Category: Daily Monitor

Uganda is set to showcase one of its most ambitious scientific milestones yet, a made-in-Uganda electric bus that will be driven from Kampala to Cape Town as part of a continental visibility campaign.

This move is championed by the Minister for Science, Technology, and Innovation in the Office of the President, Dr Monica Musenero Musanza.

She said the initiative marks a defining moment for the country’s innovation ecosystem and demonstrates Uganda’s growing capacity in electric mobility. Speaking at the fourth SilverBack Awards held at Golf Course Hotel on Saturday last week, Dr Musenero announced that on November 20, Uganda will flag off the Made in Uganda for Africa Expedition (MIE), a journey designed to showcase the country’s engineering achievements across six countries.

‘We are flagging off something fundamental and phenomenal. Uganda now has the largest, most competent, and most capable electric vehicle manufacturing facility on the African continent. And we will be driving a made-in-Uganda electric bus from Kampala to Cape Town,’ she said.

Mr Paul Isaac Musasizi, the chief executive officer of Kiira Motors Corporation (KMC), said the roadshow to Cape Town, South Africa, will cover 13,000 km, passing through Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, Botswana, Eswatini, and South Africa. The journey begins in Kampala and heads south through the Mutukula border point into Tanzania. Along the route, the team has identified 52 charging points, including those for the return trip.

Although the bus typically covers 570 km on a single charge, Mr Musasizi said they plan to recharge after every 400km as a precaution, given the long-distance testing. He adds that the month-long journey aims to secure 1,000 new bus orders from the countries where they will stop and exhibit.

An advance team has already been dispatched to prepare the route. The roadshow team will include three drivers and several mechanics.

Dr Musenero said the expedition will showcase a range of locally developed innovations, from advanced electronics and unique mobile phones to high-quality industrial products, highlighting Uganda’s growing competitiveness in technology and manufacturing.

‘People from Europe and America have seen these buses and asked, ‘Is this really made here?’ Yes, it is,’ she emphasised, saying the quality meets global standards. The upcoming continental bus journey, Dr Musenero said, is the latest step in proving that Uganda’s innovation sector is maturing.

She admitted, however, that Uganda’s progress has not been well-communicated, and urged advertising agencies to help promote the country’s scientific breakthroughs. ‘I was shocked that the best communicators in this country were unaware of these developments.

But now you can’t say you don’t know, you know,’ she tells them. The MIE expedition, seeks to build a strong innovation identity for Uganda by unifying all value-added products under the ‘Made in Uganda’ s brand.

‘If you talk about innovation, it is science, technology, and innovation. We are passionate, and you (advertisers) are going to be part of this journey,’ she said.

At the same event, Mr Preetesh Sewraj, CEO of the Loerie Awards Company NPC-Africa and Middle East, said the region is paying close attention to Uganda’s technological rise and its potential to drive economic transformation. ‘The communication industry is the catalyst that moves innovation forward. It is what will help take this sector where it needs to go,’ he says.

Background

Uganda first ventured into electric mobility with the Kiira EV, developed by staff and students at Makerere University’s College of Engineering, Design, Art and Technology (CEDAT), and launched by President Museveni in 2011.

At least 20 suspects are in police custody on various charges following their arrest at different rallies held by the National Resistance Movement (NRM) presidential candidate, Yoweri Museveni in Busoga Sub-region.

According to police, the suspects, mainly youth, were arrested in Bugiri, Bugweri, and Namutumba districts, where President Museveni started his campaign trail in eastern Uganda sub-region.

‘We have close to twenty suspects in our custody who are involved in numerous crimes in the three districts where president Museveni has had rallies,” Mr Michael Kasadha, the Busoga East police spokesperson confirmed.

Mr Kasadha disclosed that 11 suspects, including those with sharp knives were arrested in Bugiri District, six from Namutumba and three from Bugweri.

He said some suspects were arrested for allegedly snatching people’s mobile phones, pocketing money and others holding marijwana in their pockets among other crimes.

Mr Kasadha advised all those intending to take advantage of crowds to commit offences to stop as President Museveni, 81, continues with his campaign rallies in the region as he seeks to extend his leadership beyond four decades.

