Uganda

Jordan Wilson, Pulitzer Student Fellow

Jordan Wilson, Pulitzer Student Fellow

Jordan Wilson, Pulitzer Center Fellow

Jordan Wilson, Pulitzer Student Fellow

ELDORET -- It's been a rather topsy-turvy two years for internally displaced persons in Kenya. After being violently removed from their homes in the waning days of 2007 due to post-election violence, hundreds of thousands have called patches of grass and makeshift tents home ever since. A recent, almost-too-late promise of compensation from the government didn't help repair the situation, as most IDPs never saw a shilling and hostility between the Kenyan people and their government is still brewing.

Jordan Wilson, Pulitzer Student Fellow

Alex Amend, Pulitzer Center

Today in the Washington Post Pulitzer Center grantee Sharon Schmickle reports on a serious wheat rust epidemic in Africa, the first in 50 years.

William H. Freivogel, director of the School of Journalism at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and a professor at the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, returned to East Africa this month. The following is the fourth of his five posts from the field.

See the Kampala group's report of the visit in The Ivory Post.

Africa's Lake Victoria, the world's largest tropical lake, is shrinking. As its waters subside, battles over the lake's resources increase.

Bill Freivogel, for the Pulitzer Center
Murchison Falls, Uganda

After spilling a Pepsi on myself on the first leg of the trip, I got lucky and was bumped up to first class for the Amsterdam to Kampala leg - 5,000 miles.  They had champagne ready for me when I sat down, a wonderful lunch and another snack just before landing and even a couple of trinkets to remember them by.

Bill Freivogel, for the Pulitzer Center
Kampala, Uganda

After half a day talking to Ugandan journalists who face death threats and government intimidation I found myself advising them that they should form an independent journalists' organization and to resist the government created licensing board. I did admit that this advice might be easier given than carried out.