UGANDA

Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni will allow 7,100 hectares of virgin forest to be farmed for sugarcane, his spokesperson told Reuters on Monday, potentially triggering a repeat of protests that stopped a similar deal in 2007.

A baby mountain gorilla was saved from the hands of illegal smugglers on Sunday in Rwanda. On Sunday night, a female baby mountain gorilla was found in an African jail, curled up on a bed alongside poachers who attempted to smuggle her from the Democratic Republic of Congo into Rwanda, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Rwandan authorities said the poachers had bought it for $15,000.

A mountain gorilla was in the hands of a group of poachers when the rescue occurred.

Ugandan police fired teargas on Wednesday to disperse thousands of supporters of opposition leader Kizza Besigye who had gathered in the town of Masaka in southwest Uganda where he renewed calls for protests against high food and fuel prices.

A baby mountain gorillas was saved from becoming bush meat on Sunday in Rwanda. Sunday night, a female baby mountain gorilla was found in an African jail, curled up on a bed alongside poachers who attempted to smuggle her from the Democratic Republic of Congo into Rwanda, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

Researchers and scientists working in Uganda said on Tuesday that they have unearthed a 20 million-year-old well-preserved fossil skull of an ancient primate in the Karamoja region northeast of Kampala, Uganda.

Ugandan and French scientists have discovered a fossil of a skull of a tree-climbing ape from about 20 million years ago in Uganda's Karamoja region, the team said Tuesday.

UNICEF has established World Breastfeeding Week, which began on Mon., to raise awareness about breastfeeding children, a practice that can reduce deaths in children under five by 13 percent.

An international rights group on Wednesday called on Uganda to stop prosecuting civilians in military courts and to immediately release 341 people under army detention.

The Ugandan High Court has ordered the police to produce a journalist who has been held in an unknown location for 13 days, after a local media watchdog sued security chiefs over his disappearance.

Health officials and researchers from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say the decline shows that the benefits of the vaccine program - established in the 1990s - were larger than expected prior to its start. Chickenpox led to about 105 deaths a year during the pre-vaccine years of 1990 to 1994, researchers say.

The worst drought in 60 years in the Horn of Africa has sparked a severe food crisis and high malnutrition rates, with parts of Kenya and Somalia experiencing pre-famine conditions, according to a United Nations report.

According to a recent study, between 2002 and 2007, the annual average number of chickenpox deaths was the lowest ever reported, with 14 deaths recorded in 2007 and just 13 the year prior, due to a particular vaccine. Chickenpox led to about 105 deaths a year during the pre-vaccine years of 1990 to 1994, researchers say.

With no improvement in the overall food security conditions expected before early 2012, about a million of children in drought-ridden Horn of Africa are at the risk of dying from malnourishment.

Healthy HIV-free people could reduce their risk of getting the infection if they take a daily dose of antiretroviral drugs used to treat it, two groundbreaking studies have found.

The two studies were conducted in Africa among heterosexual couples in Kenya, Uganda and Botswana found that daily drugs for the sexually transmitted disease reduced infection rates by an average of at least 62 percent when compared with placebo.

AIDS drugs designed to treat HIV can also be used to reduce dramatically the risk of infection among heterosexual couples, two studies conducted in Africa showed for the first time on Wednesday.

AIDS drugs designed to treat HIV can also be used to reduce dramatically the risk of infection among heterosexual couples, two studies conducted in Africa showed for the first time on Wednesday.

Two new studies in Africa have found out that, infection with Aids virus can be prevented by daily pills in heterosexual men and women.

A strike in Kampala, Uganda may reflect the growing uneasiness of Africans with having Asian traders in their midst.

A freak lightning in Kiryandongo, Uganda, killed 18 children and one teacher at a primary school, triggering concerns about the death tolls caused by lightning strikes in the African country.