Meanwhile, in Kaliro District where President Museveni is scheduled for a rally, schools have been banned from taking students to the rally venue in Bulumba town council.

The Kaliro Assistant Resident District Commissioner (RDC), Mr Rogers Kiduma confirmed the development.

According to Mr Kiduma, this followed complaints that in some areas, the rallies were attended by learners ferried from around the areas where Mr Museveni held rallies.

‘For us in Kaliro, we want to disprove the rumours that the big crowds the president has been having had students ferried from schools. This is why we refused to grant permission to all head teachers who had written requests,” Mr Kiduma said.

The head teacher of Namugongo Seed Secondary School, Mr John Bwire Wasukira expressed disappointment towards the failure by the office of RDC to give him permission to ferry students to Mr Museveni’s rally.

‘I am particularly not happy with the RDC’s office for denying my students a chance to attend the rally,” Mr Wasukira said.

According to Mr Wasukira, the purpose of ferrying learners to the rally was for them to appreciate President Museveni’s efforts in extending free education to them by constructing the Seed School.

As I grew up in our little Kasana village in Masaka, there was that one woman everyone knew as the village gossiper.

She seemed to know every rumour about who was doing what. She knew about the night dancers, the families who sacrificed children for wealth, husbands cheating on their wives, and everything in between.

She would move from home to home, spreading stories with the magic word ‘mbu.’ My mother often warned that some of her tales were cooked up just so she could keep talking and maybe score a lunch along the way.

But the words she spoke travelled fast. They didn’t stop at our village; they spread to neighbouring villages, fanning out like wildfire. It seems some village members could “forward’ her rumours.

I remember one time she was reported to the LC1 chairman. Some old man demanded she show proof for the claims she had made about him. Village meetings were held near our home, at the house of a retired magistrate.

At first, I thought he was a judge; they called him mulamuzi. Anyway getting back to the gossiper, everyone was eager for an answer, and soon complaints began arriving from other villagers, even drawing in the village council members. She had no answers. Instead, she cried. Crocodile tears.

Last weekend, that scene from Kasana replayed in my mind while I was attending a certain meeting. One of the people in the room, let’s say he qualifies as an elder, even though he had no grey hair, was talking about how many of us, knowingly or unknowingly, are turning into that village gossipers.

We forward messages from one WhatsApp group to another. One clip, one screenshot, one voice note at a time, moving faster than anyone can check or question them. In the process, we become the modern village gossip, carrying rumours across homes, schools, and workplaces without pause. But is what we are forwarding actually true?

Take, for example, our self-proclaimed group pastors and reverends. Many of them forward Bible verses every morning. But wait a minute, are these verses accurate? Has anyone taken the trouble to notice how distortions can creep into those forwarded spiritual messages? And majority are not created by these group pastors but forwarded from who knows where. Clue: You are bound to see the same message shared in different groups and after time it will resurface.

Then there are the motivation masters, sharing long quotes on success. Many of these quotes come from pages built on false statements.

Some are edited. Some appear genuine but are designed to lure readers to certain sites. Yet group members read them without asking a single question.

When it comes to politics, it gets worse. Forwarded, baseless information floods groups daily. We read it, we share it, we forward it, and slowly, it distorts everything we think we know.

The forward button has become a quiet threat. One click sends a message into spaces where trust is high and checks are low. One click turns a rumour into a collective belief. One click gives false content a new life in groups where people think they are safe.

We mislead ourselves one forward at a time. We create confusion in our own homes. We weaken trust in institutions. We fuel conflict. We distort public debate. The danger no longer comes from big platforms alone. It comes from our own habits.

This problem needs discipline from every citizen. You slow down before forwarding. You check screenshots. You question audio. You search for the origin of an image. You wait for credible updates. You correct false claims. You refuse to reward fear.

To get a clearer picture of how harmful this has become, think back to our village gossiper. But now we have modern examples. That very weekend, I watched a 30-minute film, carefully crafted and cast with famous actors, among other things depicting the dangers of forwarding and sharing without verifying. The film, Call 112, is available on

YouTube, but I wish it could be broadcast on national TV for some time. Our people need to see it.

