A Ugandan court has invalidated an anti-gay bill signed into law earlier this year, saying it was illegally passed and is therefore unconstitutional.

Uganda’s health minister has said gay people will not be discriminated against by medical workers despite the strengthening of criminal penalties against homosexuals.

A Ugandan newspaper published a list of what it called the country’s “200 top” homosexuals, outing some Ugandans who previously had not identified themselves as gay, one day after the president enacted a controversial anti-gay law.

The Ebola virus has killed 14 people in western Uganda this month, health officials said, ending weeks of speculation about the cause of a strange disease that had many people fleeing their homes.

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said he has “no doubt” that fugitive African warlord Joseph Kony will be arrested this year because the international spotlight has helped boost the hunt for the Lord’s Resistance Army leader.

THE formal go-ahead for Tullow Oil to farm-down part of its Ugandan asset portfolio to its international partners, Total and CNOOC, has been reportedly slowed by the country’s president objecting to part of the deal.

Uganda has become the first country to offer Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi refuge if he chooses exile.

Uganda’s high court ordered a controversial newspaper to stop publishing the names and photographs of people it says are gay, ruling that the publication is violating their right to privacy.

The confessed mastermind of bomb attacks in Uganda against World Cup football fans said he had hoped to kill many more Americans in the explosions in which 76 people, including one American, died last month.

Twenty suspects have been arrested in connection with the Uganda bomb attacks that killed 76 people watching the World Cup final on television, police in the country said today.

UGANDAN police have recovered an unexploded suicide vest and arrested six people suspected of planning bombings that killed 76 people, including an Irish woman, on Sunday.

Landslides have swamped three villages in Uganda, killing at least 86 people and leaving hundreds missing after rivers of mud swept through a church and hospital, officials said today.

A proposed new law would impose the death penalty on some gay Ugandans and their family and friends could face up to seven years in jail if they fail to report them to authorities.

POPE Benedict’s claim that condoms have helped to spread Aids in Africa has raised an outcry, but a brief survey of hard facts in African countries shows he is right.

Barack Obama’s nomination as the Democratic Party’s candidate for the US presidency has sparked off a wave of Obamamania in Africa, the continent where his father was born and where many of his relatives live.

Some members of the Asian community in Uganda’s capital Kampala kept their children home from school, skipped work and left their shops shuttered today, a day after a protest ignited racial violence.

The first peacekeepers to arrive in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu in more than 10 years were met with a surge of violence today, as mortars hit the airport during a welcoming ceremony and a deadly gunbattle broke out on the city’s crumbling streets.

Ugandan peacekeepers arrived in Somalia’s capital early today to provide protection for the still-struggling transitional government and to allow for the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops who intervened in the country.

African Union nations have committed about 4,000 troops for a Somalia peacekeeping force, and the first deployments could come as early as next week, a US State Department official said today.

The United States will provide $40m (€30.7m) to Somalia in political, humanitarian and peacekeeping assistance, the top US diplomat to Africa said today.

Unofficial results released by newspapers and radio stations today showed a tight race between incumbent President Yoweri Museveni and his leading challenger, Kizza Besigye, in Uganda’s first multiparty election.

Ugandan voters lined up in car parks, village squares and empty fields before dawn today to choose between the leader who has ruled the country for 20 years and four challengers.

OVER 2.7 million children in Uganda are engaged in child labour, with eastern Uganda being the worst affected.

Milton Obote, Uganda’s first prime minister and who served twice as the country’s president, was remembered today as an outstanding leader by some Ugandans, while others said that they would not mourn a man held responsible for the deaths of as many as 500,000 people.

Ugandans voted today on whether to allow multiparty politics after 19 years of President Yoweri Museveni’s so-called “no-party democracy”.

Ugandans chose whether or not to allow multi-party politics in the East African country in a referendum today, the first step in reforming the country’s constitution, which forbids political parties from campaigning in elections.

Ireland’s dream of qualifying for their first World Cup moved a step closer to becoming a reality when they defeated Uganda at a blustery Conber.

THESE are dangerous days for people in the east of The Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Unionists and republicans must not allow a once in a lifetime opportunity to strike a Northern Ireland peace deal slip away, the Reverend Jesse Jackson said tonight.

UGANDA’S army overran the headquarters of a rebel group in a cross-border raid and killed at least 120 fighters, including possibly the group’s leader, a military spokesman said yesterday.

Idi Amin, the ruthless former dictator of Uganda and one-time darling of the British army, died today.

FORMER dictator Idi Amin, blamed for the murder of tens of thousands of Ugandans in the 1970s, has received death threats at a Saudi hospital where he has been critically ill for weeks, a medical source said yesterday.

IDI AMIN’S wife and daughter flew to Saudi Arabia this week to visit the dying former dictator of Uganda, government officials in Kampala said yesterday.

Exiled tyrant Idi Amin, whose eight-year presidency of Uganda is remembered for the torture and killing of more than 200,000 people, was in a coma in a Saudi hospital today.

US President George W Bush took his “war on terror” message to Uganda yesterday, aiming to boost security in a region Washington fears could become a home to groups like al-Qaida.

By Ronan Mullen TODAY’S booby prize for the most pointless media appearance goes to Catherine Heaney, chief executive of the Irish Family Planning Association.

More than 10,000 terrified civilians were sheltering at a United Nations compound in north-east Congo today as a fierce battle raged around them.

CONGRATULATIONS to Caroline O’Doherty for her excellent, insightful article about the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Irish Examiner Weekend, April 26), and to The Irish Examiner for being one of the few news organisations to highlight this forgotten war.

Pakistan has handed over to US authorities about 20 Arabs arrested last week in raids on suspected al Qaida hideouts, a senior intelligence official said today.

Two Ugandan soldiers have been executed by firing squad after being convicted by military tribunal of murdering an Irish priest and his two local companions.

Two Ugandan soldiers are expected to stand trial this morning accused of murdering Irish priest Fr Declan O’Toole last Thursday.

Ugandans are set to choose between former guerrilla leader President Yoweri Museveni and his former bush war ally in the country's general election.