ADF

THE NEW TIMES Rwanda announced plans to launch two satellite constellations in the next three years. The move further highlighted the country’s goal to become a leader in Africa’s space industry. The Rwanda Space Agency said that it filed a request to acquire two satellite constellations from the International Telecommunication Union. The two-craft fleet has a total of 327,320 satellites. A satellite constellation is a group of satellites working together as a system. Unlike a single satellite, a constellation can provide permanent global or near global coverage. The two constellations will join RwaSat-1, a satellite built by three Rwandan engineers…

ADF STAFF A collaboration of organizations is bringing more data, technology and analytics to the fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Global Fishing Watch, the International Monitoring, Control, and Surveillance Network, and Trygg Mat Tracking (TMT) joined forces to establish the Joint Analytical Cell (JAC), which aims to provide lower-income coastal nations greater access to fisheries intelligence, data analysis and capacity-building assistance to tackle sea crimes. TMT, a nonprofit organization that provides fisheries intelligence to countries and organizations, is well-established in West and East Africa, and Global Fishing Watch is committed to building relationships in the region. The International…

ADF STAFF Hostility from Mali’s ruling junta toward the United Nations is making it more difficult for the country’s peacekeeping mission to fulfill its mandate. Mali’s military leaders expelled the spokesman for the United Nations’ peacekeeping mission in Mali (MINUSMA) for comments he made on Twitter about the arrest of 49 Ivorian Soldiers in the country on July 10. Spokesman Olivier Salgado’s Twitter post stated that the Malian government knew about the arrival of the 49 Soldiers from Côte d’Ivoire ahead of time. He said they were part of a logistics support team, and their deployment is a common practice…

ADF STAFF The violence that engulfed South Africa in July 2021 shocked and traumatized the country. Many fear it could happen again if societal root causes are not addressed. President Cyril Ramaphosa called the wave of violence that hit the country last year an “insurrection” and “a deliberate, coordinated and well-planned attack on our democracy.” He decried “opportunistic acts of looting.” More than 350 people died, thousands were arrested and billions were lost in the economic damage. The arrest and jailing of former president Jacob Zuma after he refused to testify in a corruption investigation was the spark that lit the…

ADF STAFF The list of central Malian towns where massacres have occurred is growing as Russia’s notorious Wagner Group expands its reach in the country. In March it was the towns of Diabaly, Nioni and Moura. In April, Hombori, Boni and Mondoro were added to the list. Witnesses and survivors of joint Malian-Russian operations tell similar stories involving indiscriminate killings, summary executions, torture, theft and rape. Kidnappings often follow and villagers have been forced at gunpoint to dig mass graves. Sahel researcher Yvan Guichaoua, a senior lecturer on international conflict at the University of Kent in England, says abuses are…

ADF STAFF | Photos by U.S. AFRICA COMMAND Niger’s military has launched a program to improve the lives of citizens living in the Agadez region surrounding Nigerien Air Base 201, a United States drone air base. The newly created Action Civil-Militaire (ACM) division of the Forces Armées Nigeriennes (FAN) is conducting humanitarian aid missions. The division has conducted its missions in conjunction with U.S. Civil Affairs teams stationed at the base. Under the program, ACM members select villages to receive aid and execute each mission supported by U.S. Civil Affairs. A separate ACM unit is performing similar missions out of…

ADF STAFF Ghana Armed Forces Soldiers stepped from a helicopter and sprinted toward a simulated enemy with their weapons drawn as a commanding officer barked instructions. It was the opening day of Operation Eagle Claws, an exercise meant to prepare military and emergency response personnel for terrorist threats. The five-day annual exercise included members of the Ghana Police Service, Ghana National Fire Service, National Disaster Management Organization, National Ambulance Service, and other security and intelligence agencies. It concluded in late May 2021. The 2021 Operation Eagle Claws exercise focused on responding to terrorist attacks such as those carried out during…

ADF STAFF The East African Community (EAC) is preparing to create a counterterrorism center to help coordinate the region’s response in the event of an attack.  The center still is in the early planning stage, but the six-nation regional bloc believes concrete action is needed. “Each of us has been dealing with immigration and counter terrorism on their own and now we have come together,” Peter Odoyo, Kenya’s chief administrative secretary for national security, told The East African. “The EA Counter Terrorism Centre is under discussion. It is still under infancy stages.” The center could play an important role in…

REUTERS A project in Kenya is using biogas technology to tackle two major pollution problems with one device: a machine that converts waste such as invasive water hyacinth into cleaner cooking fuel. Biogas International, a Kenyan energy technology company, is partnering on the project with drugmaker AstraZeneca and the Institute for Sustainability Leadership at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. The project so far has provided 50 “digesters” to homes in the city of Kisumu in western Kenya, enabling families to switch from wood or charcoal, both of which are hazardous, time-consuming cooking methods. Some of the families were…

REUTERS Every night Moussa Kamara works at his bakery in Senegal, preparing hundreds of loaves. But at sunrise, instead of going home to sleep, he starts a second back-breaking job — hoeing the earth and tending newly sown seeds in a specially designed circular garden. Kamara, 47, believes the garden will prove even more important than the bakery in the future for feeding his extended family, including 25 children, and other residents of Boki Dawe, a town near the border with Mauritania. He is part of a project that aims to create hundreds of such gardens, known as “Tolou Keur”…