Social media has made the village gossiper invisible yet more powerful. One forwarded clip, one screenshot, one voice note moves from phone to phone, group to group, creating networks of misinformation. Call 112 brings this to life, showing real consequences: families panicking, communities divided, reputations destroyed, and trust eroding. It is a warning that goes beyond entertainment; it is a mirror to our own habits.

But here is the catch: in this digital era, in the age of social media, false information, and fake news, that person, the one carrying the ‘mbu’, is you. Every forward, every share, every unchecked clip turns us into the modern village gossip. We don’t walk from house to house anymore; we move from group to group, from chat to chat, carrying rumours that spread faster than we can question them.

President Samia Suluhu Hassan on Monday presented an intriguing mix of continuity and change in naming a new Cabinet to kick off her second and final term in office following last month’s contentious election, which was marred by deadly unrest.

The Tanzanian leader, making the announcement from State House in Dodoma, dropped at least seven ministers, including Energy chief and Deputy Prime Minister Dotto Biteko, but kept the nucleus of her previous team intact.

The Cabinet reshuffle also saw close allies, including some her family members, rise to plum positions. First Daughter Wanu Hafidh Ameir, who is a Member of the National Assembly of Tanzania, was appointed deputy minister of Education, Science and Technology. Her husband Mohamed Mchengerwa, the former Local Governments and Regional Administration minister, takes over the key Health docket.

Ridhiwani Kikwete, son of ex-president Jakaya Kikwete, was promoted from deputy minister to full minister in charge of Civil Service Management and Good Governance while first daughter Wanu Hafidh Ameir became deputy minister of Education, Science and Technology where Prof Adolf Mkenda will continue as minister.

Meanwhile, Mahmoud Thabit Kombo continues as Minister for Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation while another nominated MP from Zanzibar, Hamisi Musa Omari, became Finance Minister following Dr Mwigulu Nchemba’s elevation to Prime Minister.

Prof Kitila Mkumbo was also retained as Planning and Investments Minister and newly elected Mtwara Urban MP Joel Nanauka, a 42-year-old motivational speaker, was put in charge of the new Ministry of Youth Development dedicated to addressing deep-rooted Gen Z concerns, which the President believes triggered the election-related chaos. Both Prof Mkumbo and Nanauka will answer directly to Samia.

Prof Palamagamba Kabudi kept his position as Information and Culture Minister, with newly elected Arusha MP Paul Makonda becoming one of his two deputies. Other key ministerial postings include George Simbachawene (Home Affairs), Dr Ashatu Kijaji (Tourism and Natural Resources), Deo Ndejembi (Energy), Juma Homera (Constitutional and Legal Affairs) and Judith Kapinga (Industries and Trade).

Anthony Mavunde stayed on as Minister of Minerals; former CCM secretaries-general Daniel Chongolo and Bashiru Ally Kakurwa were appointed ministers of Agriculture and Livestock and Fisheries respectively.

Dropped Ministers

Significant omissions from the Cabinet included Innocent Bashungwa (Home Affairs), Hussein Bashe (Agriculture), Selemani Jafo (Industries and Trade), Jenista Mhagama (Health) and Pindi Chana (Constitutional and Legal Affairs).

There was also no place for Tulia Ackson, the Speaker of the previous National Assembly, whose last-minute withdrawal from the contest for the seat despite being elected Uyole MP, remains a mystery.

When the final whistle blew at the Aliguma Foundation (AFSEC)’s new pitch in Kinuuma Village, Masindi, the roar that followed wasn’t just for Kinuuma FC’s 3-1 victory over Kabutukuru FC – it was for a community’s new beginning.

The match crowned a day that celebrated the power of sport and education as the Aliguma Foundation officially unveiled the Sunny Magezi Academy, a school built on love, purpose, and a Uefa-funded dream.

The symbolic encounter saw Farouk Muhinda, Tony Katusabe, and Sula Asiimwe find the back of the net for Kinuuma FC, while Vincent Achala netted the lone reply for Kabutukuru. The crowd of villagers, leaders, and pupils danced and ululated as football and education merged into one celebration.

‘This is how transformation starts,’ said Ritah Aliguma, founder of the Aliguma Foundation. ‘The same energy our youth show on the pitch is what we want to channel into classrooms – discipline, teamwork, and belief.’

