More than 50,000 people in cities around the United States walked and slept in solidarity with the "night commuters" of northern Uganda on Saturday night. Reports from the various sites are still coming in, but news sources across the country are reporting on the historic event. At each event, people wrote letters to President Bush and their U.S. Senators calling for high-level U.S. engagement to help end this war. Check out two reports of events at Kentucky's WKYT and The Chicago Tribune.

Tomorrow, more than 50,000 people across the United States will participate in the Global Night Commute to call on U.S. leaders to make peace in northern Uganda a priority. This will be a historic day, and if you haven't already, sign up now!

Coinciding with the GNC, there are numerous articles about northern Uganda in local newspapers across the country. Read one in The Badger Herald and The Columbia Missourian.

A former child soldier and sex slave for a Ugandan terrorist group was lauded by members of Congress yesterday for surviving her ordeal to tell her story 10 years later before the House of Representative international relations subcommittee. "It is truly a testament to you that you are so remarkably poised and strong," Rep. Christopher H. Smith, New Jersey Republican, told Grace Akallo, 26. More than 80 people crammed into a House hearing room to hear her. She asked the United States to pressure Uganda to do more to end a civil war that has engulfed northern Uganda, southern Sudan and the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and to mobilize the international community. Read more at The Washington Times.

United Nations peacekeepers are investigating reports that Ugandan soldiers crossed into neighboring DR Congo in pursuit of rebels on Wednesday and clashed with Congolese troops, a U.N. spokesman said on Thursday. Security sources in Kinshasa said Ugandan soldiers clashed with the Congolese army near the town of Aba, in the remote northeastern frontier with Uganda and Sudan. The Ugandan army has roundly denied the claims. Reports of UPDF fighting come a week after Uganda's Defence Minister Amama Mbabazi proposed to the UN Security Council last Wednesday that his troops be allowed to enter Congo to pursue the rebels. Read more at The Monitor.

Uganda-CAN student-activists at the University of Notre Dame organized a mock trial Tuesday in which world leaders were put on trial for failed responsibility to address the 20-year-old crisis in northern Uganda. Leaders put on trial included Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, U.S. President Bush and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. More than 50 people turned out to hear the cases against these world leaders. In conclusion, the group called on everyone to take responsibility to end this war: "Take the steps to make 2006 the historic year as the last for the crisis in northern Uganda."Read more at the Notre Dame Observer.

Foreign ministers from nations in Africa's Great Lakes region met Friday and called for the United Nations and African Union to place sanctions on leaders of rebel groups destabilizing the area, including leaders of the LRA. Many of the rebel groups, including some LRA rebels, are hiding in the DR Congo's eastern region and threatening to upset efforts to end almost a decade of civil war and lawlessness there. Read more at Reuters AlertNet.

A documentary on northern Uganda titled Uganda Rising, produced by Canadians, will make its world premiere in Toronto, Canada on 28 April to 7 May 2006. "We are thrilled that Uganda Rising was selected to premiere at this renowned international festival [Hot Docs]," the film's producer Alison Lawton said. The film includes an interview with President Yoweri Museveni as well as human rights experts and foreign policy experts like Ms Betty Bigombe, the chief peace negotiator between the government and the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels. Read more at African News Dimension.

Next Wednesday, Capitol Hill will host both a press conference and hearing on northern Uganda. At 11:30 in the Cannon House Office Building Terrace, Rep. Chris Smith (NJ) and World Vision's Rory Anderson will speak about the crisis. At 2:00 in Room 2200 of the Rayburn Building, the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations will hold a hearing on the suffering of children in northern Uganda. Witnesses will include Defense Minister Amama Mbabazi and Grace Akello, former abducted child soldier of the LRA.

On April 29th, Invisible Children is sponsoring a Global Night Commute in 130 U.S. cities. Similar to the GuluWalks of last October, these "night commutes" will have people from all across the country walking and sleeping outside in solidarity with the children of northern Uganda. Click here to join what we hope will be a historic day!

Since hearing two weeks ago about potential cuts in USAID funding to northern Uganda, Uganda-CAN has made inquiries. From our investigation, we recognize that the Office of Foreign Development Assistance (OFDA) has expertise and quick reaction when responding to crisis areas around the world. Yet, we believe OFDA can, with the will of the U.S. Congress, increase its response to the crisis in northern Uganda. At this time, it is unclear what OFDA funding is available for northern Uganda is the 2006 fiscal year. We urge Ambassador Randall L. Tobias of USAID to make the crisis in northern Uganda a priority, appoint at least one full-time OFDA representative for Uganda and allocate greater financial resources to save lives and end this crisis.

