tagged w/ Kampala
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The anti-gay legislation investigated in Vanguard's "Missionaries of Hate" is stalled in committee and, according to local gay activists in the country, unlikely to pass during this current parliamentary session.
Correspondent Mariana van Zeller said she was taken aback by the fervor surrounding the anti-gay movement, especially at one of Pastor Ssempa’s inflammatory church rallies.
"One of the shocking experiences that we had [in Uganda] was being in this congregation, with children, old women, and there he was with his laptop, showing these very graphic images of gay porn," Mariana said. [Watch more commentary with Mariana.] "You could see the faces of the congregation. They were completely shocked. And this is what they are taking home with them."
The anti-gay legislation investigated in Vanguard's "Missionaries of... more
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Gorillas fight for survival
By VBS.TV staff
July 22, 2010 2:57 p.m. EDT
Editor's note: The staff at CNN.com has recently been intrigued by the journalism of VICE, an independent media company and website based in Brooklyn, New York. VBS.TV is Vice's broadband television network. The reports, which are produced solely by VICE, reflect a transparent approach to journalism, where viewers are taken along on every step of the reporting process. We believe this unique reporting approach is worthy of sharing with our CNN.com readers.
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Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, Uganda (VBS.TV) --
Uganda has crept back into our consciousness lately with synchronized bomb attacks that took the lives of 76 people in the nation's capital Kampala during the World Cup festivities.
When we were last in Kampala, we set out to learn more about the desperate fight for the survival of mountain gorillas.
With a dwindling population of 700, they have been victims of poaching, disease, war, civil unrest, slaughter and displacement.
Under pressure from rebel factions in Uganda and the DRC who massacred gorillas because the conservationists were "getting on their nerves," our guide tracks the remaining apes -- by armpit stench and dung -- to keep tabs on their health.
We traveled to the remote jungle area known as Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in the southwestern part of Uganda, bordering with Rwanda and the DRC, areas plagued with dictatorships, genocide and decades of civil and national wars.
Ten years earlier, eight park visitors had been abducted and then murdered by a group of Rwandan armed rebels in an effort to destabilize the region.
The drive from Kampala was harrowing. Our driver sped and swerved obsessively, overtaking anyone in his path despite on-coming traffic.
We witnessed three traffic accidents, two fatalities and an adventurous couple having sex in the middle of a dark mountain road after midnight.
With four guards armed with machetes and rifles, two advance gorilla trackers, and our guide Levi we ventured into the dense tropical rainforest that is home to roughly half of the 700 remaining mountain gorillas in the world.
Here we encountered the gentle beasts and found out more about their plight.
See more of this fascinating story at VBS.TVGorillas fight for survival
By VBS.TV staff
July 22, 2010 2:57 p.m. EDT... more
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Vanguard correpondent Christof Putzel reported from Somalia in 2006 and followed the desperate flight of Somali refugees across the Gulf of Aden in 2008. His most recent documentary, American Jihadi is on Current TV now.
A Somali militant group's claim that it carried out the devastating attack on a popular restaurant in Uganda during the World Cup final triggered widespread fear of a new and frightening threat to innocents in Africa and beyond. The slaughter on Sunday of at least 76 people who had gathered to watch the game on television in Kampala, Uganda's capital, appears to be the first terrorist strike outside Somalia by Al-Shabaab, a militant Islamic group allied with Al Qaeda.
Al-Shabaab has earned a reputation inside its own country for ruthless determination to seize the strife-torn failed state whose weak, supposedly transitional government is clinging to control of the Somali capital of Mogadishu. Its quest, thanks in part to successful recruiting of Muslims in the West, is often described as a jihad, or holy war. I recently profiled a young American for Vanguard, raised as a Christian in Alabama, who is now a leader in Al-Shabaab and an effective Internet propagandist rallying disenchanted young Muslims in the West to come join the cause.
Kampala is, in once sense, an obvious place for Al-Shabaab to strike, because Uganda is the largest contributor of troops to the African's Union's peacekeeping force that shores its principal target, the existing government in Mogadishu. But the coordinated double bombing also serves as a warning to other African nations--and the West as well--that Al-Shabaab's ambitions are growing.
When I was in Mogadishu four years ago, Al-Shabaab was a ragtag band of youths acting as the military arm of the Islamic Court Union, an Islamic coalition that brought momentary calm to the chaos in Somalia. In nearly two decades of disastrous corruption and disruption inside Somalia, hundreds of thousands of Somalis have fled to new communities around the world, including sizable populations in Toronto, Minnesota and elsewhere in North America.