The Sunny Magezi Academy launch came on the back of Uefa Foundation for Children’s third consecutive global grant to the Aliguma Foundation – part of a pound 5 million initiative supporting 72 projects across the globe. Uganda’s selection again underlines the Foundation’s steady impact in turning football passion into real social change.

Built on legacy

The academy is named after Ritah’s late parents, Mr. Magezi Steven Nyakana and Mrs. Sunny Nsungwa, whose values of compassion and resilience continue to guide the Foundation’s work.

Occupying a portion of 15 acres at AFSEC, the school will blend national and international curricula with talent development and skills training. The first 50 parents to enroll their children will receive free uniforms – a gesture that drew emotional applause.

Before the ribbon-cutting, pupils staged a lively showcase – songs, poems, cultural dances, short skits, and races – celebrating education and community. Their joy moved many to tears. ‘These children are the heartbeat of Sunny Magezi,’ said Immaculate Owomugisha Blessing, president of the U.S. Exchange Alumni Network for Uganda. ‘This is what hope looks like.’

Government backing

The event drew Buruli County MP Ronald Aled Akugizibwe, Masindi DEO Monica Kiiza, religious leaders, and U.S. Exchange Alumni representatives.

Hon. Akugizibwe called it ‘a model of rural development,’ while DEO Kiiza pledged immediate registration and licensing for the new institution. Their support underscored that Sunny Magezi Academy is not only a private dream but also a public milestone for Masindi’s education sector.

With classrooms up, the pitch in use, and new programmes in tailoring, IT, and entrepreneurship planned, AFSEC is bound to become a one-stop hub for learning and livelihood in rural Uganda.

NUMBERS AT A GLANCE

6: Classrooms already completed

15: Acres of land for education and sport

5: Million euros Uefa Foundation global fund

50: Free uniforms to first registered pupils

30: Children enrolled on Day One

600: People attended the school launch

One of the first people to notice that Dr Kizza Besigye was in trouble was a longtime political ally and one of the few people that the opposition politician trusted to inform about his movements.

Dr Besigye had communicated to the ally, whose identity has been withheld, to inform him that he was going into a meeting. In a practice honed over two decades of side-stepping security agents, details of the next check-in were agreed, then Dr Besigye and Mr Obeid Lutale, a longtime associate, stepped out of the lobby of Waridi Paradise Hotel and Suites, a budget business-friendly hotel in Hurlingham, a Nairobi suburb. It was afternoon, Saturday, November 16, 2024. The two men had flown from Entebbe into the Kenyan capital earlier that morning to attend the launch of Kenyan politician Martha Karua’s biography scheduled for the next day.

Waiting in the parking lot was an Uber with a destination pre-set on the ride-hailing app: 108 Riverside Apartments. The Uber snaked its way, up Rose Avenue, into Argwings Kodhek Road named after Kenyan politician and lawyer who was the first East African to qualify as a barrister at the Inns of Court in London, and who had been educated in Uganda at St Mary’s College, Kisubi and Makerere University. The trip ended at 108 Riverside Apartments, a recently built 12-storey residential block off Riverside Drive, one of Nairobi’s most desirable postcodes, and just two minutes’ drive from the Uganda High Commission. One of the high-rises mushrooming over Nairobi, 108 Riverside Apartments boasts of 60 two- and three-bedroom apartments, many of which open onto balconies overlooking a landscaped central communal garden.

It was around 4pm when Dr Besigye and Mr Lutale arrived at the complex. They asked the Uber driver to wait and walked into the basement lift lobby of Block C, for their meeting in apartment C1102. It would be the last time anyone saw the two men as free men on Kenyan soil. The Uber driver sat in his car and waited, watching the light drain from the sky as darkness swallowed the senses. When the wait seemed inordinate, he sent one message, then another, and another, to his passengers. Each message was marked as delivered, but none was replied to. Dusk turned into dark, then early evening turned into night, and still the two men were nowhere to be seen.

Midnight came and went, then 2am, 4am, and still no sign of the two men. Finally, at 4:30am, hungry, tired, and very confused, the Uber driver gave up and drove away. With sunrise came some illumination, but mostly of a dark plot. The scheduled check-in by the long-term associate in Uganda had been made, but it had not been responded to. The two men’s phones rang but the calls went unanswered. The front desk at Waridi Paradise Hotel confirmed that the two men had checked in and left but they had not returned. Their bags were in their rooms, but their beds were untouched.

