Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov is expected to meet President Yoweri Museveni ahead of the second Russia-Africa summit scheduled to take place in Addis Ababa between the months of October and November. The two leaders are expected to hold bilateral talks at State House in Entebbe.

Lavrov will visit Ethiopia, Uganda and the Republic of Congo. This is the first time that Lavrov is meeting heads of African states since he became Russian Foreign Minister in 2004.

There has been a cordial working relationship between the two countries. Recently, the government of Uganda contracted a Russian firm, Joint Stock Company Global Security, to install tracking devices in motor vehicles and motorcycles in the country.

The proposal was first introduced by President Museveni in his ten-point security measure in the wake of gun violence in the country that saw several Ugandans killed in 2018. Some of the people that lost their lives included former Arua Municipality MP, Ibrahim Abiriga in 2018 and Police spokesperson, Andrew Felix Kaweesi.

The Russian diplomat visited Egypt yesterday where he met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and his Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry. The trip is also aimed at easing Russia’s diplomatic isolation amid the escalating war in Ukraine.

On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War that began in 2014. The invasion caused Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II, with more than 9.5 million Ukrainians fleeing the country and a third of the population displaced. The invasion also caused global food shortages.

“I’m grateful for the interest the Arab League is paying to the situation in and around Ukraine. We appreciated the balanced, fair, responsible position taken by the Member States and by the League as such. In April we received the Contact group of the Arab League. It was a useful discussion which allowed sides to ask questions and to give answers. We are very open to continue this dialogue with our friends in the Arab League and in other parts of the world, as it were, we have nothing to hide.” he said in Egypt

He blamed the war on countries’ decisions to expand NATO closer to Russian borders in spite of the promises given to the Soviet leadership before the Soviet Union disappeared and, of course, pulling countries of the former Soviet Union, including first of all, Ukraine into NATO.

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The Opposition and the National Resistance Movement (NRM) king pins are in Soroti City canvassing votes for their respective candidates ahead of the upcoming by-election for Soroti East Constituency.

President Yoweri Museveni, Vice President Jessica Alupo, the Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja, the chairman of NRM Electoral Commission Tanga Odoi, Cpt. Mike Mukula and other leaders of the ruling party are today expected to rally support for the NRM flag bearer for the Soroti East constituency, Mr. Herbert Ariko.

Over the weekend, the Vice President rallied the people to embrace government programmes and to support the party candidate.

“After the NRM rallies in Soroti East today, we were hosted at Etop Radio in Soroti. Our discussion centered on development, the by-election, cattle compensation, PDM among others. I also emphasized the importance of peace and unity especially in elections,” Alupo said.

The Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) leadership led by the former presidential candidate Dr. Kizza Besigye and party president Patrick Oboi Amuriat, pitched camp in the area to rally support for Attan Okia Moses who had been representing the constituency till court nullified his election.

The party’s Secretary General Nandala Mafabi earlier today said “The people of Soroti have spoken and are willing to go and vote for Attan Moses on Thursday. NRM is in a panic mood. They are removing National Identification Numbers (NIN) from people. They are using money to pay people at night.”

On May 24th, 2022, the Court of Appeal nullified the election of Attan Moses on grounds that the Electoral Commission failed to conduct free and fair elections. Following his election, a voter petitioned court challenging the annexation and transfer of Opiyai and Aloet wards from Soroti East to Soroti West after the nomination of the candidates.

The voter contended that the annexation led to disenfranchising of over 4,560 voters the right to vote for the leader of their choice.

Court ruled that at the time of voter verification, the people of Opiyai and Aloet wards were verified and confirmed to fall under Soroti East thus the sudden change left voters at a loss and confused as to where they belong and whom to vote for as they were presented with ballot papers of strange candidates than the ones they expected to see and were known to them.

Polling for Member of Parliament shall take place on Thursday 28th July 2022 at all polling stations in Soroti East Constituency.

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The President-General of Democratic Party (DP) Nobert Mao has been vetted as the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs. Mao was appointed to the position following the signing of a working cooperation agreement with the Ruling party, the National resistance Movement (NRM).

Mr. Mao’s appointment was approved by the vetting committee of parliament chaired by the Speaker Anita Among.

Speaking after the vetting process, Moa said he will not resign from his position as the president of DP.

“The constitution of DP and the cooperation agreement are not mutually exclusive. I signed it as the president of the DP and I will continue discharging my duty as the president of DP,” he said.

“I heard voices calling me to step aside. I think the reason is not a cooperation agreement. The reason would be if DP members said I would be too busy and I would listen to it because it is reasonable. The venomous outbursts that I heard shows that many of our members have not internalized the implications of this cooperation agreement.”

Mao is a Ugandan political activist and lawyer. He has been president of the Democratic Party since 2010, three time presidential candidate and he served as the Local Council 5 chairman for Gulu District.

Mao attended Mwiri Primary School in Jinja and briefly went to Wairaka College in Jinja District before attending Namilyango College, a prestigious all-boys boarding high school in Mukono District from 1982 until 1988.

He then attended Makerere University between 1988 until 1991, graduating with a law degree. He served as the president of the Makerere University Students Guild between 1990 and 1991. He went on to obtain the Diploma in Legal Practice from the Law Development Center in 1992. In 2003, Mao was admitted to Yale University, under the Yale World Fellows Program, where he spent one year at the New Haven, Connecticut campus.

From 1992 until 1994, Mao worked as an associate attorney in the offices of Kabugo and Company Advocates, a Kampala-based law firm. Between 1994 and 1996, he worked as a legal counsel for the Legal Aid Project of the Uganda Law Society in their Gulu office.

In 1996, he was elected to the Parliament of Uganda, representing Gulu Municipality. While in parliament, he served on the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee and the Public Accounts Committee. He resigned from Parliament in 2006 and was elected chairman of Gulu District.

Mao is chairman of the East African chapter of the Parliamentary Network on the World Bank and member of its secretariat. Also, he helped found the Great Lakes Parliamentary Forum on Peace (AMANI Forum). He was instrumental in trying to bridge the gap between the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels and the Ugandan government by lobbying for the passage of a general amnesty law aimed at bringing a peaceful resolution to armed conflict in northern Uganda.

He publicly indicated his intention to contest the 2011 Ugandan presidential elections, either as the nominee of his party or if not nominated on the party ticket, as an independent.

He was elected as President of the Democratic Party on 20 February 2010 and ran for President of Uganda in the 2011 general election. The DP faced a lot of challenges that led to a split and deep polarization at the height of the electionHe attracted only a small share of the vote, and President Yoweri Museveni was elected to another term.

Mao and Inter Party Coalition presidential candidates Kizza Besigye and Olara Otunnu, among others, protested the election results in spite of its early approval by international observers and the United States as largely free and fair.

On 21 November 2020, Mao, along with fellow opposition presidential candidates Bobi Wine, Henry Tumukunde, Mugisha Muntu, and Patrick Amuriat Oboi, agreed to form an alliance.

Yesterday, 21st July 2022, Mao was appointed Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs by president Museveni in a move that sparked off debate about his allegiance to the opposition.

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