Authorities in South Sudan have shut down three independent media outlets in the past five days.

According to news reports and the outlets’ editors, Arabic daily Al Rai, English daily The Citizen, Free Voice South Sudan were all closed on orders of security agents. The Voice of America, which shares premises with the Free Voice, was also forced to close down, but Hildebrand Bijleveld, the programs director for Free Voice, told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) the outlet was in compliance with the law and had done nothing to ‘concern the government’.

Free Voice, which was raided on Tuesday, August 4, produces radio programs including the serial drama “Sawa Shabaab” (“Youth Together”) and “Na’eesh Mabath” (“Living Together”), a radio series about traditions and contemporary conflict-resolution mechanisms.

Following a split between South Sudan President Gen Salva Kiir nd his former deputy Riek Machar, several thousand people have been or displaced, prompting the international community to intervene through the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, IGAD, to force the two SPLM/A gurus to sign a peace deal and, according to journalists, this has led the government to crack down on the media.

“The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the closures, which come as international mediators seek to arrive at a peace deal between the government and the armed opposition following months of civil war,” a release by CPJ states.

Tom Rhodes, the CPJ east Africa Representative urged the government to reopen the media outlets, even when no reason for closure or timeline for reopening was given by the government.

“South Sudan’s press has been constrained since this conflict began.

Now authorities seem to be ratcheting up the pressure,” Rhodes said, adding: “We call on the government in Juba to reopen these news outlets and allow all journalists to freely carry out their duties.”

For the Citizen that was closed on Monday, it Chief Editor Nhial Bol said he was accused of ‘promoting the opposition’ and that his staff were ordered to stop printing ‘until further notice’.

According to Bol, he covered a recent conference ‘of 16 allied opposition parties’ and wrote an Editorial, comparing the current political crisis in South Sudan to that in Somalia. According to Bol, the shutdown of the outlets contradicts South Sudanese media laws as well as the Constitution, which protects press freedom.

Meanwhile, earlier on Saturday security forces had ordered the Arabic daily Al-Rai to shut down, accusing one of the paper’s board members of joining rebel forces in Nairobi, the paper’s chief editor, Michael Wazir, told CPJ.

Wazir said that the board member had traveled to Nairobi to visit family members and said the paper’s staff was trying to negotiate with the authorities about resuming publications.

Calls to Paul Jacob, the government’s director of public information, and Ateny Wek Ateny, government spokesman, were not answered, the CPJ release states.

In a related development, the CPJ says South Sudan officials have targeted the press throughout the conflict, and that at least five journalists have been ‘killed in direct relation to their work in South Sudan this year’.

The CPJ also says that journalists have turned to self-censorship, to avoid harassment and closures and the Chief Editor of the English daily Nation Mirror Wol Deng Atak told the CPJ that in February, national security agents raided his publication, accusing it of publishing “anti-government articles.

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Refund of bride, Uganda’s Supreme Court has ruled that the practice of refunding a bride price, or dowry, on the dissolution of a customary marriage is unconstitutional and should be banned.

The judges said it suggested that women were in a market place, and infringed on their right to divorce.

But they rejected the argument that the bride price itself was unconstitutional.

Campaigners said that the dowry turns a woman into the husband’s property.

Should a marriage end in Uganda, the wife had been expected to refund the bride price – often paid in livestock.

But it was argued that as women tend to have less wealth than their husbands, many became trapped in unhappy relationships.

There was a gasp in the court-room when the first justice ruled against the refunding of the bride price.

This is being seen by those behind the case as a major step in chipping away at a tradition that is detrimental to women.

But as most of the judges acknowledged many Ugandans support the idea of a bride price, which they do not see as a commercial transaction.

The women’s rights organisation Mifumi, which brought the case, welcomed the ruling, despite not getting everything it campaigned for.

“This is a momentous occasion… and this ruling will aid the fight against women and girls’ rights abuses,” spokesperson Evelyn Schiller told the BBC outside the court.

Mifumi said that bride price encouraged domestic violence and could lead a man to think that he had paid for his wife’s “sexual and reproductive capacity”.

Six of the seven judges said that the direct link between the bride price and domestic violence had not been proved.

However, they did say that using the phrase “bride price” was wrong as it made it look like the woman was purchased.

The only dissenting opinion came from Justice Esther Kisakye, who said that while the constitution supports culture “it [only] validates customs that respect the rights of all Ugandans”.

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Relatives of those missing on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have vented anger at apparent mixed signals over whether part of the plane has been found.

Malaysian PM Najib Razak said experts in France had “conclusively confirmed” the wing part found on an island in the Indian Ocean was from the aircraft.

But French investigators stopped short of confirming the link, only saying it was highly likely.

Chinese relatives staged a protest outside the airline’s Beijing offices.

The Boeing 777 was travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on 8 March 2014 when it vanished from radar. It had 239 people on board, most of them Chinese.

Debris found on the remote French island of Reunion a week ago – a wing part known as a flaperon – was the first possible physical trace of the aircraft.

Experts in the French city of Toulouse resumed their tests on the object on Thursday.

In another development, the Malaysian transport minister said more plane debris had been found on Reunion, including window panes and seat cushions.