Hope against hope

Friends and close associates held out hope that the two men would reappear shortly, at least in time for the book launch. Dr Besigye was scheduled to speak at the event, which was streamed live on social media, and attended by prominent Kenyan politicians including the recently deceased former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, and former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga. Dr Besigye’s empty front-row seat was an unmistakable alarm bell that something was amiss. That sense of dread deepened when the two men’s mobile telephones, which had previously rang but gone unanswered, suddenly became unavailable. The search returned to first principles but sources in Uganda and Kenya’s immigration services confirmed that the two men had entered Kenya from Uganda but had not exited the country.

This was alarming. Kenya had long been a refuge for Ugandans and other East Africans fleeing persecution in their own countries. Dr Besigye had fled there in 1981, one of thousands who fled the brutality of the Idi Amin and Milton Obote regimes. In 1982, Kenyan security agents had allowed Obote’s agents to kidnap Balaki Kirya from a housing estate in Nairobi and rendition him back to Uganda, but mostly crossing into Kenya was the first step to freedom for Ugandan dissidents. Had history repeated itself? As the day wore on, and almost 24 hours after he was last heard from, Dr Besigye’s wife, Ms Winnie Byanyima, herself an NRA/M veteran, Ugandan parliamentarian and international civil servant, telephoned State House and asked to speak to President Museveni to ask if he knew anything.

The President was unavailable. Ms Byanyima then telephoned Gen Caleb ‘Salim Saleh’ Akandwanaho, the President’s brother and special advisor. Sources told this newspaper that Gen Saleh said he did not have any information but promised to check. After a while the senior officer called back and informed Ms Byanyima that he had confirmed that Dr Besigye and Mr Lutale were, indeed, in Ugandan custody.

Night of long drives

Riverside 108 has three blocks: A, B, and C, each rising 12 floors high and with three apartments on each floor. Apartment C1102 is on the eleventh floor of Block C. When our reporters visited, not too long after the two men had gone off the radar, the entire floor was eerily dark. The door to C1102 was firmly shut despite repeated knocks, and no movement could be heard inside. Security guards at the main gate insisted they were unaware of any visitors and declined to release CCTV footage from the day of the disappearance of the two men. With so many comings and goings, the security guards added unhelpfully, it was hard to spot or account for any suspicious activity.

By Tuesday November 19 when Dr Besigye was scheduled to check out of Waridi, an official at the residence confirmed that he and Mr Lutale had not reappeared since their departure on the afternoon of the 16th. Their personal belongings were still in their rooms, their bill still unpaid. Like an inverted California Hotel, they could leave, but they could never check out. Dr Besigye had been expected to fly back to Entebbe on Tuesday but had been a no-show for the flight. A regular user of the micro-blogging platform, X, Dr Besigye had last posted at 10:19pm on Thursday, November 14. By the time this publication went to bed at about 10pm on November 19, 2024, it broke the story of Dr Besigye and Mr Obeid’s kidnap and rendition and revealed that they duo were in custody in Makindye Military Barracks.

The next day the duo was produced before the General Court Martial in Makindye and charged with treason and illegal possession of firearms. Speaking to a delegation of officials from his People’s Front for Freedom political party, Dr Besigye described how they were ambushed by men pretending to be Kenyan nationals, speaking halting Swahili with the forced casualness of strangers in disguise. He said they had gone for a short dinner meeting in Riverside ahead of the book launch when the group descended on them, bundling them into a four-wheel drive vehicle with Kenyan plates. Along the highway, the men spoke only Swahili until the vehicle reached Malaba border crossing between Uganda and Kenya at around 3am.

It was only when one uttered the word ‘kandi’ (a conjunction that means ‘and’ in some Ugandan languages), that the mask slipped, prompting Lutale to question why they had avoided their native languages. The abductors then switched to Luganda and Runyankole, confirming that they were Ugandan security agents. According to Dr Besigye’s account, they were driven through the border without any checks and transferred into a Ugandan-registered vehicle. Many hope that the trial will finally shed light on what happened that night in Nairobi, and the full evidence of the allegations against the men.

