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Skirmishes between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and The Uganda People's Defence Forces (UDFP) are continuing following the killing of more than 80 civilians by members of the rebel group in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and southern Sudan over the Christmas holidays.

According to reports, LRA rebels killed 45 people, mostly women and children, in a church in the Doroma province of DRC last Friday. Witnesses reported LRA rebels using machetes, swords and clubs to kill people who had taken refuge in the church following fighting in the surrounding areas.

The massacre followed earlier bloodshed last Wednesday and Thursday, where 43 civilians were reported murdered by LRA rebels in the DRC and southern Sudan.

New Vision reported yesterday that the UDFP claimed it had killed 13 rebel fighters and seized ammunition in an ambush and that the rebels were being driven back from civilian areas.

Government forces have been fighting the LRA in the north of Uganda for more than 20 years. The fighting has spilled over into Sudan and DRC. The rebel group has become notorious for human rights abuses including the killing and maiming of civilians and the abduction and recruitment of children as soldiers and sex slaves.

LRA leader Joseph Kony is currently wanted by The International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape and enlistment of children through abduction.
Uganda police perceived as corrupt

Some 80% of Ugandans believe the police force is the most corrupt institution in Uganda, according to a new survey into national perceptions of public services.

The 2008 Inspectorate of Government National Integrity Survey also showed that 79% of people named the judiciary service as Uganda's second most corrupt public service with Uganda's revenue authority, district service commissions and public pension service following close behind.

Uganda's National Water and Sewerage Corporation was named in the survey as the most honest public institution, followed by the inspector general of government and national NGOs.

The survey also showed that 70% of people consider bribery the most common form of corruption, followed by favouritism. It also found that the majority of respondents were afraid to report cases of corruption to the relevant authorities, reported Afrol News website.

Commenting on the results of the survey, first deputy prime minister Eriya Kategaya said: "People don't know that they have a right to demand services from the government. Do they even understand how the government should run?"
World Food Programme boost for Uganda

The World Food Programme (WFP) will spend $100m (around 190bn Ugandan shillings) on buying food for its distribution programmes directly from Ugandan farmers in 2009.

The WFP has relaxed its policy of only buying food in 2,000 metric tonnes and above in an effort to help Ugandan farmers fight poverty, said Stanlake Samkange, the WFP representative in Uganda last week.

The WFP is already the biggest buyer of grain in Uganda and last year bought more than $55m worth of cereals to feed displaced refugees in the Great Lakes region.

The decision to start trading with small producers and local farmers is part of a wider WFP drive to start buying more produce locally in an attempt to bypass problems encountered throughout 2008 with its food deliveries to some of the world's poorest people.

Samkange said the $100m would mean a major boost to grain trade in Uganda. However, the WFP says it will continue buying cereals and grain from South Africa and India to supplement its programmes in Uganda as the country's food production was still too low to meet WFP programme needs.

TAIPEI -- Taiwan's government expects negotiations with Beijing to enable as many as a dozen Taiwanese banks to begin operating next year in China, offering a new but potentially risky opportunity for one of Asia's largest banking industries, the island's chief financial regulator said in an interview.

Sean Chen, chairman of Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission, said Monday that talks with China are proceeding toward an expected agreement sometime in the first half of 2009 on liberalizing banking ties between the two long-time rivals. Those talks are part of a broader detente under Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, who took office in May, that has already seen the end of a decades-old ban on direct air travel and shipping across the Taiwan Strait.

A deal would give Taiwan's lenders access to a market they have long coveted -- although at a time when China's economy is slowing sharply from the double-digit growth it has enjoyed in recent years. Although Taiwanese companies are among China's top foreign investors, its banks have been barred by restrictions on both sides from serving the Chinese operations of their corporate clients -- losing that business to Chinese and foreign lenders.

Mr. Chen, who started his current role this month after a long career in government and banking, acknowledged the delay. "It is better late than never," he said.

He also warned that Taiwan's banks need to exercise caution about the China market. "We don't want our banks take [going to China] as a 'fashion,'" said the 59-year-old regulator. Taiwan's banks "mustn't blindly follow the opportunities," but rather should decide whether they have the capacity to do business and manage the credit risks in China, he said.

Chinese officials couldn't be reached for comment Monday night. But Beijing has unveiled a string of policies in recent months designed to strengthen economic and business ties with Taiwan. The two sides split amid civil war in 1949, but Beijing claims Taiwan as part of its territory.

Mr. Chen declined to say whether Taiwan will reciprocate by allowing Chinese banks to set up operations in Taiwan in the near future. But he did say that Taiwan "will consider Chinese banks as the same as other foreign banks."

Taiwan boasts Asia's fourth-largest sector by assets, but the market is highly fragmented, with more than 40 banks operating island-wide and hundreds of community lenders to serve the population of 23 million people. Since at least 2000, the island's banks have consistently posted average return on assets below 1%, a relatively weak reading.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — A suicide bomber pretending to need help with his car killed 26 people in northwest Pakistan on Sunday, officials said, underscoring concerns that militant violence near the Afghan border could escalate now that Pakistan is shifting troops away from the region toward India.

The explosion at a polling station also wounded 15 people in Buner, a district bordering Swat, a valley where Pakistan's army has waged a stop-start offensive against insurgents for more than a year, police official Beharmand Khan said. The building targeted was a school, where voters were casting ballots in a by-election for a National Assembly seat.

"The suicide attacker pulled his car outside the polling station, and asked people to push the vehicle, saying that it had broken down. His purpose was to gather the maximum people around the car. The moment people started pushing the car, he blew it up," said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the information minister of the North West Frontier Province.

He said the attack was a message to the world that: "It is not possible to hold a peaceful election in this country."

Sunday's bombing followed reports that Pakistan's army has restricted military leave and was redeploying thousands of troops away from the northwest — where many al-Qaida and Taliban militants are based — toward the eastern border with India amid tensions over last month's attacks in Mumbai.

India blames Pakistani militants for the slaughter of 164 people in its commercial capital, and it has not ruled out force. But leaders of both nuclear-armed countries insist they want to avoid what would be their fourth war.

Leading Pakistani newspapers warned in editorials Sunday that Pakistan is taking a huge gamble if it lets the deteriorating relations with India distract it from battling militants in the northwest, where it also is engaged in an offensive in the lawless tribal belt.