ADF

DEFENCEWEB The Tanzania People’s Defence Force (TPDF) is turning heads with the use of the Israeli Gilboa DBR Snake double-barreled assault rifle. The TPDF is the first military known to use such a weapon, according to a report by Janes, an intelligence company.  The Gilboa DBR Snake combines two 5.56 millimeter AR-15-type rifles into a single weapon, fed by two standard magazines. Both barrels fire when the single trigger is pulled. The idea behind the weapon’s construction is to provide a rapid burst of fire to increase hit probability and faster target incapacitation with a single trigger pull. The weapons…

ADF STAFF When the extremist group Ansar al-Sunna began spreading terror in the Cabo Delgado province of northern Mozambique in 2017, its fighters brandished machetes. Today, the insurgents carry assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. Analysts say a major reason for this is extremists have captured equipment from the Mozambican military. Militant groups throughout the continent have armed themselves this way. “Contingent-owned equipment (COE) loss has become a critical vulnerability for national armies and peace operations in Africa,” arms expert Eric G. Berman recently wrote for the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. “Non-state armed groups have regularly targeted and overrun peacekeepers…

Kenya has released the first group of mountain bongos into a sanctuary to save the rare forest antelopes from extinction in the wild. The two males and three females were released near Mount Kenya. The country is the last place where the species is found in its native habitat. Fewer than 100 are believed to exist. “Every subsequent year, an additional 10 mountain bongos will be translocated into the sanctuary in groups of five every six months,” Tourism Minister Najib Balala told the BBC. The animals taken to the sanctuary are selected from breeding herds and allowed to roam and…

THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION As the sun slid toward noon, Adam Fuseina’s daughter jumped off a bicycle at their home in Nafaring village in northern Ghana. She called out to her mother to say that she was back from shopping with a basket full of cooking oil, flour and greens. “This will keep us going for a week,” said the 43-year-old mother of five, standing amid the village’s mud-walled shelters with fraying thatched roofs. Things were different a year earlier, when Fuseina’s family could sometimes manage only one meal a day. Ghana’s worsening floods and droughts have made growing fruit and…

ADF STAFF When COVID-19 hit Uganda in March 2020, teacher Ocwee Irene Trends knew she had to take drastic action. The country entered a strict lockdown and closed all schools. The teacher had a feeling it would be a long time before her students returned.  As director of Hilder Primary School, in a poor neighborhood in Gulu, north Uganda, she knew her oldest pupils, who were between the ages of 13 and 17, were at great risk of dropping out. She brought 30 boys and girls to live in her family home, where she home-schooled them for free. “The past…

ADF STAFF Community health worker Mariam Traoré spends her days going door to door in Yirimadio, just outside Bamako, Mali, treating her neighbors for everything from malaria to diarrhea and even providing immunizations. On days when she can’t visit, some patients come to her. Traoré belongs to the network of community health care workers serving on the frontlines of Africa’s health care system. Like her fellow community health care workers, Traoré is overstretched and needs support. The World Health Organization estimates Africa needs 2 million community health workers to meet the demands of its rapidly growing population. A shortage of…

ADF STAFF Nigeria has unveiled what have been described as the “world’s largest rice pyramids,” made with a million bags of rice, in the capital, Abuja. The temporary pyramids were aimed at showcasing the country’s efforts to boost rice production and to make Nigeria self-sufficient in food.  It was one of the main promises that Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari made when he took office in 2015. Nigerian officials said the initiative has sharply reduced Nigeria’s annual rice import bill, from $1 billion in 2015 to $18.5 million in 2021. The price of rice, a staple food in Nigeria, began to…

ADF STAFF Governments are developing modern high-speed railway infrastructure to replace outdated diesel-powered locomotives with electric trains. Trains arrived in Africa in the 1850s, with the first railway built in Egypt. Over the years, railways sprouted up across the continent, but mostly for industry, not passengers.  Now, with interregional trade becoming more common, railways are seen as a way to move people and goods at a large scale. These are some of the new railway developments on the continent: Al Boraq, Morocco: Morocco debuted its first high-speed train in November 2018. The continent’s first bullet train has a top speed…

ADF STAFF Great Zimbabwe is mostly deserted now, but in its time it was a wondrous place. Historians believe that members of what is now the Shona tribe began work on the city-state Great Zimbabwe in the ninth century, with its heyday from about 1200 to 1300. It covered 720 hectares and was home to an estimated 10,000 people at its peak.  Its centerpiece is a structure called the Great Enclosure. Craftsmen built it, stacking more than a million stones, with no mortar, with a precision that is evident to this day. It is the largest ancient structure in all…

CLUES This fortified village is made up of a group of earthen dwellings. Some structures date to the 17th century. The site was one of many trading posts along the route leading to ancient Sudan. Community areas include a public square, mosque, grain-threshing floor and two cemeteries — one Jewish and one Muslim. ANSWER  Ksar of Ait-Ben-Haddou, Ouarzazate province, southern Morocco