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It is Lenten period for Christians around the world. This is a special preparatory period during which believers are invited to grow and deepen their relationship with God. Among the recommended spiritual practices designed for spiritual growth are prayer, fasting, reflection and meditation. In one of the recent editions of Sunday Monitor, Musaazi Namiti raised contentious knife-edge questions about God’s relevance in human affairs, especially during war and conflict in his article “Wars illustrate how God is irrelevant in human affairs”.

The world has had its share of global tragedy in the past two years. First, was the unexpected appearance of COVID-19 which has now killed more than six million people and left many more with chronic health challenges. Despite the incredible job of creating multiple effective vaccines and treatment drugs by the biomedical experts, the virus seems to have gone into a hide and seek mode by mutating into new variants every time we think we have gotten it under control.

The United Nations Convention on International Mediation Settlement Agreements, also known as “The Singapore Convention on Mediation” is a convention that applies to international settlement agreements resulting from mediation. It sets out a legal framework for the right to invoke the mediation settlement agreements as well as for their enforcement among the member states. The Convention facilitates international trade by using mediation as an alternative and effective method of resolving commercial disputes. The Singapore Convention on Mediation (the Convention) was adopted in December 2018 in Singapore and Uganda was among the first countries to became signatories to the convention on 7^th August 2019. 

The divisions and tensions in some parts of ex-Yugoslavia appear to be boiling up again. The leadership of the Serbian mini-state, Srpska, which comprises 49% of Bosnia’s territory, appears to be challenging the governing entity of Bosnia, founded at the end of the civil wars that raged in ex-Yugoslavia, 1991-2001. In a peculiar compromise, this sliver of Serbian territory was confirmed as part of Bosnia, but with its own self-government at the local level. Twenty-seven years later its hardline leaders are set on joining up with Serbia proper.