Osuta Yusuf

The US government through its treasury department, has imposed sanctions on former Police chief General Edward Kale Kayihura for reportedly engaging in corruption and human rights abuses. In a statement released today 13th September 2019, the US government claims that Kayihura directly supervised the torture of prisoners at the Nalufenya Police Special investigations facility in Jinja. "As the IGP for the UPF, Kayihura led individuals from the UPF's Flying Squad Unit, which has engaged in the inhumane treatment of detainees at the Nalufenya Special Investigations Center (NSIC). Flying Squad Unit members reportedly used sticks and rifle butts to abuse NSIC detainees, and officers at NSIC are accused of having beaten one of the detainees with blunt instruments to the point that he lost consciousness. Detainees also reported that after being subjected to the abuse they were offered significant sums of money if they confessed to their involvement in a crime. " Mr Sigal M...

In yet another letter to Ugandans on the current affairs, President Yoweri Museveni has said that the time has come to apply the concept of an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth as a way of combating the rising criminality in the country. Museveni in his missive says, it is “annoying” that the criminals are operating with impunity due to a colloborating police force and civilian courts. His own nephew, Joshua Rushegyera became a victim of the rising criminality when he got gunned down alongside Merina Tumukunde last week along the Entebbe expressway by what Museveni calls “stupid” “pigs”. Below is Museveni’s latest letter Condolences on the killing of the young Bazukulu Nagirinya and Kitayimbwa by the criminals as the two were at the gate of the former’s residence at 23:49 hours on the night of August 28th, 2019. Also condolences on the murder of Joshua Rushegyera and Tumukunde Merina on the night of 5th of September, 2019 between 22:28 and 23 hours on the Entebbe Expressway. J...

The Kololo-based International Crimes Division of High Court was Wednesday a scene of tension and drama when armed security operatives re-arrested four of the eight people who are suspected of killing the former Deputy Inspector General of Police, Andrew Felix Kaweesi. The four were picked up together with their lawyer, Mr James Mubiru, shortly after being discharged by the Registrar of the International Crimes Division of High Court, Ms Esther Nasambu, following their bail release by Justice Lydia Mugambe. They are Yusuf Nyanzi, Jibril Kalyango, Joshua Kyambadde and Yusuf Mugerwa. Uniformed and plain-clothed security officers closed the main gate of the court premises to block the suspects from leaving. However, the operatives opened the gate when a vehicle attached to the Office of the Director of Prosecution, approached the gate. As the car exited, the suspects who were driving in two vehicles; belonging to Mr Mubiru and another belonging to Mr Godfrey Turyamusiima, a law...

Following the current spate of kidnaps and murders around the country, the rich residents of Muyenga, a suburb of Kampala city have resolved to get guns to protect themselves from such afflictions. The suggestion which was proposed by the area Chairperson LC1 Yasin Omar was seconded by all residents during a village meeting held on Saturday. Those killing Ugandans will not survive our wrath, says UPDF general. The residents said they no longer feel secure and that it is high time they prepared themselves to faceoff with any potential killers. We have been having a lot of assault cases on our people and they no longer feel secure so for the good of their personal security we have resolved that all capable residents get guns. We are ready to make recommendations,” said Mr Omar. Having a private gun in Uganda is legal, those who feel insecure they can get them. And for ladies they can get paper sprays which they can use of perpetrators.” The move comes hot on the heels of the ...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new computer virus associated with the Stealth Falcon state-sponsored cyber espionage group that abuses a built-in component of the Microsoft Windows operating system to stealthily exfiltrate stolen data to attacker-controlled server. Active since 2012, Stealth Falcon is a sophisticated hacking group known for targeting journalists, activists, and dissidents with spyware in the Middle East, primarily in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Dubbed Win32/StealthFalcon, named after the hacking group, the malware communicates and sends collected data to its remote command-and-control (C&C) servers using Windows Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS). BITS is a communication protocol in Windows that takes unused network bandwidth to facilitate asynchronous, prioritized, and throttled transfer of files between machines in the foreground or background, without impacting the network experience. BITS is commonly used by software updaters,...

