Kampala  - A Ugandan court has sentenced a government official to 28 years in prison after finding him guilty of embezzling money from the Global Fund for TB, Malaria and AIDS, the national press reported Thursday.

The high court judge found the 51-year old director for economic monitoring in the Internal Security Organization (ISO), Teddy Seezi Cheeye, guilty of embezzlement and forgery involving an equivalent of 50,000 dollars.

Kampala - Uganda on Wednesday denied accusations by an American human rights group that its recent offensive against rebels in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo had left innocent civilians unprotected.

Human Rights Watch says that no thought was given to the protection of civilians during the three-month offensive mounted by Ugandan, Sudanese and Congolese forces against the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in DR Congo's north-eastern Garamba National Park.

Kampala - Thousands of bodies of the victims of the 1994 Rwandan genocide which floated downriver and were eventually buried in mass graves in southern Uganda will be exhumed and re-buried Tuesday, reports said Saturday.

Up to 20,000 bodies floated down the Kagera River from northern Rwanda and were picked up along the western shores of Lake Victoria at the height of the Rwandan genocide. Now they will be exhumed and re-buried in a ceremony, the Kampala-based Central Broadcasting Service (CBS) radio quoted Rwandan diplomats as saying.

Kampala  - A Ugandan official said Friday that the country will not bow to international pressure to ease its laws against homosexuals, but that it will instead make such laws even tougher.

Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo also told a news conference that the East African state has instructed its ambassador at the United Nations to oppose any countries that may try to force it to legalize gay activities.

Kampala - Hundreds of Ugandan traders in southern Sudan are being held hostage by soldiers picketing over long delays in the payment of their wages, the Ugandan press said Saturday.

At least 1000 Ugandan vehicles are stranded along the roads from the border points to southern Sudan's capital Juba after being barred from moving by Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) soldiers, the government newspaper, The New Vision reported.

The daily reported that the soldiers were demanding seven months in salary arrears.

Kampala  - Uganda said Friday that it is being hit by the global economic crisis and has lost an equivalent of 90 million US dollars in direct foreign investment since the financial slump began.

"The global economic crisis is drastically affecting developing countries and we are getting affected because we are part of the global village," Aston Kajara, deputy finance minister in charge of investment told reporters.