Uganda says Kony 2012 campaign misinforms

Prime Minister of Uganda, Amama Mbabazi

Source: Russia Today
http://rt.com/news/uganda-response-kony-2012-825/

The Ugandan government has launched an online response to the Kony 2012 viral video, seeking to correct “false impressions” created by the film.

Uganda’s Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi released a nine-minute video addressing those who had watched Kony 2012 video and back the subsequent campaign.

He said the fact that Jozeph Kony is a criminal is undeniable – but the film misses a key point.

“The Kony 2012 campaign fails to make one point clear: Joseph Kony is not in Uganda,” Mbabazi stated.

The minister said Kony has not been in the country since 2006, when the national troops forced the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) out of Uganda. He added that the LRA now consists of just a couple hundred fighters, who are based in Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and the Republic of South Sudan.

"Uganda is not in conflict. Uganda is a modern, developing country which enjoys peace, stability and security," Mbabazi assured viewers, inviting anyone who doubts it to come and see for themselves.

He also said that he had sent a personal invitation via Twitter to twenty international celebrities who back the Kony 2012 campaign.

Kony 2012 was created by Invisible Children, an organization aiming to raise awareness about the activities of the LRA in Uganda and to seek the arrest of Kony.

The video has gone viral, getting over 80 million views on YouTube with millions of people reposting it on Facebook and Twitter.

While awareness was definitely raised, the question now is: what was the actual motive behind the video reporting six-year-old events?

Some say simple greed, as skyrocketing YouTube figures resulted in skyrocketing donation figures. Others think big politics and recently-discovered Ugandan oil reserves might be involved.

Last October, the US deployed troops to Uganda to provide military assistance in capturing Kony.

Coincidentally, the mission came after Uganda had announced discovering some 2.5 billion barrels of crude oil.

The troops are still in the region and have no intention of leaving, the US State Department says

Ugandans hold demo against the film Kony 2012

Joseph Kony (file photo)

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/232232.html

Ugandan women pressure groups have condemned the production of a film on militia leader Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), saying it brings back bad memories to the militia’s victims, Press TV reports.

The film Kony 2012, created by the US organization Invisible Children, depicts the atrocities of the LRA in Uganda, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic, and has been distributed worldwide through the YouTube website over the past few months.

Speaking to journalists in the Ugandan capital Kampala on Saturday, the activists said Kony 2012, which has been watched by over 100 million people worldwide, will traumatize LRA survivors.

"The film is demeaning the efforts of civil society organizations in Uganda, which is not true. We have done a lot in helping the war victims to resettle,” the activists said.

Ruth Ojiambo of Isis-Women's International Cross-Cultural Exchange said, “While the idea of this campaign against the LRA leader is welcome, the steam it has created overshadows the real concerns of the sufferers and survivors of this conflict in Uganda.”

Leah Chipepa, the executive director of the organization Akina Mama Wa Africa, said “Uganda [is] peaceful. Therefore, the campaigners of popular video should focus on countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, and South Sudan where Kony and his men still abduct children.”

The 30-minute film has caused an uproar among Kony victims living in northern Uganda, to the extent that the Ugandan police stopped its screening.

Kony, who has been fighting the Ugandan government for over 20 years, was indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in 2005 but has evaded capture.

Man behind ‘Kony 2012’ arrested – for masturbating in public

Jason Russell, co-founder of non-profit Invisible Children and director of "Kony 2012" viral video campaign. (Reuters / Brendan McDermid)

Source: Russia Today
http://rt.com/usa/news/kony-2012-arrested-masturbating-777/

The blonde-haired, blue-eyed, Christian filmmaker behind the Internet’s most recent famous activism campaign, “Kony 2012,” has been arrested. For masturbating. And being drunk. And vandalizing cars. In public. In the morning.

Jason Russell, 33, was arrested Thursday morning by the San Diego Police Department in Southern California and the earliest reports detailing the incident suggest it was one hell of a day already for the Invisible Children co-founder and proclaimed “mastermind” behind the Kony 2012 viral video.Police say he was described as "in his underwear" when the first 911 calls were made.

San Diego Police Department Lieutenant Andrea Brown tells a local NBC affiliate that Russell was found masturbating in public, vandalizing cars and possibly under the influence of an unknown substance at around 11:30 am on Thursday. Authorities detained him at the intersection of Ingraham Street and Riviera Drive in San Diego, only a stone’s throw from the Pacific Ocean.

When the Kony 2012 campaign was released earlier this month, Russell’s activism group, Invisible Children, described him on their website as being the “grand storyteller and dreamer” behind their operation. By Friday afternoon, however, the bio page of the Invisible Children website was unavailable.

Within minutes of the news of his arrest being released on Friday, the group issued a statement. Invisible Children CEO Ben Keesey published an one-paragraph press release, but did not touch on the topic of arrest. Instead, Keesey says, “Jason Russell was unfortunately hospitalized yesterday suffering from exhaustion, dehydration and malnutrition."

"He is now receiving medical care and is focused on getting better. The past two weeks have taken a severe emotional toll on all of us, Jason especially, and that toll manifested itself in an unfortunate incident yesterday," added Russell.

Speaking on behalf of the San Diego PD, Lt. Brown also made an announcment. NBC reports she described Russell as acting “very strange,” but when your charges include public masturbation and auto vandalism a few feet from the shores of the Pacific while stumbling incoherently on a Thursday night, that’s pretty much a given.

"He was no problem for the police department, however, during the evaluation we learned that we probably needed to take care of him," Brown explained to the media. "So officers detained him and transferred him to a local medical facility for further evaluation and treatment."

Answering allegations earlier this month that Invisible Children were profiting off of donations assumed to go towards ousting African warlord Joseph Kony, Russell defended the practices of his charity group by saying that their funds are funneled through an array of different endeavors.

"We're an unorthodox organization," Russell said at the time

Third World children, 'lab rats' for US

Uganda's poor children

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/139852.html

Children of third world countries and nations in transition have become 'laboratory rats' for the US' clinical tests for new drugs, an Indian newspaper says.

Under US' 1997 legislation called the Pediatric Exclusivity Provision, intended to speed up development of new drugs for American kids, the trials were carried out in countries such as Uganda and India, The Times of India reported.

Although the trials carried out in such countries, using their children as laboratory rats, it is not clear if okayed medicines might ever become available there and whether they will be affordable for them.

Dr. Sara Pasquali, a pediatrician at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, whose findings appear in the journal Pediatrics, said that the situation raises ethical concerns.

“The trend that we describe brings up some scientific and ethical problems,” she said.

“Oftentimes, access to a study may be the only access to medical care a family has,” Pasquali added.

Among the 174 such trials the researchers examined, drugs against infectious diseases were most likely to be tested in the developing world, closely followed by heart, allergy and arthritis medications.

“We are now using vulnerable people in vulnerable countries as drug laboratories,” Dr Marcia Angell, another researcher said. “It is all about dollars and cents.”