The US Embassy in Uganda has denied supporting presidential ambitions for Kyadondo East Member of Parliament cum singer, Robert Kyagulanyi also known as Bobi Wine. Responding to a question from journalists in regards reports over the weekend that US Senators Coon Christopher and Chris Van Hollen met Bobi Wine and pledged total support to his presidential ambitions, Malac said they meet everyone in every country they have missions. “In every country around the world we meet with civil society, opposition politicians, members of the ruling party and everyone to understand what is going on in the country and it is no different here in Uganda,”Malac told journalists on Tuesday during the function to release the 2018 report on the work done by the US government in Uganda. “We don’t support any candidates or political parties as the US government.” It was reported that on August 12, 2019, met Malac’s home in Kololo and promised support to his presidential bid and also diplomatic support...

Guards have been deployed to guard Mbale Woman MP Connie Nakayenze Galiwango. The move follows death threats contained in a letter leaflet that was dropped at her residence in Butaleja cell, Masaba ward, in Mbale Municipality. Initial reports indicated that unidentified people dropped a letter at her home on Thursday, demanding Shs 400 million, failure of which, she would be killed. According to the letter, the money was to be sent to a mobile phone number 0780723011 which is registered in the name of Moses Namisi. Elgon Region Police spokesperson John Robert Tukei told journalists that they got instructions from Internal Affairs minister Gen Jeje Odongo to heighten the legislator’s security. However, Nakayenze told URN that she was hesitant on taking up the police officers whom they have deployed because the DPC has refused to return one of the officers who were guarding her previously. She said that she has reported several cases to police with no action, and questions why the...

Facebook has patched two high-severity vulnerabilities in its server application that could have allowed remote attackers to unauthorisedly obtain sensitive information or cause a denial of service just by uploading a maliciously constructed JPEG image file. The vulnerabilities reside in HHVM (HipHop Virtual Machine)—a high-performance, open source virtual machine developed by Facebook for executing programs written in PHP and Hack programming languages. HHVM uses a just-in-time (JIT) compilation approach to achieve superior performance of your Hack and PHP code while maintaining the development flexibility that the PHP language provides. Since the affected HHVM server application is open-source and free, both issues may also impact other websites that use HHVM, including Wikipedia, Box and especially those which allow their users to upload images on the server. Both the vulnerabilities, as listed below, reside due to a possible memory overflow in the GD extension of HHVM when a ...

The Director Public Prosecution (DPP), Mike Chibita has dropped murder charges against State Minister for ICT Aida Nantaba and other suspects who were implicated in the extrajudicial killing of Ronald Ssebulime. According to withdrawal letter addressed to Mukono Chief Magistrates Court, DPP said his office has resolved to discontinue with the murder charges against some of the suspects. “This is to inform you that the DPP has decided to discontinue proceedings against Nantaba Aida Erios PC Opira Ronald, PC Baganza Ronald and PC Cherotich Edward charged of Murder,” DPP wrote Ssebulime was killed on 24 March as he travelled to visit his children at school in Kabimbiri, Mukono district. It is averred that Nantaba suspected him to be an assassin after he made a sudden u turn at Ssinda village, where he stopped to ask the women who always sell food to Nantaba for direction before turning back on Kampala road. Sebulime was later killed by police after had been arrested in Nagojj...

FDC spokesperson Ibrahim Nganda The Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) said it is concerned by President Museveni’s government acute failure to stop the kidnapping and murdering in cold blood of helpless innocent Ugandans. The murder of Mr. Joshua Nteyireho Ruhegyera, 38 and Ms. Tumukunde Merina, 37 on Thursday evening at Entebbe Express way happened exactly one week after the gruesome murder of NGO worker Ms. Maria Nagirinya, 28 and her driver Ronald Kitayimbwa, 35. Addressing press at Najjanankumbi headquarters on Monday, FDC spokesperson Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda listed murdered Ugandans who include the following mobile money agents; Harriet Nalwadda of Zana, Moreen Nakabuubi of Zana, Juliet Nabaasa of Nakulabye and Rebecca Namugenyi of Mukono. Nganda said the excuse Mr. Museveni has been giving for his personal and his government failure to stop the murders has been funding. “This is the excuse he gave in the state of nation address delivered on June 6th 2017.” “…. These g...