But Al-Shabaab has drawn hundreds of foreign recruits to join its cause its war to establish Islamic rule. They have certainly established their cred among disenchanted exiles, but what has been a recruiting ground could also be a cover for planting cells of homegrown terrorists managed by Al-Shabaab.Vanguard correpondent Christof Putzel reported from Somalia in 2006 and followed the... more
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Bombers Kill at Least 50 (Including Foreigners) in Attacks in Uganda Capital
By JOSH KRON
Published: July 11, 2010
KAMPALA, Uganda — At least three bombs exploded Sunday in a synchronized attack on large gatherings of World Cup soccer fans watching the televised final on outdoor screens in this normally peaceful capital, turning a boisterous night of cheering into scenes of death and panic. The police and witnesses said more than 50 people were killed including some foreigners, among them at least one American.
Marc Hofer/Associated Press
Photo: A man attended to an injured woman after a bomb went off in a restaurant in Kampala’s Kabalagala district on Sunday.
People carried an injured man at the Mulago Hospital in Kampala on Sunday.
The bombs struck at 10:30 p.m. local time in the middle of the match between Spain and the Netherlands under way in South Africa, hitting a popular Ethiopian garden restaurant and a large rugby field in a different Kampala neighborhood where hundreds of people had massed to watch the game.
Ugandan police officials said they suspected that the Shabab, a militant Islamic group in nearby Somalia, might have been behind the bombings. If so, it would be that group’s first attack outside Somalia. But the police said it was premature to draw conclusions.
“We can’t rule anything out,” said Kale Kayihura, Uganda’s police inspector general, at the scene of one of the attacks. “This was obviously terrorism, from the way it was targeted at World Cup watchers in public places.”
Joan Lockard, a spokeswoman at the American Embassy in Kampala, confirmed that at least one American was killed. She did not identify the victim.
Local journalists at a major hospital said an unidentified number of American citizens were among the wounded.
The Shabab group, one of the more fearsome militias vying for power in Somalia, bans music, dancing and sports, has links to Al Qaeda and has repeatedly threatened targets in Uganda as well as in Burundi because both countries contribute to the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia, a lawless nation in the Horn of Africa.
The police said other suspects were former rebels in the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo with connections to Uganda.
The Ugandan capital is relatively safe and relaxed compared with other big cities in Africa, and such bombings are extremely rare. But the city turned tense and fearful early on Monday, as military vehicles and ambulances screeched through the streets and Kampala’s bars and discos emptied.
At the Ethiopian restaurant that was attacked, an outdoor cafe with lawn tables known as the Ethiopian Village, soldiers and onlookers watched side by side as rescue crews extracted the dead and the wounded from the wreckage. The police said the bomb appeared to have been placed under a dining table where a group of foreigners, including some Americans, had been sitting.
At least 15 people were killed in that blast, police officials witnesses said.
“It was so loud,” said a woman named Mami, one of the owners of the restaurant, which had become popular with soccer fans because it showed the games on an outdoor screen. “I am so confused. My God. My God. My God.”
At the rugby field where fans had gone to watch the final game on a large screen, police and witnesses said they counted at least 44 bodies. Lines of chairs had been blown apart. One middle-aged woman sat dead, her head hung back, blood dripping.
“We were just watching football when the two bombs went off,” said Brian Bomakech, a Ugandan fan at the field. “So many people were hurt, so many people have died.”
In Mogadishu, the Somalian capital, Sheik Yusuf Sheik Issa, a Shabab commander, was quoted by The Associated Press early Monday as saying he was happy with the attacks in Uganda. The sheik refused to confirm or deny any responsibility by the Shabab.
“Uganda is one of our enemies,” The A.P. quoted him as saying. “Whatever makes them cry, makes us happy. May Allah’s anger be upon those who are against us.”
The bombings came two days after another Shabab commander, Sheik Muktar Robow, called during Friday Prayer in Somalia for militants to attack sites in Uganda and Burundi.
In Washington, a White House spokesman, Tommy Vietor, said late Sunday that the United States was prepared to provide assistance to Uganda.
“The president is deeply saddened by the loss of life resulting from these deplorable and cowardly attacks, and sends his condolences to the people of Uganda and the loved ones of those who have been killed or injured,” he said.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/07/12/world/12uganda1/12uganda1-hpMedium.jpgBombers Kill at Least 50 (Including Foreigners) in Attacks in Uganda Capital
By JOSH... more
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Man on the street interviews in Kampala
A few kids playing football here in Kampala
Love the old Chinese bikes in Uganda. (Women aren't supposed to ride solo as it will take virginity.)
Birds in Uganda are the size of a 6th grade bully. And they'll steal your lunch too.