Post-script

State prosecutors say the two men and others, including a serving soldier, Denis Oola, conspired in meetings held in Nairobi, Geneva, and Athens, to overthrow the government and shoot down the presidential helicopter. The men deny the allegations but a year later, the trial is yet to begin. Part of the delay was due to the two men contesting their trial in the Military General Court Martial, despite being civilians, and challenges to the nature of their kidnap and rendition from Kenya. Attempts to apply for regular and mandatory bail — the latter based on how long they have been in detention — have so far failed.

Between playing at the first round of the Road to Bal and flying to Nairobi, Kenya, for the Elite 16, Namuwongo Blazers had a small matter of dethroning City Oilers back home.

The Blazers dag themselves out of a 2-0 deficit to win the best-of-seven series 4-2.

That victory ended Oilers’ decade long dominance and the Blazers are now looking encroach on more territory that was previously occupied by the dictator.

At the Elite 16 in Nairobi, the Blazers will be looking to book a ticket to the Basketball Africa League, where the Oilers twice represented Uganda.

The tournament is scheduled to tip off Tuesday and run up to Sunday at the Kasarani Indoor Gymnasium.

To the team that won one and lost one in Tanzania, the Balzers have added American point guard James Jovan Mooring and Senegalese center Sidy Muhammed Djitte.

Mooring played college basketball at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, South Suburban College, and Lamar State College before embarking on his professional career that includes stints in Georgia, North Macedonia, and the NBA G League with Santa Cruz Warriors.

He also comes into the team with BAL experience, having played for South Africa’s MBB Basketball Club.

Djitte also played college basketball at Clemson University and went on to have pro stints in Australia and Croatia.

He will give the Blazers crucial paint presence. Bereal Jackson Ray, who played a big part in the first round, also returns to finish what he started.

Also in the team is Tonny Drileba, who could only take up coaching duties in the first round due to a nagging injury.

With that quality and experience, the Blazers will fancy their chances of making their BAL dream come true.

Stephen Nyeko’s troups find themselves in the same pool with hosts Nairobi City Thunder, who featured at the BAL for the first time.

The other team in the pool is South Africa’s Johannesburg Giants. Only the finalists will qualify for Africa’s premier club competition.

Dar City (Tanzania), Matero Magic (Zambia), Ferroviario da Beira (Mozambique), and Brave Hearts (Malawi) form Group B.

For starters, the Ugandan champions will have to be in the top two to qualify for the semifinals, from which the two winners will book their BAL tickets.

Namuwongo Blazers team

Jimmy Enabu, Tonny Drileba, Joel Lukoji Banza, James Okello, Arthur Wanyoto, Ivan Muhwezi, Innocent Ochera, Moses Mugisha, Peter Obleng, Anthony Chukwurah, Jayson Bereal Jr., Jovan James Mooring, Sidy Djitte, Muhumuza Mutumwa.

The People’s Front for Freedom (PFF) party has declared a Besigye Prayer Week as it marks one year since the arrest of its leader, Dr Kizza Besigye, and his co-accused, Mr Obeid Lutale, in Kenya.

Addressing journalists at the party headquarters in Kampala yesterday, acting party president Erias Lukwago called upon all peace-loving Ugandans to join in praying for the veteran opposition figure and all political prisoners.

‘We call upon all peace-loving Ugandans-not only members of PFF-that in all your prayers, private and public, remember Dr. Besigye and other political prisoners. We kindly ask all of you, especially the candidates in our campaign rallies, to begin with a prayer for Dr Besigye and all political prisoners,’ Mr Lukwago said.

He added: ‘This request is not only for our candidates but also for all comrades in various political formations who are seeking regime change.’ Despite the hardships, he said he was grateful that the duo is still alive. Mr Lukwago urged candidates to prioritise the issue of freeing political prisoners in their campaigns, noting that ‘everything begins with our freedom, and any of us can fall victim.’

Dr Besigye and his aide Obeid Lutale have been on remand in Luzira since their arrest from Riverside Apartments in Nairobi, Kenya, on November 16, 2024. Mr Lukwago recounted the long and exhausting struggle to secure justice and freedom for their leader, describing the past year as one filled with repeated court frustrations and numerous rejected bail applications, often with what he termed unreasonable justification from judicial officers.

