John Fred Apuli Kamara, the long time Ahmadu Bello University lecturer, 1980-2008, died in Kampala on Monday 22 October 2012 in the early hours of the morning. Kamara as he was to Faculty and Students alike was born on 12 January 1947 in the Toro region of Western Uganda by the slopes of the legendry Mountains of the Moon.

Slums don’t make headlines anymore. In most cities of the world slums have become such routine and part of daily life they don’t count any more.  Some slums are better than others. Others are so bad even its rodent population agree conditions perhaps ought to be better

By the end of this decade, four out of every 10 young graduates are going to come from just two countries: China and India. Projections from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) show far reaching shifts in the balance of graduate numbers, with the rising economies of Asia accelerating ahead of the United States and Western Europe.

Soyinka’s commitment to freedom has been absolute. He staunchly opposed Soviet repression in Eastern Europe. His 1986 Nobel Prize lecture, chided President Reagan for sending troops to Nicaragua. He has nothing but scorn for the claim that African and Asian countries should be judged differently on human rights issues because their cultures are different.

Pretty or plain, heavy or thin, gay or straight, poor or rich I am not writing to you as a black voter, or a woman voter, or as a voter who is over 70 years old and six feet tall. I am writing to you as a representative of this great country -- as an American.

In just a few days it will all be over, and we will know the winner. But following the first of the Presidential debates it was clear that Mitt Romney, who had been almost laughed off the Presidential race by pollsters and ordinary Americans alike, had pulled off a remarkable comeback. Today many agree that this election is going to be one of the tightest in American history. How did this happen? How did Obama loose his considerable early lead?

This lovely country which is your home was once aptly described as a fairy tale by one of the greatest men of the twentieth century. "In Uganda  there is discipline, there is industry, there is peace.  From end to end, it is one beautiful garden." Words of Winston Churchill written more than 100 years ago. But it was the young Duke of Kent, reminding Ugandans fifty years ago,  just how lucky they are. Today as they face present realities Ugandans might be forgiven if their thoughts run back to bygone days.

Uganda sits on the upper lips of a vast pool of water around which prowl two immense pythons. The first is the River Nile which drinks water from the vast pool and runs with it to pour into another vast pool they call the Mediterranean at the far northern tips of the continent. The second python is a rail line that drinks deep from the land itself and runs to empty its gorge by the Indian Ocean for onward transmission overseas. The first python was followed by adventurers who arrived at the big pool in the north and settled down to build Ancient Egypt