Health & Environ

Before 1986, Acholiland was well endowed with vegetation, and the people used it judiciously without causing any large-scale deforestation. However, in the last 50 years, especially during the 20-year war (1986-2006) between the National Resistance Army (NRA) led by Yoweri Museveni and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) led by Joseph Kony, some military officers began to exploit the pristine forests for lucrative charcoal and timber businesses ... 

Climatic change is not a hoax as peddled by conspiracy theorists. We now know that it is caused by natural as well as human activities, with devastating effects on both living and non-living things. To combat the fast-developing adverse effects of climatic change, various actions including the establishment of international treaties, and conventions have been taken. Similarly, international and national agencies have been created to implement resulting policies on  climatic change. 

I was touched by an article about two cancer patients, published in the November second 2022, Daily Nation, Nairobi, Kenya, titled, “Waiting to die: The pain of being a poor cancer patient”. I am a cancer patient myself that is why the story resonated with me. Though our cancers are different, one of the two patients in the story and I were diagnosed at about the same time in November 2021. 

The recent pronouncements about a plan to conduct feasibility studies on the defunct Jonglei Canal Project by the South Sudanese Vice President for Infrastructure. H.E. Taban Deng Gai, with the backing of South Sudan’s Minister for Water Resources and Irrigation, Hon. Manawa Peter Gatkouth, has raised eyebrows and risked opening the old wounds between Sudan and Egypt that were thought to have long been healed and forgotten. 

The year 2021 ended with the loss of some prominent people, one of whom  was Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a significant figure in the struggle against apartheid, who passed on December 26. A note like this will not do justice to his remarkable life. Suffice it to say that he will remain an excellent role model  of humility and moral courage.

President Joe Biden has many challenges to confront in his foreign policy. One of which is the seemingly forgotten United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) that remains unratified by the US, the only major country not to do so. Yet, UNCLOS serves the interests of both sea-every country because what happens in, under and on the sea affects the food, water, and air that every living thing depends on. 

Before the development of a market economy, Ugandans used bags, strings, pots, and baskets made from local materials such as palm leaves, papyrus, banana leaves and fibers, grass, fibrous shrubs (jute and sisal), or clay for packaging, storage, and transporting of goods. Other than baked clay pots, all these materials are biodegradable, and they pose little danger to the environment. However, plastics rapidly replaced most natural fibers because they more convenient, but they pose tremendous threat to the environment.

Almost forgotten in the story about the Coronavirus is the story of AIDS. The drive to deal with it, the search to find medicine to cure it, and the self-discipline by homosexuals only began in 1981, when the disease was discovered, and its causes understood.