Liow Tiong Lai said the items had been sent to French authorities to be verified.

He also said elements of the flaperon, including the paint colour, matched with maintenance records for the missing flight.

The lack of unity over whether parts of MH370 had been found has angered many of the families of those missing.

• Malaysian PM: “Experts have conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris found on Reunion Island is indeed from MH370.”
• Malaysia Airlines: “This is indeed a major breakthrough for us.”
• French investigators: “There exists a very high probability that the flaperon indeed belongs to Flight MH370.”
• Australian PM: Debris “does seem to indicate the plane did come down more or less where we thought it did”.
• Australian search team: “It is heartening that the discovery of the flaperon is consistent with our search area.”

“Why the hell do you have one confirm and one not?” asked Sara Weeks of Christchurch, New Zealand, whose brother Paul Weeks was on board the flight.

“Why not wait and get everybody on the same page so the families don’t need to go through this turmoil?”

Many of the Chinese relatives have consistently questioned the official view that the plane crashed.

Some gathered in Beijing on Thursday to demand further answers.

“I don’t believe this latest information about the plane, they have been lying to us from the beginning,” Zhang Yongli, whose daughter was on board, told AFP news agency.

“I know my daughter is out there, but they won’t tell us the truth.”

Liu Kun, whose younger brother was on the plane, said: “Find the people for us. We suspect that the plane wreckage could be faked.”

Mr Najib’s announcement came after the first day of tests on the flaperon in Toulouse.

He said investigators had “conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris found on Reunion Island is indeed from MH370”.

French prosecutor Serge Mackowiak said only there were “very strong indications” this was the case, and that confirmation would only come after further tests.

The BBC’s Hugh Schofield in Paris said Mr Mackowiak’s caution did not suggest he had doubts, but that he was exercising legal caution.

Australia, which is leading the search for the plane in the southern Indian Ocean, would only say that it remained confident it was searching in the right area.

Australian Transport Minister Warren Truss said Malaysia, which is in charge of the overall investigation, had the right to express its view.

“We respect the view that they believe they have sufficient evidence to make a categorical statement of that nature,” he said.

“The French inquiry, of course, has not been quite so conclusive.”

‘Respect decision’

Mr Liow said he understood why the French team had been less categorical.

“We respect their decision to continue with their verification,” he said.

“For the Malaysian team, the technical report and maintenance report that we have matched with the flaperon… the expert team strongly feel and confirm that it is MH370.”

Meanwhile, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the search for the body of the plane would continue as “we owe it to the hundreds of millions of people who use our skies”.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has been co-ordinating the deep-sea hunt in the southern Indian Ocean, where the plane is believed to have gone down, thousands of miles east of Reunion.

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President Barack Obama called out Dartmouth fellow Jamila Mayanja from a crowd of hundreds of young African leaders at a summit for the president’s Washington Mandela Fellowship program Monday, sharing a laugh with the Ugandan entrepreneur.

Mayanja was at Dartmouth for the month of July as one of 25 fellows from the Young African Leaders Initiative, an Obama administration program that brings some 500 innovators from across Africa to develop business, leadership, and networking skills at U.S. colleges and businesses.

When Obama recognized Mayanja for her work founding a socially conscious business, a cheer went up from the crowd. Mayanja jumped to her feet smiling, hands on hips, and greeted the president.

“Are you posing?” the president said to laughter. “She’s posing,” he said, mimicking her stance. “Jamila is not a fashion model. She started a door-to-door laundry company to employ Ugandan youth and teach them entrepreneurial skills.”

“She hopes to take what she learned during her time at Dartmouth University to meet her goal of getting 1,000 youth to work in or run their own business, so we’re proud to be your partner,” the president said.

“I can’t describe that moment,” Mayanja said. “It was amazing for me to have him recognize the work we are doing and also for our partners back home to see that our work is making a difference.”

She said the event was the culmination of an exceptional experience developing her leadership and entrepreneurial skills in the Dartmouth program led by the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding.

“I benefitted very much from the training in design thinking, business development, and leadership skills at Dartmouth, which I will take back to Uganda and share,” she said.

She said the workshops by Rich Nadworny ’82 in the DEN Innovation Center and New Venture Incubator were invaluable for her thinking about her business, and she noted that Nadworny, director of entrepreneurship and innovation for the Dartmouth YALI program, took time to work with her to think about how to share new ideas with the Ugandan youth she works with.

“I made many friends in the community there,” Mayanja said. “I left Dartmouth with a very big family.”

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US President Barack Obama celebrated his 54^th birthday August 4, with visit to prominent Washington DC off-the-counter-eatery, the Luxury Rose.

Obama, the son of an African father Hussein Barack Obama Senior and white mother Ann Dunham, was born Honolulu, Hawaii in 1961.

Obama and his wife Michelle are blessed with two teenage daughters, Sasha and Malia, and tweeting on her handle, Michelle wished her ‘favourite dance partner’ a happy birthday, while former President Bill Clinton was jocular in his birthday comment to the 44^th President of the United States of America.