‘That’s how frustrating the legal battle has been for us. In a nutshell, for this one year that Dr Besigye and Lutale have been in prison, there hasn’t been even a single court order in our favour. Not even one intervention from agencies mandated to protect human rights-whether the Uganda Human Rights Commission, Parliament, or any state or non-state body. Nothing,’ he said.

‘Nothing has come to the rescue of Dr Besigye and Obeid Lutale,’ he added. Mr Lukwago further noted that the process has been marred by shocking incidents, including the arrest and detention of their colleague, lawyer Aaron Kizza, by the court martial.

Try putting yourself in Bill Gates’s shoes. You could spend your days on what made you one of the world’s richest people while also deploying your wealth to do the most good.

You could invest in for-profit ventures pursuing things like clean-energy breakthroughs, or in effecting changes in policy. And to mark your 70th birthday, you could publish an essay that would become a global news story. Gates has done it all.

His essay, ‘Three Tough Truths About Climate,’ sent a shockwave through the climate movement on the eve of this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Belém, Brazil.

But the essay is less blueprint than the Rorschach test, because anyone can selectively quote from its 5,000 words to support a wide variety of viewpoints.

Like many such documents, this one begins with a strawman. In a move more typical of the Breakthrough Institute, a California-based group founded on the premise that environmentalism harms the climate cause, Gates rejects the ‘doomsday’ argument that ‘nothing matters more than limiting the temperature rise.’

Little does, but Gates chose to go with ‘nothing,’ a much stronger word. He then argues that climate change, though a ‘serious’ problem, ‘will not be the end of civilisation.’ But supercharged storms and other climate-driven disasters are already upending lives and livelihoods.

Of the five recorded storms severe enough to warrant the proposed ‘category 6’ classification, all have happened in the past 15 years. Moreover, we are not dealing only with massive, headline-grabbing extremes and global tipping points (irreversible planetary changes).

There are also the pernicious, often hidden ‘slow burn’ effects, like the 0.04 percent loss in annual payroll for one additional day above 32°C (90°F) in any given year. Such costs add up quickly.

To point out that we can still live with average global warming below 3°C is hardly reassuring, especially for the poor and vulnerable who already suffer the most. Gates’s reasoning on this socioeconomic dimension is understandable.

His second and third tough truths focus on human suffering and prosperity, and these are indeed the criteria against which climate progress should be measured.

Annual greenhouse-gas emissions, their atmospheric concentrations, the resulting warming, and effects like rising seas and more devastating storms are all ultimately proxies for lives that will be disrupted or even ended prematurely.

Climate change kills. Economists can now calculate the mortality cost of carbon. Each tonne of CO2 emitted today kills around 0.0002 people. Again, such costs can add up quickly. The lifetime emissions generated by every 3.5 Americans today will kill one person by the end of the century.

True, many people already die from other preventable causes. Gates himself has called out US President Donald Trump’s administration for cutting aid funding in ways that will kill children in some of the poorest parts of the world.

In an effort to make up for some of the shortfall with his own foundation and personal wealth, Gates has reduced his giving for climate programmes and investments, both in the US and globally. No one doubts that there are only so many philanthropic dollars to go around.

But climate finance goes well beyond charity, as Gates shows by his own actions. His own total public health and climate funding have increased over time.

‘Funding,’ in this case, includes support for Breakthrough Energy (which has no relation to the Institute), which has invested in more than 150 companies that need help scaling up climate technologies by driving down the ‘green premium’ (the added costs of low-carbon technologies relative to high-carbon ones that pay nothing for their negative externalities).

Reducing this premium is necessary for many early-stage startups that have yet to climb the learning curve and benefit from economies of scale. Fortunately, there are plenty of other climate technologies that are already in the money. Solar power’s rapid growth over the past half-decade is the result of economics, not benevolence.

The same goes for battery prices, which have fallen by about 50 percent since 2010. While other low-carbon technologies still command a green premium, most are trending toward profitability. Still, we need creative thinking to help them get there.

Co-production helps. A company focused on a single product might lose against incumbents, but spreading the green premium across two or more products can cut costs significantly.

The Gates-funded company Brimstone, for example, focuses both on producing lower-carbon cement and on making money from the alumina extracted in the production process.