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Read more about Mariana's trip to Uganda and the anti-gay legislation currently being debated there.
Follow Vanguard's Mariana van Zeller (@MarianaVZ), Darren Foster@fineyoungman) and Alex Simmons (@a_simmons) at Current's Twitter list.
Man on the street interviews in Kampala
A few kids playing football here in... more
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Vanguard producer Darren Foster writes from Uganda:
fineyoungman: Our fixer saw our #Vanguard Chinatown, Africa piece and now points out every Chinese project in Kampala. Love it.
Watch the episode—in which Mariana van Zeller goes to Angola to learn more about Chinese and Angolan communities brought together by new construction projects—below.
Follow the Vanguard team using our Twitter list.
Vanguard producer Darren Foster writes from Uganda:
fineyoungman:... more
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shana
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Before you can get the story, you have to get to the story.
Vanguard's Mariana van Zeller (@MarianaVZ), Darren Foster (@fineyoungman) and Alex Simmons (@a_simmons) traveled from Los Angeles to Kampala, Uganda this weekend.
Their trip in Twitters:
fineyoungman: Frantic preparations b4 6 week reporting odyssey w/ @MarianaVZ. Africa->Middle East->Europe->Africa & back. Follow here for updates
fineyoungman: There is an angel at the Nigerian embassy and her name is Martha. #you'resocool
MarianaVZ: After 1 wk snowed in at Nigerian embassy, missing 1st flight out and getting lost at LAX, welcome home passport. Now let's go to Uganda!
fineyoungman: A very cute airport moment. http://twitpic.com/131lp6
a_simmons: @fineyoungman Meet you at the top of the Burj Khalifa.
a_simmons: Just a quick 16 hours in the air and I'll be in Dubai.
a_simmons: The Air Emirates flight attendants have half their faces covered with a veil. They are both modern AND traditional all at once. Like Dubai!
a_simmons: The Emirates personal media system is awesome.
fineyoungman: Love me a good sports doc. More Than A Game, abt LeBron James+ teammates growing up in Akron was a nice treat on UA flight to Dulles.
a_simmons: Just landed in Dubai, as you can see by Runway-Cam. http://twitpic.com/138483
fineyoungman: Reunited with @a_simmons and @MarianaVZ at Dubai airport. In 8 hrs we're off to Uganda. http://twitpic.com/139hzy
fineyoungman: In Dubai International Time Warp. Much like a Vegas casino no idea what time it is, everything is open and lots of ways to spend money
a_simmons: No Egg McMuffins!? @fineyoungman http://twitpic.com/13bivr
fineyoungman: Morning call to prayer at Dubai airport...
a_simmons: Emirates is quickly becoming my favorite airline. http://twitpic.com/13cbe1
fineyoungman: Emirates flight 723 to Entebbe, Uganda (via Addis Ababa) w/ @MarianaVZ + @a_simmons http://twitpic.com/13cc5i
fineyoungman: Got a nice suprise gift in the mail for the Uganda trip. Anyone know this book? http://twitpic.com/13cgzr
a_simmons: We are in Africa and open for business.
fineyoungman: KAMPALA, Uganda-Great 1st day of shooting w/ @MarianaVZ +@a_simmons for next #Vanguard. Hoping to get photos up when connection improves
Follow the Vanguard team on Twitter.
Before you can get the story, you have to get to the story.
Vanguard's Mariana... more
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One of the continent's biggest stars, East African musician Jose chameleone, shows us the other side of Africa as he takes us on a tour of his home-town of Kampala, Uganda.One of the continent's biggest stars, East African musician Jose chameleone,... more
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Prostitutes knock out their clients by smearing sedatives like chloroform on their breasts. They then encourage the unsuspecting clients to lick their breasts and in the process pass out, after which they are robbed.Prostitutes knock out their clients by smearing sedatives like chloroform on their... more
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Residents of Uganda's capital, Kampala, have expressed shock at the arrest of two men believed to have been passing off dog meat as goat.
The BBC's Joshua Mmali says dog meat is not eaten in Uganda and the subject has dominated radio discussion programmes. Hundreds of people went to the police station where the suspects were being held to express their anger, Uganda's state-run New Vision paper reports. One of the suspects told the paper he had not intended to sell the meat.
"This is my home dog which I have been rearing. I killed it on demand of my spirits who directed me to offer its body parts to them," he was quoted as saying. The men were caught with the carcass of the dog, which had had its head and tail cut off.
"We are investigating information that the suspects own a butchery in one of the city suburbs where they sell such meat," Inspector Bernard Otim told New Vision.
Residents of Uganda's capital, Kampala, have expressed shock at the arrest of two... more
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