Happy birthday@POTUS! Hopefully when @FLOTUS isn’t looking you can have some cake. #44 turns 54, Clinton wrote, in reference to Obama’s US presidential lineage and age, respectively.

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Students at Makerere University have threatened to go on strike if the non-teaching staff continue with their industrial action which started on Monday, August 3.

On Monday the non-teaching staff under their umbrella body Public Universities Non-teaching Staff Executive Forum (PUNTSEF) declared a sit down, faulting government for failure to increase their salaries.

The students argue that strike by the non-teaching staff is negatively impacting on their studies as they are unable to access services at the university. Currently, there are students who remain at the University Recess’ but are unable to access their faculties because they are locked.

Even the Main Library which has always been open for students to do their reading and research is also closed and Makerere University Guild President David Bala Bwiruka said that if the government has not resolved the striking non-teaching staff issues by the end of this week, the students will be left with no option but to join the strike.

“We are thinking that government will act very fast to intervene in order to put the situation to order because the strike is having a very negative impact on the operation of the universities,” Bwiruka noted.

He added that the that university is now supposed to be handling a number of student issues like clearance of missing results and issuing of admission forms to fresh students, is non-functional.

“We are calling upon government to act very fast to rescue the situation; but if no solution is provided, we will be joining the strike at a point that we are not receiving the services that we pay for,” Bwiruka said.

When Eagle online spoke to the Minister of State in charge of Higher Education Prof. Sandy Steven Tickodri Togboa, he could not comment, saying he is out of the country.

Also, efforts to reach the education minister Jessica Alupo were futile as she could neither pick nor return our calls.

However, earlier on she had said that government is aware that the support staff had asked for enhancement of their salaries but that the Ministry was financially constrained.

She also asked them not lay down their tools and be patient with government up to the next financial year.

But the PUNTSEF Secretary General Bruce Tweisgye says the staff will not return to work until government meets their demands as stated in a petition that was handed to the Speaker of Parliament.

On Monday, support staff at all the seven public universities went on strike, demanding that their salaries be increased just like the teaching staff.

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The first post-Independence Ugandan Minister of Foreign Affairs Sam Odaka is dead.

Odaka, 83, died of kidney failure at 2 am on Wednesday, August 5 while undergoing treatment at the International Hospital, Kampala.

In his political life Odaka also served as Minister of Planning and Economic Development, and was also the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Milton Obote Foundation (MOF), the financial arm of the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC).

He was also instrumental in organizing for the first papal visit to Africa, honoured by Pope Paul VI.

Two years ago, Odaka underwent a successful operation in South Africa and on his return he was put under monitoring by a team of health experts from Mulago Hospital.

Meanwhile, by the time of posting this story, the family was embroiled a bitter fight as to where the deceased former Minister would be buried.

One of the family members who spoke to EagleOnline but asked to remain anonymous  said Odaka’s wife had insisted the deceased be buried in her home area of Bulemezi in Luwero, while Odaka’s family  from Busia are demanding that he be buried at his country home in Lumino.

The two sides failed to agree and the Odaka family has opted to seek a court injunction till the matter is resolved.

“There is a disagreement within the family and we are trying to resolve it. We are trying to secure a court injunction so that he is buried in Busia,” said one of Odaka’s family members from Busia.

Bank of Uganda Governor, Emmanuel Mutebile who closely worked under Sam Odaka in the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development said Odaka can only be summed up as an “excellent man”

 Profile

First post Independence Foreign Affairs Minister until 1971 military coup.

After coup went to exile in Tanzania with others

Came back after the collapse of Idi Amin reign and joined private business and reorganizing MoF.

In 1981 elections, won elections as Member of Parliament Jinja Municipality West.

Named Minister of Planning and Economic Development in 198.

After 1985 coup, Odaka retired into private business and named Chairman of MoF in Obote’s absence until 2012 when he was replaced by Ignatius Barungi.

Below is Mr Peter Walubiri’s description of Odaka.

Sam Odaka was one of the pillars of the Uganda Peoples’ Congress (UPC) party and was one of those who could see through any difficult situation.  He was among a few UPC Members of Parliament who opposed the Daudi Ochieng motion.

However, during that time, Odaka saw through an attempt to throw out the government through illegal means and stood his group and opposed the motion and now we know it wasn’t a motion but an aim by opposition and Mengo to grab power.

As chairman of Milton Obote Foundation (MoF), through the hard times of 1980s and 1990s Odaka fought hard attempts by three Attorney Generals to take over the property of MoF.

He was among those who held the party together and I know he was party to a small group that advised the party leadership in Lusaka Zambia to form Presidential Policy Commission (PPC) in Obote’s absence.

He was party of the reconciliation groups that brought together the party and this could be seen when Cecile Ogwal, Patrick Mwondha Dick Nyai, Okullo Epak and Ben Wacha returned to the main stream and it is through initiatives like those that we were able to have National Organising Committee (NOC) under for party mobilization and mass registration of members before parties where allowed to operate.

He was critical for thinking and preserving the party but more so, very social but also very principled  and such is the man we all miss day. He is a man who believed in unity of the country and the congress.

Mr Walubiri is the chairman of board of trusts of Milton Obote Foundation and Former Secretary of the UPC.

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