Information is Power

IS COMPLIMENTING SOMEONE HARASSMENT?  Growing up, Kinene was a very shy but ‘cute’ boy who liked being around girls but did not really know how to talk to them. As he went through school, this changed, and he became a Casanova who liked to compliment and ‘woo’ girls at every outing. So, it came as  a shock to him last week when he complimented Hajara and she said that he had harassed her. Kinene wants to know what she meant by harassment.   WHAT DOES THE LAW SAY?  Harassment is anything done to a person that makes this person feel intimidated or under pressure. First, it must be unwelcomed by that person. For example, if someone utters threats because you want to hear them then you are not being harassed. However, what we want to look at today, is sexual harassment.    Harassment becomes sexual if a person makes any unwelcome direct or indirect sexual advances towards someone else. These can be either verbal or physical toward another person. For example, i...

Microsoft Follina Vulnerability The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) has cautioned of a new set of spear-phishing attacks exploiting the "Follina" flaw in the Windows operating system to deploy password-stealing malware. Attributing the intrusions to a Russian nation-state group tracked as APT28 (aka Fancy Bear or Sofacy), the agency said the attacks commence with a lure document titled "Nuclear Terrorism A Very Real Threat.rtf" that, when opened, exploits the recently disclosed vulnerability to download and execute a malware called CredoMap. Follina (CVE-2022-30190, CVSS score: 7.8), which concerns a case of remote code execution affecting the Windows Support Diagnostic Tool (MSDT), was addressed by Microsoft on June 14, 2022, as part of its Patch Tuesday updates. According to an independent report published by Malwarebytes, CredoMap is a variant of the .NET-based credential stealer that Google Threat Analysis Group (TAG) divulged last month as...

                   By Mark Zuckerberg. Today we're taking the first step by changing Facebook Pay to become Meta Pay. It'll stay the same easy way to shop, send money, and donate to causes you care about on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and anywhere else you could use Facebook Pay. But beyond the current features, we're working on something new: a wallet for the metaverse that lets you securely manage your identity, what you own, and how you pay. In the future there will be all sorts of digital items you might want to create or buy -- digital clothing, art, videos, music, experiences, virtual events, and more. Proof of ownership will be important, especially if you want to take some of these items with you across different services. Ideally, you should be able to sign into any metaverse experience and everything you've bought should be right there. There's a long way to get there, but this kind of interoperability will delive...

 A drone attack has hit a major Russian oil refinery near the border with Ukraine, the plant’s management said, sending a ball of flame and black smoke billowing into the sky and prompting the suspension of operations. Officials at the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery in Russia’s Rostov region said the first drone attacked at 8:40am (05:40GMT), hitting a crude distillation unit, triggering a blast and ball of fire. The second attack, at 9:23am, targeted crude oil reservoirs at the refinery, the largest supplier of oil products in southern Russia, but caused no fire, according to plant management. No one was reported injured. Russian regions bordering Ukraine have reported attacks and shelling after Moscow sent its troops into its neighbour on February 24 for what it still calls a “special military operation”. The refinery is in southwestern Russia, just 8km (5 miles) from the border with Ukraine. “As a result of terrorist actions from the Western border of the Rostov region, two unmanne...

 Members of the Parliamentary Committee on Trade, Tourism and Industry have commended Bukona Agro Processors Ltd, a local investor in Nwoya district who is processing cassava into fuel. MPs were thrilled that the company is producing ethanol from cassava that will mainly be used in cooking reducing the pressure on forests through charcoal burning and firewood collection. “I am very happy with this kind of investment as an environmentalist because the future they are saving is invaluable. You look at environmental degradation going on by use of charcoal and we now have an alternative energy; this is something we should support strongly,” said Hon. Richard Gafabusa (NRM, Bwamba County). Legislators were also pleased to discover that the investor is making bio-stoves and pressure cookers that use ethanol cooking which they said complements government efforts on wealth creation. The committee visited the company on Saturday, 18 June 2022 during its oversight visit to projects where gov...

To maximize tax collection, Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) has established mechanisms to start collecting Value Added Tax (VAT) from non-resident service provider companies operating in the nation’s economy, including social media giant Facebook.  Collection of VAT from these companies starts July 1, 2022 and will focus on all electronic service providers such as Netflix, Amazon, Uber, and the like. “There's a global forum under the OECD giving us access to 144 countries to share information with. It will tell us who is trading within our economy and is supposed to pay money to our country instead of taking it to another country,” URA commissioner general Mr John Musinguzi told a gathering at the tax-body’s post-budget conference in Kampala. According to him, collection of the said tax had been delayed by lengthy discussions with the target companies. “But we agreed and have finalized- then other levies will follow as time goes on,” Mr Musinguzi noted without necessarily detailing ...

It has been 12 months since Mabirizi passed away and left his property undistributed. In that time, Muvubi has bought 3 new boats, a motorcycle and has married 3 wives. Mabirizi’s children and wife have been living off the mercy of the other relatives but his widow wants to know what to do about Muvubi is wasting their property.  WHAT DOES THE LAW SAY? The law says that no one should deal with the property of a person who has passed away unless they have authority either from the will of the deceased or from a court order allowing them (This can be a probate (when there is a will) or letters of administration (if there is no will)).  However if someone does go ahead and make use of the property of the deceased without a court order, then the law will look at person as committing an illegal act. (This is called intermeddling). On the otherhand, if the person has authority to deal with the property and still misuses the property, this person is now required to also compensate th...