Today, Security Council Report, an independent NGO based at Columbia University, published an Update Report on Uganda.

The report notes the increased momentum for Security Council action on the LRA crisis, citing specific calls for the establishment of a Panel of Experts to determine the sources of LRA support as well as for the UN forces in Democratic Republic of the Congo and southern Sudan to arrest LRA leaders.

The report comes ahead of today's planned briefings of the Security Council by Uganda's Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense, as well as the expected release of a report on the matter by Secretary General Kofi Annan on April 24th. No immediate Council decisions are expected, but the humanitarian crisis, the security threats presented by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), the cross border regional aspects and the implications for UN Peacekeeping Operations in neighbouring Sudan and DRC, will all receive increased attention and discussion at the UN in coming weeks. Click here to view the report on the UN website.

The Foreign Minister for Uganda will brief the UN Security Council on the situation in northern Uganda tomorrow morning. Uganda-CAN hopes the Security Council will take steps to play an effective role in ending the misery in northern Uganda.

Uganda-CAN invites you to read the US State Department's February 2005 Report to Congress regarding the ongoing conflict in northern Uganda. The report, mandated by the Congressional Northern Uganda Crisis Response Act of 2004, discusses the reasons for continued fighting between the LRA and the Ugandan government and also discusses the responses of the Ugandan government and international community to the humanitarian crisis in IDP camps in northern Uganda. Click here to read the entire report.

The Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) of USAID is planning to cut funding for northern Uganda by as much as 50 percent for the rest of 2006. This is troubling news, and Uganda-CAN urges OFDA to reconsider. The twenty-year-old war in northern Uganda has not only led to the displacement of 1.7 million people, but current reports show a mortality rate of over 1,000 war-related deaths per week.

You can urge OFDA to reconsider too. Write a letter to Ambassador Randall L. Tobias, Administrator, United States Agency for International Development, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20523 today and urge him to stop these cuts.

Last Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 416-3 to pass HR 3127, the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act. The bill calls for the U.S. President to appoint a Presidential envoy to the region to address the crises in Sudan and northern Uganda. It further calls for sanctions to be placed on the Government of Sudan until it cuts off ties with rebel groups, such as the Lord's Resistance Army. This bill is certainly not perfect, but it creates momentum for U.S. leadership in the region to support peace.

Rosalind Hackett, distinguished professor and northern Uganda advocate at the University of Tennessee, has written a powerful article about the growing media attention to the war. Read the article published by the University of Chicago Martin Marty Center.

The Anglican Bishop of the Northern Uganda Diocese has made a heart-felt plea to the international community to take immediate action in the hope of finally bringing to an end the violent conflict that has plagued the region for the last twenty years to an end. Bishop Onono-Onweng told Ecumenical News International: "I do not want to lament, but I want the international community to realise that we are part of global humanity with rights to life, peace education, culture and wealth." Read more at Christianity Today.

Earlier this week UN Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland sat down with IRIN and discussed the war and humanitarian crisis in northern Uganda. Egeland said, "Nowhere is there such a concentrated area where many people are being terrorised for such a long period of time" and called on the Ugandan government and international community to invest more resources and political will in improving conditions in IDP camps, ending the war, and rebuilding areas affected by the conflict. Read the entire interview at IRIN.

In a visit to the region last week, Jan Egeland, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, described the situation in northern Uganda as the worst form of terrorism. "This is the worst type of terrorism," Egeland said. "It is unacceptable, intolerable and has to change." Read more at African News Dimension.

Jan Egeland, the UN under-secretary for humanitarian affairs and long-time advocate for increased international attention to northern Uganda, said Saturday that the UN should appoint a special envoy to northern Uganda to bolster efforts to end the two-decade-long war and humanitarian crisis in displaced person's camps. Egeland, speaking from an IDP camp in Pader district during a tour of northern Uganda, said, "Many countries should try to help on the political and military efforts, and an envoy would help to facilitate and coordinate that work."

Egeland also asked the UN Security Council to appoint a panel of experts to investigate the LRA's activities and supporters. Read more at Reuters AlertNet.