Court Prosecution. The late Ugandan musician Moses Ssekibogo aka Mowzey Radio. FILE PHOTO The Trial of a Suspect Accused of Murdering renowned Ugandan singer Moses Ssekibogo alias Mowzey Radio has commenced at a Kampala court. The popular artiste succumbed to injuries sustained during a brawl at the De Bar, a popular entertainment joint in the Ugandan capital in January 2018. And now, Godfrey Wamala alias Troy, who is accused of committing the capital offence, has been paraded in court. He is the gentleman who took my brothers life Mowezey Radio. I know him by face and name he is called Troy. I knew Radio for 10 years, producer David Ebanget, who is the first witness called up, told the court. The court also heard that a frustrated Radio poured beer on some people at the bar, before one Pamela Musimie and another person, only identified as Ategeka, intervened by taking Radio out of the bar. Outside the bar, Wamala allegedly grabbed the singer and beat him...

Uganda’s Telecommunications giant MTN has slashed fees more than a half cut off for sending money on its mobile money network. The new rates that started on Saturday, September 7, 2019, apply to only those sending from MTN to MTN network. In a notice published on it’s social media platforms, the Charges for sending to other networks and withdrawing have not changed. For instance, one sending between 500,001 to 7,000,000 will be charged a uniform fee of 1,500 Shillings. This is down from 2,200 Shillings charged previously while sending 5001 to 500,000 Shillings will be charged between 500 and 1,300 Shillings. New MTN tariffs. MTN chart shows that withdrawing between 500,001 and 1,000,000 Shillings will cost you 13,750 Shillings. This does not include taxes. To withdraw between 4 million and 7 million Shillings, one is charged 52,500. As of June 2018, the number of mobile money transactions increased to 1.3 trillion up from 1.1 trillion in June 2017, according to the Bank of Ugan...

Mr Yoweri Museveni has urged teachers in the country to work devotedly adding that God would reward the teachers who do their work devotedly. He revealed that he and his counterparts benefitted from teachers in the country who were devoted in their services. He strongly cautioned teachers against the practice of pretending to teach when they are not committed to teaching and warned that God sees those who do not deliver as expected. The President made the remarks at St. Lawrence College, London Campus in Maya, Wakiso District immediately he returned from Tanzania on Saturday. The teachers have been on a 3-day conference, the second of its kind, that ran under the theme ‘Quality Teachers Matter.’ He congratulated the teachers who are teaching very well in spite of the challenges they face and urged them to continue in their service of working well adding that things will be better. He described teaching as a passion and blessing from God. Museveni presented awards to the 50 best pe...

The 95 year old man who for 4 decades literally was the cock that mounted all hens in his country dies ... in a foreign hospital on another continent,  in a small island nation whose only resource is the brains of its people and the vision of its leaders! How else could one judge the failure of ones leadership? The man for decades flew back and forth to Singapore for oil changes to keep his old joints from creaking while the healthcare system in his country crumbled under his watch! Now all sorts of hypocrites are going to come out of the woodwork to praise his leadership! He and his family should have seen this day coming and opted out of that last trip but African leaders cannot help themselves! They must die in a foreign hospital ... and be brought home to be embalmed at the local national referral hospitals they turn into mortuaries! There is a time when going home to die surrounded by friends and family is the most dignified thing to do! If people must mourn, let t...

