KAMPALA (Reuters) – A Ugandan gay rights activist who was late last year featured with other gays in a newspaper article headlined “Hang Them” has been beaten to death in his Kampala home, rights groups said on Thursday.

David Kato was one of three people featured in Uganda’s Rolling Stone newspaper who this month won an injunction barring it from continuing its anti-gay campaign.

KAMPALA, Jan 21 (Reuters) – The Ugandan shilling UGX= can
correct after being undervalued in the second half of 2010 and
could appreciate soon given the likely strength of its long-term
uptrend, the central bank said on Friday.

The shilling sank to an all-time low of 2,395/2,400 per
dollar earlier this week as importer demand for dollars rose and
both corporates and aid agencies held on to their greenbacks
ahead of a presidential election on February 18.

KAMPALA (Reuters) – Two Ugandan journalists have been arrested over a cartoon of President Yoweri Museveni on the cover of their magazine which referred to his 24 years in power and asked “Where next?”, their lawyer said on Wednesday.

Samuel Ssejaaka, owner of Summit Business Review, and its editor, Mustapha Mugisha, were arrested on Tuesday and questioned by detectives before being released on police bond, pending possible unspecified charges.

KAMPALA, January 10 (Reuters) – Ugandan President Yoweri
Museveni has dismissed threats from Islamist rebels reported to
be regrouping near the country’s developing oil fields, the
government said on Monday.

The Allied Defence Forces (ADF) were driven out of Uganda
into the dense jungle of neig`bouring Democratic Republic of
Congo (DRC) after a violent campaign in the late 1990s, during
which it bombed capital Kampala several times.

KAMPALA (Reuters) – A row has broken out in Uganda over an attempt by President Yoweri Museveni to copyright a “rap” he performed that has become a smash hit on the African country’s radio stations and in its nightclubs.

The aging leader took to the stage at two party rallies over the last few months and performed two children’s folk chants from his birthplace in Western Uganda – Naatema akati (I cut a stick) and Mp’enkoni (Give me the stick).

KAMPALA (Reuters) – Uganda’s main opposition coalition on Tuesday accused the government of recruiting a large militia to intimidate the opposition in February elections, a charge the police denied.

The east African country’s police said it had only hired people to help with community policing in the region, not an armed militia to get involved with the polls which are seen as a test of democracy for the country.

KAMPALA (Reuters) – Uganda dropped charges against 18 people related to suicide bombings that killed 79 people watching the World Cup final on television, but remanded 17 others in custody to face trial, defence lawyers said.

The twin suicide blasts at a restaurant and a sports club on July 11 were the first attacks on foreign soil by militants of Somalia’s al Shabaab group, which claims links to al Qaeda.

KAMPALA (Reuters) – A Ugandan newspaper that “outs” people it says are gay and has called for them to be hanged said on Tuesday it would use a two-week window before a court verdict on its activities to continue with its campaign.

Three gay activists — two women and one man — who were featured in the publication secured an interim injunction on November 1 stopping the newspaper from publishing such photos on privacy grounds.

KAMPALA, Nov 30 (Reuters) – Uganda will in 2012 start the
phased development of an oil refinery that will initially meet
local demand of up to 25,000 barrels per day (bpd) before
scaling up to 200,000 bpd, an official said on Tuesday.

Keen on avoiding pitfalls that have bedeviled other
sub-Saharan African oil producers, east Africa’s third biggest
economy has decided against exporting crude oil.

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – A special welcome was laid on for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi when he arrived in Uganda earlier this year for an African summit: hundreds of children lining the road wearing T-shirts with his face on them.

In fact, Gaddafi stood out right from moment he stepped off his jet wearing sunglasses, a safari suit with silhouettes of the African continent printed on it, and accompanied by a female bodyguard in Bedouin headgear.