Uganda

In a time of constant calamity and crisis fatigue, proposed legislation in Uganda to execute gays passes through the American consciousness with the impact of a weather report. Corrupt politicians count on the brevity of the American attention span, but certain items demand a tap of the pause button. How exactly does the idea of executing gays evolve in a majority-Christian nation? Gays in Uganda already face imprisonment for up to 14 years. Under a new bill proposed last October by David Bahati, the government could execute HIV-positive men and jail people who don't report homosexual activities.

When Mary Patricia Sullivan returned with her three daughters to Maryland in 2003 after spending seven years researching HIV/AIDS in Uganda, she was intent on giving them the best American school experience possible, friends said. After researching several school systems, Ms. Sullivan moved her family into a two-story house with light purple shutters on York Road in Hereford to take advantage of the schools in northern Baltimore County, they said. Ms.

GULU, Uganda -- As an 11-year-old, Alfred Odida did awful things. He killed people with machetes, he abused the dead. He says he had no choice. The rebels who abducted him forced the young boy to commit atrocities, as they have thousands of children during northern Uganda's long civil war. Now 18 and safe, he sat with a psychiatrist recently to discuss his lingering mental trauma, such as the haunting visions he has of victims coming back for revenge....

JINJA, Uganda -- Bujagali Falls, roaring and frothing just downstream from where Lake Victoria flows into the Nile River, has long been treasured as a resting place of ancestral spirits, a thrilling rapids for whitewater rafters and a spectacular feature of the natural landscape. It will be a memory. Construction began last week on a $772 million hydroelectric dam that will turn the falls into a reservoir. The project, financed by the World Bank, is intended to reduce the acute power shortages that have badly hampered this East African country's development.

NGAMBA ISLAND, Uganda -- The produce starts flying every afternoon at 2:30, just after the 41 chimpanzees emerge from the forest. No one calls them. They know they have a standing reservation at this salad bar bombardment. Passion fruit, carrots, watermelon slices, red tomatoes, unripe oranges, bananas - it all rains down on the assembled apes screaming with hungry excitement or as a show of dominance or to fend off attacks from those of higher rank. The more adept make over-the-shoulder catches.

PALABEK GEM CAMP, Uganda -- As we sat on the side of the dusty road 6 kilometers outside Palabek Gem camp in northern Uganda, an older woman named Joyce said to me, "When you go home, tell them you have seen the way we live here, and tell them that we are not free. Tell them the conditions are so bad, and our government does not take proper care of us." For more than 20 years, a bloody conflict has raged between the government of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army. This brutal rebel group, best known for abducting and enslaving children who are then forced to commit unspeakable atrocities, has killed more than half a million people and forced nearly 2 million from their homes.

KAMPALA, Uganda -- When it comes to buying condoms, Gideon Byamugisha prefers to dart in and out of the drugstore, leaving his car engine running for a quick escape. But invariably, after watching a rattled clerk triple-bag his purchase or enduring disapproving glares from fellow customers, Byamugisha goes out and turns off the motor, returns to the store and tells his story. "It's the collar," said Byamugisha, a canon with the Anglican Church of Uganda. "They look at me and think: Sin has gone deep when even a man in a collar is buying condoms."

Cheeny Celebrado-Royer flipped through the pages of a book, stopping occasionally to look at pictures. She held up the book - Experience Two Different Cultures - to show the cover illustrations. "I wrote this book to help kids who have to go to strange places and learn to live a different way," the 14-year-old Havre de Grace Middle School pupil said. She not only wrote the story, but she also illustrated, researched, designed it and oversaw production of the finished version. It's one of 90 created by eighth-graders at the school as part of a project to send books to children enduring hardships in other countries.

KAMPALA, Uganda -- President Yoweri Museveni, already East Africa's longest-serving leader, won re-election yesterday to another five-year term at Uganda's helm. But his chief opponent disputed the official tally and called on supporters to reject it. Museveni, who has led Uganda since 1986, received 59 percent of the vote, compared with 37 percent for opposition leader Kizza Besigye of the Forum for Democratic Change, according to figures released by Uganda's Electoral Commission. The remainder of the votes were divided among three other presidential candidates.

KAMPALA, Uganda -- Voters will begin filing to polls today in a surprisingly competitive presidential contest that some worry could re-ignite violence in the East African nation. Most predict that longtime President Yoweri Museveni, who has led Uganda for 20 years, will secure his third term, if not legitimately, then through some behind-the-scenes ballot-rigging. One recent poll by Uganda's Daily Monitor newspaper gave Museveni a 47 percent to 36 percent lead over his main rival, Kizza Besigye.