OPINION. 5-September-2019. My question to Ugandans is, must federal law be introduced in Uganda?. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Those that support this regime are blindfolded by so many wrong things. We can do better. We are all passengers in this life and we are on a transit visa and that visa cannot be renewed. Let us do good for what is right for our nation not what is right for an individual. Federal system is the best solution for a troubled nation like Uganda. Some of the benefits of this system is that tax payers will not go into one bucket or account for Museveni to spend. Why would a police man from Busoga police people in Arua? What does he know about the culture of those people than a policeman born and raised in Arua?. A Muganda policeman would not torture a fellow muganda criminal suspect and vise versa, but a muganda policeman would not think twice to clobber a mugisu criminal suspect. #we_inform_the_uninformed #osutayusuf

Uganda’s Minister of Internal Affairs, Abubaker Jeje Odongo (in featured photo) has said the country’s security isn’t as bad as the opposition and social media critics are trying to depict it as a result of what he called a few incidences of kidnap and murder. “Security isn’t bad as it is portrayed; it is continuing to improve. Stop politicising security. Security is a common good. Let us continue ensuring security. We can all make Uganda much safer place to stay in,” Odongo said. The Minister made the remarks today while responding to a question posed by Mityana Municipality MP, Francis Zaake, who tasked Government to explain the recent kidnaps and murder of Ugandans. In response, Odongo said that there is no society that is crime free and the beauty of all governments is to ensure that there is security, adding that the security situation is relatively good. “The apparent situation is social media hype. The social media hype is partly good it increases awareness among citize...

Mozilla has finally enabled the "Enhanced Tracking Protection" feature for all of its web browser users worldwide by default with the official launch of Firefox 69 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. The company enabled the "Enhanced Tracking Protection" setting by default for its browser in June this year, but only for new users who downloaded and installed a fresh copy of Firefox. Remaining users were left with options to either enable the feature manually or wait for the company to activate it for all users. Now, the wait is over. With Firefox 69, Enhanced Tracking Protection will automatically be turned on by default for all users as part of the "Standard" setting in the Firefox browser, blocking known "third-party tracking cookies" and web-based cryptocurrency mining scripts. Firefox 69 By Default Blocks Known Third-Party Tracking Cookies Cookies are created by a web browser when a user loads a specific website, which helps the site...

September 5, 2019: SA consulate, businesses attacked in DRC, Air Tanzania suspends flights Nigeria and Zambia, now its in the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC; that South Africa is under attack. Photos on social media showed that protesters had violently displayed at the premises of the South African embassy in Lubumbashi, capital of the Katanga Province. Police were deployed to disperse the protests. Elsewhere, businesses belonging to South African brands have also been attacked and looted, reports have suggested. The local advocacy group, Lucha, had called for peaceful anti-xenophobia protests. Over in the SADC region, Tanzania’s national carrier, Air Tanzania; announced that it had suspended flights to South Africa over the violent incidents of the last few days. Works Transport and Communication Minister, Isack Kamwelwe, on Thursday said all flights scheduled for South Africa effective Friday had been cancelled till the South African authorities get a grip on safety of f...

Thousands of jubilant Catholic faithful on Wednesday welcomed Pope Francis to Mozambique as he kicked off a three-nation tour of African countries, expected to focus on those hard hit by poverty, conflict and natural disaster. Touching down just after 6:00 pm local time (1600 GMT) Francis was greeted on the tarmac by President Filipe Nyusi, a military band playing the national anthem and a display of traditional dance. The first pope to visit Mozambique since John Paul II in 1988, he was then whisked away in his popemobile, flanked by police bikes as crowds waved signs reading ‘welcome to Mozambique Prophet of reconciliation” and danced in celebration. I hope his visit will bring us effective and long lasting peace. He stood in his popemobile and waved at the thousands of faithfuls who lined up along the fringes of the city’ main streets as he made the five kilometre (three mile) route from the airport to the Nuncio’s residence in the posh Sommerschield suburb, where he will s...

Court Verdict. A South African court has ordered the release of a seized Tanzanian airbus aircraft after over a week of detention at the Johannesburg airport. The court set aside the order to impound the aircraft and ordered further that the first respondents pays costs. The August 24 seizure of the plane followed a court application by a retired farmer to whom the Tanzanian government is to pay a compensation over a land expropriation to the tune of $13 million including interest. Although Tanzania acknowledged the debt and initiated payments, the petitioner’s lawyers confirmed that since 2014, the farmer has not received any payment. The impounding at the time was seen as a major blow for Air Tanzania, after inaugurating its Johannesburg services just two months earlier. Tanzania, like a number of national fliers, have high hopes on the revival of the national airline. A move targeted at transforming the country’s airline as a regional transport hub that is expected to...

