ADF

ARMY UNIVERSITY Two Liberian military leaders were inducted into the U.S. Command and General Staff College (CGSC) International Hall of Fame. Liberian Minister of Defense, retired Maj. Gen. Daniel Dee Ziankahn Jr., and Chief of Staff for the Armed Forces of Liberia, Maj. Gen. Prince Charles Johnson III, received the honor during a May 2022 ceremony at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Both men graduated from a one-year program at the college earlier in their careers. Ziankahn, class of 2011, has served as Liberia’s defense minister since 2018. He earned a Master of Military Art and Science degree, and his thesis was…

ADF STAFF The U.S. will provide $14 million per year over the next decade to help rebuild areas of Mozambique affected by terrorism. U.S. Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland announced the funding at a Maputo news conference in June 2022. “This sum will allow the United States government to work on the reconstruction of Cabo Delgado and the rest of the country, and in training young people for employment, and thus discouraging them from being recruited by the terrorists,” Nuland said. Nuland said the U.S. will also send $40 million for food security, particularly in Cabo Delgado.…

UN NEWS A Zimbabwean peacekeeper received one of the United Nations’ top awards in recognition of her work to promote gender equality and protect women in South Sudan. In a May 2022 ceremony, Maj. Winnet Zharare of Zimbabwe was named Military Gender Advocate of the Year. Throughout her 17-month assignment with the U.N. Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), Zharare advocated for gender parity and women’s participation within her own ranks, among local military counterparts and in host communities. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called her “a role model and a trailblazer.”  “Her example shows how we will all gain with more women at the decision-making…

GHANA NAVY The Ghana Navy has launched a paperless system that, it says, will save money, make administrative functions faster and decentralize access to routine orders. It also will let personnel share information person-to-person and between commands with greater ease.  The Integrated Management System was unveiled on July 1, 2022, at the Naval Headquarters.  In a statement, the Ghana Navy said the move was part of the chief of naval staff’s vision to “reduce the over reliance on paper/manual practices with a foremost aim at reducing the cost associated with running paper-based offices and embracing modern technological practices, which permits…

ADF STAFF The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) is prepared to help Liberia with technical support, engineering and training as it seeks to rebuild its Air Force. Air Marshal Oladayo Amao, Nigerian chief of air staff, made a statement during a visit by Liberian Maj. Gen. Prince Charles Johnson III to NAF Headquarters in Abuja. “Whenever you have pilots for further training, rest assured that our training schools are open for them to become full-fledged pilots under the Nigerian Air Force pilots training program,” Amao said. He went on to advise the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) to take advantage of…

ADF STAFF The African Union donated a wide variety of equipment to the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) to support its mission to restore security to the Lake Chad Basin.  The equipment included armored personnel carriers, buses, generators, water trucks, counter-improvised explosive device tools and office equipment. The donation came after a 2021 visit by MNJTF Commander Maj. Gen. Abdul Ibrahim to the AU Logistic Base in Douala, Cameroon, where he identified equipment that would be useful in counterinsurgency operations. The materiel was handed over to Sector 3 of the force in a ceremony on July 12, 2022, at Maimalari…

REUTERS Michael Tetteh, Ghana’s only professional glass blower, clenched his teeth as he gripped a red-hot ball of molten glass, his burned and blistered hands bare against the steaming stack of wet newspapers he used to protect them. The 44-year-old toiled in the heat of scrap-metal kilns burning at nearly 1,500 degrees Celsius, packed with melted windowpanes, TV screens and soda bottles he soon would transform into elaborate vases swirling with psychedelic color. Some become red vases with streaks of black, others green pitchers and some clear, everyday bottles. Tetteh’s strict use of recycled materials, which he collects from scrap…

REUTERS Inventor Iheb Triki was looking for ways to ease the problem of water scarcity in Tunisia when he hit on the idea of replicating the phenomenon of morning dew. Triki is co-founder of Kumulus, a company hoping to manufacture his machine that takes moisture out of the dry desert air. “So what happens?” Triki asked while demonstrating the way his machine works. “We see that the air enters from here and passes through the first air filter to clean it from pollutants; it then goes into the machine to cool down the water, so we replicate dew.” The first…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE In Libya, new Qurans can be hard to find, especially during Ramadan. Volunteers are working to restore older copies of Islam’s holy book. Khaled al-Drebi, one of Libya’s best-known restorers of Qurans, is among the artisans who work in a Tripoli shop to meet the needs of the influx of customers during Ramadan. For Muslims, Ramadan is a month of spirituality, in which a daily dawn-to-dusk fast is accompanied with prayer and acts of charity — often translating into a surge in Quran sales. “The purchase of new Qurans traditionally increases before the month of Ramadan, but this…

The United States and Kenya have launched a strategic trade and investment partnership to pursue commitments to boost economic growth, support African regional economic integration and deepen trade cooperation. The U.S. and Kenyan governments announced the partnership on July 14, 2022, saying they would develop a road map for engagement in areas including agriculture safety and digital trade standards, regulatory practices, and customs procedures. Kenya has long sought a full free trade agreement with the U.S., and negotiations for such a deal to lower bilateral tariffs were launched in 2020. Kenya enjoys substantial duty-free access to the U.S. market through…