As Muammar Qaddafi continues to rage, rage, rage against the inevitable dying of the light, the time has come to assess just how much damage he wrought during his absurdly long rule. I never cease to be amazed by the man’s longevity; just recently, in fact, his name came up in my book research, as […]
Entries Tagged as 'Uganda'
The DDT Equation
June 4th, 2010 · 4 Comments
Yesterday’s post about temperance medals somehow got the Microkhan community meditating upon whether DDT deserves to have its reputation rehabilitated, at least as a malaria fighter. The revisionist stance these days is that the chemical should be used to combat the disease “when no other effective, safe and affordable alternatives are locally available.” That doesn’t […]
Tags:DDT·malaria·public health·Uganda
To Russia, With Relief
April 19th, 2010 · 2 Comments
We’re never able to resist a story that involves marauding monkeys, and so the latest news out of Bugala Island couldn’t help but catch our eyes. As palm-oil production has expanded on Bugala, red-tailed monkeys have steadily lost habitat. The crafty primates, in return, have taken to ravaging the palms, seeing as how their older […]
The Red Menace
February 23rd, 2010 · 6 Comments
It took over half-a-year, but the Wired piece that brought us out to Kenya last fall is finally live. It’s the tale of a wheat-killing fungus called Ug99, which is currently sweeping across Central Asia. The pathogen is remarkable because it can easily overcomes the genetic defenses created by the Green Revolution. As a result, […]
Tags:Afghanistan·agriculture·famine·Kenya·Ug99·Uganda·wheat·Wired
Permission Slips…for Failure?
October 26th, 2009 · Comments Off on Permission Slips…for Failure?
Pity the poor children of Jinja, who have lost one of the great privileges of the grade-school years: the right to periodically spend a day at the zoo, museum, or box factory in the name of education. The field trip is no longer welcome in Uganda’s second city, having been blamed for declining grades and […]
The Natural Rate of Divorce
May 12th, 2009 · 3 Comments
America’s sky-high divorce rate is often cited as a prime example of our moral decay. But how many other nations avoid such matrimonial chaos only through the maintenance of draconian laws? Microkhan would like to direct your attention toward Uganda, which has recently experienced a surge in divorces. The culprit seems to be the repeal […]
The Migingo Spat
April 24th, 2009 · 2 Comments
To the untrained eye, Migingo Island appears to be no great shakes. It covers just a half-acre’s worth of Lake Victoria, and it’s covered with the tin shacks of fishermen. Yet Kenya and Uganda both covet the ramshackle rock, leading to a border row that threatens to lead to outright war. Ugandan marines overtook the […]
Tags:Africa·British Empire·Kenya·Migingo Island·politics·Uganda