The following two stories appeared on the front page of The New Vision on Friday, March 4. It continues to amaze me how different journalism here is when compared with any First World country.

Man Eats Rat for District: Museveni stunned by Tororo Iteso

An etesot of Molo sub-county in Tororo district stunned crowds including President Yoweri Museveni on Wednesday when he ate a rat to demonstrate the community’s desire to get a separate district.
John Ojimi Omoding of Kapangor parish picked a dead rat from his pocket, put it in his mouth and moved closer to Museveni. “If the Jopadhola claim that they are the indigenous residents of this area, let one of them also pick and eat a rat,” Ojimi told Museveni.
[…]
Museveni said he had been informed that the people in the area were Jopadhola. The crowd protested, saying they were Iteso. Three people, including Omoding, pulled dead rats out of a black polythene bag to demonstrate that they were not Jopadhola.
Omoding said the people in Molo [in Finnish, this place name would mean ‘pecker’] and other sub-counties in Tororo district were predominantly Iteso, contrary to claims by the Jopadhola that the land belonged to them.
[…]
The President had on Tuesday declined to the demands for a district status by Tororo county after the Iteso and the Jopadhola disagreed over which tribe dominated the county.
[…]
Ojimi said they could prove the ownership of the disputed sub-counties by eating what their ancestors used to eat.

(accompanied by pictures of two people holding their rats and one biting his)

Passport Machine Breaks Down

The production of passports has been halted, following the breakdown of the printing system a week ago.
A source in the immigration department said, “There has been no production of passports for one week and the problem might persist for a long time. We have been kept in the dark since there is no official communication to that effect.”
However, another source from the strongroom where passports are printed, said there was a rumour that the spare parts had been sent for from the United Kingdom to have the problem rectified.
“This is just a rumour because no one has come up to tell us the truth,” the source said.
The breakdown follows the transfer of Kato Kahwa, whom staff members said was the only person who underwent technical training in Belarus on how to handle the system.
The source said Kato [Finnish again: ‘dearth, destitution’, common root with ‘disappear’!] was transferred to Entebbe immigration branch.
[…]
The Permanent Secretary Ministry of Internal Affairs, S.P. Kagoda, confirmed the breakdown on phone saying, “It is true but I have no comment about it. But you can come and see for yourself the same way you carried out your investigations."
Kagoda said he was in a meeting and warned that The New Vision must be as brief as possible on the issue.

07:53