checking if there are stone in it. If so they sort out the stone pellets and broken rice, weigh it and package in different kilogrammes ready for delivery. The same exercise applies to coffee,” Kalimunjaye said.

Rice packages range from Shs5,000 and Shs30,000 a kilo and five kilogrammes respectively.

The Aromana Arabica Coffee packages cost Shs4,000 and Shs7,500 for 100gms and 250gm bags.

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President of Liberia, George Weah recently declared all Public universities free: COURTESY PHOTO

The Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) has advised the Uganda government to borrow a leaf from Liberia and make University education free to all Ugandan students.

In a press conference held at Uganda house on Wednesday, Michael Osinde, the UPC spokesperson showed concern on the number of students admitted to higher education compared to the number of students who are given government scholarships each year.

“As UPC, we welcome the recent initiative in Liberia, where government has taken on full sponsorship of university/tertiary education at all public universities compared to Uganda, where government caters for only 4,000 university students annually.” he said.

The president of Liberia,George Weah, declared all public universities in Liberia tuition-free which Osinde believes was a good move.

“Uganda needs to take keen interest in studying how such countries are managing to achieve that grand objective and borrow a leaf from them if the country is to achieve education for all,” Osinde added.

The speaker further expressed fear at how the world is fast producing highly skilled manpower that Uganda’s education system can not produce.

“We therefore urge government to heavily invest in vocational training institutions, purposely to enhance skills development,” the UPC spokesperson remarked.

Osinde wished the primary seven candidates success in the forthcoming Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE) 2018 and on this note demanded that government devises means of neutralizing the school dues to ensure a free education for all.

“UPC calls on the parents to strategically engage their children in domestic work and skillful activities, which can bring income to the family in order to address the above captioned challenge as well as mitigating the negative consequences during the forthcoming vacation,” Osinde said.

“Some have prematurely opted to leave school without attaining a PLE certificate due to teenage pregnancy, high increment in school fees among others, yet writing PLE is a fundamental step towards success,” the party mouth piece noted.

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Cissy Kagaba, Executive Director of the Uganda Anti-Corruption Coalition speaking to the students at the Coalition formulation: FILE PHOTO

Students at the Mukono- based Uganda Christian University(UCU) have formed a group that will help to fight the wide spread corruption scandal in Uganda.

The team was a result of the five- day event at the Department of Public Administration and Governance under the theme: “Towards a more strategic partnership in the fight against corruption in Uganda.”

The coalition that was formulated on October 29, 2019 was inspired by scripture of Proverbs 29:2 “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.”

Dennis Kakembo, a second-year Law student at UCU said the war against corruption starts with “we” the people.

Cissy Kagaba, Executive Director of the Uganda Anti-Corruption Coalition emphasized Kakembo’s argument stating poverty is not a cause of corruption as cheating in exams and being late for class is another are also forms of corruption.

“We tend to forget and put the blame on government, but imagine a traffic officer stops you and immediately you pull out money to give him or her (to avoid a ticket) even when they did not ask for it, then you are corrupt.” Kagaba remarked.

The coalition in show of solidarity: FILE PHOTO

“Poverty is just a force that places people in the position of need all the time,” Dr. Benon Musinguzi, the UCU Deputy Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs explained.

“We are privileged that our students and graduates emulate the core values of the University diligence and integrity being among them,” Martin Kizito, the Head of Department Public Administration and Governance at UCU said.

“If the fight against corruption is to be a success especially amongst the youth, then other Universities should take up this initiative so that we can all stand up and fight for the same cause,” said Phillips Odwokacen, a Lecturer at UCU.

The coalition is formed at the time when Uganda is facing high levels of corruption cases and according to the Berlin Transparency International group global corruption statistics of 180 countries, Uganda was placed among the most corrupt with 26 of 100 points.

The least corrupt nation in the world, New Zealand, had 89 of 100 points.

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Archbishop Cyprian Kizito Lwanga: COURTESY PHOTO

The archbishop of Kampala archdiocese,Dr Cyprian Kizito Lwanga has proposed that the tithe should be directly imposed on people’s monthly salaries.

During a mass at Rubaga cathedral, the archbishop condemned Christians’ actions of dodging the tithe yet its an obligation and not an option.

Dr. Kizito is ready to table the proposal before president Yoweri Museveni if supported by the catholics.

“Give me your support as I front this proposal because it is good for us. Aren’t you tired of putting money in a basket all the time?” he posed

He added that most of the believers who pay the tithe do not follow proper biblical guidelines of deducting 10% of their total earnings but only throw a few coins in the basket.

“Whenever we ask for tithe, everyone gives what they have at that time. But the Bible says a tenth of whatever you earn belongs to the church,” Archbishop Cyprian said

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Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC) is looking for a transaction advisor to guide the development of a multi-user storage terminal in Kampala.

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