The xenophobic attacks in South Africa have attracted reactions from the presidents, celebrities and ordinary citizens all over the country. South Africans and Nigerians are using social media to call each other out over the attacks that have been characterised by looting and violence in the major cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria. In this article, we highlight some of the quotes by prominent leaders that have driven the debate on the latest wave of xenophobia in one of Africa’s biggest economies. There can be no justification for any South African to attack people from other countries. Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa president ‘‘I condemn the violence that has been spreading around a number of our provinces in the strongest terms.’‘ ‘‘There can be no justification for any South African to attack people from other countries.’‘ Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria president ‘‘I am sending a Special Envoy to President Ramaphosa to share our deep concern about the security of Nigeri...

THIS WEEK IN THE IRONIC NEWS: DDS Safe, an online cloud-based data backup system that hundreds of dental practice offices are using to safeguard medical records and other information of their patients from ransomware attacks has been hit with ransomware. Provided by two Wisconsin-based companies, Digital Dental Record and PerCSoft, the backend system of affected medical records retention and backup solutions has probably been hit by Sodinokibi ransomware, also known as Sodin or REvil malware. Though it's not yet clear how attackers managed to compromise the company's infrastructure, the latest ransomware attack is yet another example of successful supply chain attack, crippling computer systems in 400 dental practice offices around the United States this week. According to statements released by both companies, the ransomware virus hit a remote data management software on Monday, August 26, that DDS Safe uses to back up its client data and encrypted files of hundreds of d...

BAGANDA dominate posts in the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), followed by the Banyankole of western Uganda. According to the list which the tax body released yesterday, the Baganda, who live in the central region, hold 490 positions, or 28.6%, while the Banyankole have 255, representing 14.9%. The Basoga come third with 138 posts, the Bakiga with 114, and the Iteso with 112 employees. The Batoro have 97 positions, the Langi, 66, the Banyoro, 60, the Acholi, 59 and Bagisu, 52 positions. The Banyole, Alur, Bagweere and Bakonzo have below 20 posts, while the Bagungu, Baruli, Karimojong, Madi, Jonam, Kumam and Kakwa have fewer than five positions each. Board chairman Ibrahim Kironde Kabanda yesterday handed the list to MPs to counter the allegations that people from the west, from where President Yoweri Museveni hails, take most of the jobs in the organisation. As a result, on Monday, the parliamentary committee on commissions and statutory authorities asked the URA to release the ...

In the wake of data abuse scandals and several instances of malware app being discovered on the Play Store, Google today expanded its bug bounty program to beef up the security of Android apps and Chrome extensions distributed through its platform. The expansion in Google's vulnerability reward program majorly includes two main announcements. First, a new program, dubbed 'Developer Data Protection Reward Program' (DDPRP), wherein Google will reward security researchers and hackers who find "verifiably and unambiguous evidence" of data abuse issues in Android apps, OAuth projects, and Chrome extensions. Second, expanding the scope of its Google Play Security Rewards Program (GPSRP) to include all Android apps from the Google Play Store with over 100 million or more installs, helping affected app developers fix vulnerabilities through responsibly disclosures.' Get Bounty to Find Data-Abusing Android & Chrome Apps The data abuse bug bounty program aims...

“Madam Speaker, I wish to mention that a safe house is a secure place used for intelligence work, all intelligence and security agencies world over operate safe houses...........running safe houses is not peculiar to Uganda but it is a worldwide intelligence practice". Extract from Gen. Tumwine's written statement on the floor of Parliament -  mid August 2019. "What I know is there are safe houses but you (MPs) will not be allowed to go there because the law does not permit you" - Gen. Tumwine - before the Human Rights Committee of Parliament -  late August 2019. In another gamble to remain relevant, Uganda's toothless Parliament is back in arms with the executive over the issue of torture chambers dubbed Safe Houses.  When the matter came to the floor of Parliament a few days ago, the Speaker ordered the parliamentary committee of Human Rights to visit the said Safe Houses.  Instead of moving straight to the alleged locations of the alleged Safe Houses, t...