ADF

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS A supercomputer is boosting efforts in East Africa to control locust outbreaks that raise what the United Nations food agency calls “an unprecedented threat” to the region’s food security. The computer, a donation from the United Kingdom, uses satellite data to track locust swarms and predict their next destination. Quickly sharing the locusts’ movements with regional authorities is key to controlling the outbreak because even a small swarm of locusts in a single day can move nearly 100 miles and consume an amount of crops that would otherwise feed 35,000 people. Based in a regional climate center in…

BBB NEWS AT BBC.CO.UK/NEWS Rwanda, the country of a thousand hills, was the first in the world to embrace a commercial delivery service by drone aircraft when the company Zipline began flying blood in 2016. Rwandan President Paul Kagame sees drones as part of his country’s future; he wants them manufactured and piloted by Rwandans. Zipline has delivered tens of thousands of units of blood. But it is an exception. Its flights are classified as government flights, meaning it has high-level exemptions when it comes to air traffic management. The same is true in Kigali, the nation’s capital, where police…

ADF STAFF Sayyida Salme’s life was a whirlwind. She was a sultan’s daughter from what is now Tanzania. Denied any formal education, she taught herself to read and write. She spoke four languages — Swahili, Arabic, Turkish and German. She got pregnant out of wedlock, her brother tried to execute her, and she fled to Europe. When she became a penniless widowed mother, she became one of the first African women ever to write an autobiography. She is said to have carried with her a small bag of sand from a beach in Zanzibar throughout her life. She was born…

CLUES This needle-shaped volcanic plug stands 386 meters tall. Mosses, frequent fog and rain make climbing this peak dangerous, yet some still attempt the slippery ascent each year. The area around the peak is known for exotic wildlife, including an abundance of snakes. This formation has been called “The Dark Tower.”  ANSWER  Pico Cão Grande volcanic formation in São Tomé and Príncipe

ADF STAFF The video shot aboard an industrial Chinese trawler fishing in Ghanaian waters was graphic. Obtained by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), the footage began with the loud wails of a man off camera. A trawl cable had snapped, severely injuring his legs. As the camera zoomed in, he slapped his hands against the metal slab he was laid across. There was no medicine or medical personnel on board. By the time the trawler made it back to port, the man, a Ghanaian fisherman, was dead. Fishing is one of the world’s most dangerous professions, but Ghanaian workers told…

ADF STAFF Despite efforts to crack down on trafficking, Madagascar’s precious natural resources are being looted at an alarming rate. And when rare tortoises, lemurs, and rosewood and ebony logs leave the island, most have the same destination: China. In the ongoing effort to stanch the loss of the island’s natural resources, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has provided two $1 million grants to international organizations working with Malagasy officials to stop illegal trafficking and protect the resources for the future. “Wildlife and timber trafficking are multibillion-dollar transnational criminal enterprises that rob Madagascar of its unique biodiversity and…

ADF STAFF  It’s a $5 million prize, and the rules are very simple. To qualify, all a politician must do is leave office at the end of his or her term and have demonstrated exceptional leadership. It sounds straightforward, but it rarely has been so over the past 60 years on the African continent. On March 8, Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufou was awarded the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Excellence. He became only the sixth departing head of state to win the prize since it was created in 2007 by Ibrahim, a Sudanese billionaire. A former winner of the prize, Festus…

ADF STAFF Justine Tinou remembered when the beach at Pointe-Noire, a port town in the Republic of the Congo, would be lined with sardinella, tuna, sharks and rays waiting to be bought, processed and sold. That was about 20 years ago when the country’s fishing industry was booming. Now, thanks to an influx of foreign industrial trawlers, the beach is mostly clear at the end of a fishing day. The smaller fish species have been long overfished, and the number of sharks and rays have dramatically decreased, threatening the livelihoods of those in the fishing industry, depleting an important source…

ADF STAFF Five years after West Africa defeated a major Ebola outbreak, health care workers are rushing to stop new outbreaks in Guinea and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) before they can spread. At the end of February, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported 17 Ebola cases and seven deaths in Guinea and eight cases and four deaths in the DRC. Teams have begun so-called ring vaccinations in both countries to protect people who may have come into contact with those exposed to the virus. Ring vaccinations control an outbreak by vaccinating and monitoring a ring of people…

ADF STAFF A coastal area near Mozambique’s border with Tanzania has become the latest hot spot in the ongoing insurgency by extremists in Mozambique. Attacks against villages near the administrative post in Quionga the last two weekends of February sent hundreds of residents fleeing into the forest for safety. Attackers armed with machine guns and machetes stalked the towns of Quirinde and Namoto, burning homes and looting supplies. Although defense forces reestablished control, the violence signals that extremists once again are armed and ready to fight after a relatively quiet start to the year. “After a lull of several weeks,…