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BBC NEWS AT BBC.CO.UK/NEWS In Kenya, the road linking the capital, Nairobi, and the town of Naivasha had some rather different-looking cars on it jostling with the matatus, buses and lorries. The rally cars were in the country in June 2021 as the World Rally Championship (WRC) returned for the first time in 19 years. The world-renowned Safari Rally was a regular part of the WRC calendar between 1973 and 2002 and was considered the championship’s toughest race. Financial issues caused the event to be removed from the calendar in 2003. COVID-19 delayed its planned comeback in 2020, but Africa’s…

BBC NEWS AT BBC.CO.UK/NEWS The discovery of a 3,000-year-old city that was lost to the sands of Egypt has been hailed as one of the most important archaeological finds since Tutankhamun’s tomb. Famed Egyptologist Zahi Hawass announced the discovery of the “lost golden city” near Luxor. He said the find was the largest ancient city, known as Aten, ever uncovered in Egypt. The city dates to the reign of Amenhotep III, one of Egypt’s most powerful pharaohs, who ruled from 1391 to 1353 B.C. The city continued to be used by pharaohs Ay and Tutankhamun, whose nearly intact tomb was…

ADF STAFF A nine-part series charting the global rise of Afrobeats has premiered in Lagos, Nigeria. “Afrobeats: The Backstory” was shot over the course of 20 years. The documentary was produced by Nigerian filmmaker Ayo Shonaiya and financed by the music streaming service Boomplay, according to the BBC. Boomplay, with its 56 million subscribers, has provided a reliable, flexible platform to support African music of all genres. It is the largest music-streaming platform in Sub-Saharan Africa. Afrobeats is not to be confused with Afrobeat, a genre developed in the 1960s and 1970s and mixed in with American jazz and funk.…

BBC NEWS AT BBC.CO.UK/NEWS “Africa … We are here! Game on!” were the words used by Amadou Gallo Fall of Senegal to launch the inaugural Basketball Africa League (BAL) in May 2021. Fall, the league’s president, was on hand for the ceremonial tip-off of the U.S. National Basketball Association (NBA)-backed competition at Kigali Arena in Rwanda. The honor of scoring the first points in BAL went to former NBA player Ben Uzoh, a Nigerian-American. “It will change lives. This is going to create opportunities for the people across the continent to feed their families,” Uzoh told BBC Sport Africa. “It…

ADF STAFF Two workers from the Samira gold mine in western Niger died when their vehicle struck an improvised explosive device (IED) in October 2020. Five months later, another bomb killed members of the nation’s Independent National Electoral Commission on the day of the presidential election. IEDs have become a major safety issue in Niger, where porous borders allow extremists to cross over from neighboring Mali. “Improvised explosive devices are one of the major concerns in our operations,” Col.-Maj. Hamadou Djibo, head of the Niger Armed Forces (FAN), said at a meeting with members of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). “The…

ADF STAFF In the town of Goulfey in Cameroon’s extreme north, a 12-meter-tall clay tower is a reminder of a bygone era. The Kotoko people built the Goto-Goulfey Tower about 500 years ago. It was part of a walled fortification that protected the city from invaders and offered a high vantage point from which to view the surrounding area. Today, the structure has been converted into a museum that tells the history of the region with a focus on the weaponry and battle strategy used to defend the town. “This museum is first and foremost the history of the Kotoko…

ADF STAFF The Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea (FCWC) has established a Regional Monitoring, Control and Surveillance Center (RMCSC) to help counter illegal fishing. Headquartered in Tema, Ghana, the center will help member countries Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Togo manage their fishing sectors. The new center was integrated into the FCWC West Africa Task Force, which is financed by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation. The center opened in May 2021. It is equipped with vessel-tracking systems and can collect data on authorized fishing vessels across the region where illegal, unreported and unregulated…

ADF STAFF With piracy increasing in the waters off West Africa, Nigeria launched its Deep Blue Project, a multipronged approach to confronting crime in the Gulf of Guinea. The $195 million effort brings together a mix of ships, aircraft and drones to patrol the busy shipping lanes off Nigeria’s coast. It will identify potential problem areas and respond quickly to piracy. The project comes after Nigerian legislators passed the Suppression of Piracy and Other Maritime Offences Act in 2019 to strengthen maritime security. “This assemblage of new maritime security assets comes at a critical time when global discussions are centered…

ADF STAFF The Kenya Defence Forces’ National Defence College has received a charter to become a full-fledged university. The upgrade will let it offer graduate and postgraduate training to local and foreign military and civilian leaders on current and emerging security challenges. President Uhuru Kenyatta awarded the charter, making the institution the first specialist university in the country under the Universities Act of 2012. In an address given during an award ceremony at the institution in May 2021, Kenyatta said the renamed National Defence University-Kenya will help the nation’s military address the most pressing security problems.  “As you know, our…

REUTERS Beneath the scorching sun that beats down on Senegal’s savanna, the verdant gardens of Ndem village are a sanctuary. Within a hibiscus fence, rows of vegetables grow under fruit trees. Men with dreadlocked hair and women in colorful robes dye fabrics and stitch handbags destined for luxury boutiques and furniture companies. They are members of Baye Fall, a branch of Senegal’s Muslim Mouride brotherhood, who believe that labor is a form of prayer. In Ndem, they have created an oasis in a region long plagued by drought. “We are pushed towards the love of sharing, of work, reflecting on…