Sublime, a rival cement startup, is pursuing a similar strategy. (I recently co-authored a study with Brimstone’s CEO, Cody Finke, and a half-dozen colleagues, including an employee of another Gates-funded venture, on precisely this point.)

Patience helps, too. Back when Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney was the governor of the Bank of England, he poignantly described the climate as a ‘tragedy of the horizon.’

Too many businesses feel compelled to focus on short-term earnings, just as political leaders are unable to think beyond election cycles.

But some of Gates’s climate investments, like those in the next-generation nuclear company TerraPower, and especially his investments in Commonwealth Fusion, are deliberately structured to yield returns years or even decades from now.

Supportive policies help, such as the explicit carbon prices and decarbonisation targets in the European Union, or the subsidies that are more prominent in the US.

The key, in each case, is to provide long-term investment certainty. This is an area where Gates’s essay is especially weak.

While Gates fully recognises the importance of policy, he has created an opening for those, like Trump, who put their personal, short-term gain first. But make no mistake: the benefits of shifting away from fossil fuels far outweigh the costs. Gates clearly understands that.

Clean energy is about sovereignty, energy security, equity, and, yes, future competitiveness. Ending reliance on oil, coal, and gas, and embracing technologies that will only become better and cheaper over time, is not just smart climate policy.

It is the best way to improve economic competitiveness and human prosperity for decades to come. Gernot Wagner is a climate economist at Columbia Business School.

Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces (UPDF), working jointly with the Regional Immigration Office in Mbarara District on Monday handed over five Congolese soldiers to the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC).

The five are said to have fled the battle field following a raid by the M23 militia group.

The repatriation of Sgt. Kabangu Nsingi Jeancy, 33; Cpl. Bloende Botelu Enoch, 35; Pte. Nkonyi Ngumu Mbuya, 26; Pte. Musungu Malu Beni, 22; and Pte. Bakomba Mupepe Exauce, 20, took place at Kasindi, in Eastern DRC, a few meters from Lhubiriha at the Uganda-DRC border point of Mpwondwe.

The group had reportedly fled ongoing intensified fighting around the city of Goma in Eastern DR Congo before trekking to the Ugandan border.

They were intercepted by UPDF in the Mukongolo area before being transferred to Buhoma Police for identity verification and screening.

A security source familiar with the investigation said the soldiers were part of a larger group reportedly captured and disarmed during recent clashes.

‘These five managed to escape and walked more than 80 kilometers toward the Ugandan border before they were arrested by Ugandan soldiers at the Mukongolo army detach,’ the source noted.

Local officials in Kanungu District also confirmed the circumstances under which they were detained.

‘They escaped from M23 rebels and crossed towards Mukongolo on the Uganda-DRC border. When they reached Buhoma, the entry point to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, security picked them up and took them to Buhoma Police Post for screening. Once it was established that they were soldiers, they were handed over to the Ugandan government for proper management,’ an official who preferred to anonymous said.

According to Maj Kiconco Tabaro, the public information officer for the UPDF 2nd Infantry Division, Uganda hosted the soldiers in line with International Humanitarian Law and regional protocols governing the treatment of foreign military personnel who enter another state.

‘Since July this year, we have hosted the five soldiers, in accordance with the principles of humane treatment. By the time they were handed over, they were in good health. They did not apply for asylum and voluntarily chose to return home,’ Maj. Tabaro said.

During the handover ceremony, the Commander of the UPDF Mountain Division, Maj. Gen Stephen Mugerwa, highlighted the strong and growing cooperation between Uganda and the DR Congo.

‘UPDF and FARDC continue to work closely as reliable partners in maintaining peace and stability across the region,’ he said.

Maj. Gen Mugerwa added that the gesture demonstrates Uganda’s Pan-African spirit and commitment to regional solidarity, noting that it aligns with cooperation frameworks under the East African Community and wider continental security arrangements.

Ugandan authorities confirmed that all required legal and administrative procedures were followed to ensure the soldiers’ safe and orderly repatriation.

Receiving the soldiers on behalf of the DRC government, Maj. Gen. Éveriste Somo Kakule, Military Governor of North Kivu Province, commended the UPDF for the humane treatment extended to FARDC personnel.