Recent Columns

Is it the global credit crisis? Is it the evil that lurks? Or is the world just getting madder? Whatever the cause, there’s a spike in ritual murders in this impoverished African country.

So it's that time of year when all of our New Year resolutions aren't yet broken. Among mine is to get into jail more often.

Her name is Fatmata. She is an African mother. And this is her story.

KAMPALA, Uganda✦ So you think you feel good about what unfolded south of Canada’s border on Nov. 4? You should see the party in Africa. There has been dancing in the streets, public holidays and general high-fives from nationals to diplomats to expatriates, all convinced that, as one Ugandan paper put it, “America is reborn.”

I discovered that this hugely popular novel, with sales now somewhere around a million, has caused a tempest in our community. And it's left me wondering: is it just me, or is something fundamentally and horribly amiss in our courtyard?

Recently travelling back from Canada to Uganda through London, England - capital of history's most influential empire - I got some renewed perspective on global leadership and change and how, in politics, there's nothing like old-fashioned fear to move things along.

We're in the middle of East Africa's savannah, about to be eaten by nearby lions.

KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦A pregnant woman here in Uganda’s capital was recently beheaded by her husband. Maurine Ampire, 38, was a mother getting close to delivering number six. It’s one picture of life here, and a comparable image to the lack of voice that pregnant women have worldwide. No voice. No choice. Just death, and often violently.

A visitor in Uganda sees the light, through the tattered lives of those around him.

Re: ‘Taking the middle ground on evolution’ (letters, June 28)

Adultery is something I've never really thought about much. But the papers here in Uganda are full of it: adultery is no longer a crime.

If a tree falls deep in the heart of Africa, will anyone hear? That's the question for the outside world, as the debate that often pits the environment against the economy has taken a chilling twist here in Uganda, with riots, murder and parliamentarians jailed.

Evil is never easy to look in the eye. So it's no surprise that The Last King of Scotland is getting mixed reactions in this corner of the world, where the story, both its real and Hollywood version, unfolds.

Gwyne Dyer's commentary in the New Vision of March 27, page 10, arguing that religion promotes bad behaviour, while secularism promotes good, has more holes in it than a house of Swiss cheese.

Good grief. Just when you thought you knew the rules around here, where it's a given that cultural change is painfully slow, along comes a curve ball that really makes your head spin.