ADF

U.S. Africa Command Staff If 2020 has taught Africa — and the world — anything, it’s that it is crucial to be prepared for everything. That means scanning the threat horizon and getting ready for what is coming next. It also means thinking about unseen possibilities and preparing for them. The year has shown that threats come in all shapes and sizes, seen and unseen. If those threats have one thing in common, it’s that they require a coordinated response to ensure safety and security. This year’s threats also have taught something else: African nations have learned from their experiences…

Gen. Adem Mohammed, chief of general staff of the Ethiopian National Defence Force, spoke during the opening ceremony of the African Land Forces Summit, a conference co-hosted by U.S. Army Africa in Addis Ababa on February 18, 2020. His remarks have been edited to fit this format. Africa today is a region of strategic importance. The global military superpowers are expanding their presence on the continent. Terrorism, extremist groups, illicit traffickers, pirates, organized criminals and other nontraditional security actors are seeking to establish a foothold and are challenging our security environment.  The complex threats are diverse and have no boundaries.…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Tunisia’s Interior Ministry deployed a police robot to patrol the streets of the capital and enforce a lockdown imposed in March 2020 to help the country battle the spread of COVID-19. Known as PGuard, the “robocop” is remotely operated and equipped with infrared and thermal imaging cameras, in addition to a sound and light alarm system. The robot’s Tunisian creator, Anis Sahbani, said the machine first was produced in 2015 to carry out security patrols. It also operates autonomously through artificial intelligence. The robot, built by Sahbani’s Enova Robotics company, costs from $100,000 to $140,000 and has been…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE A chestnut horse appears on a dusty Bangui street, trotting among the bashed-up cars, motorbike taxis and crumbling buildings. The rider is a well-known figure in the capital of the Central African Republic (CAR): Soumaila Zacharia Maidjida, nicknamed “Dida,” is a former sprinter who set a national record for the 800 meters at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. He is one of a handful of horse riders in the CAR, a country whose poverty, climate and war make it one of the world’s least equine-friendly environments. “Everyone knows Dida,” the rider said. “When ministers and bosses want to go…

THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION The United Nations is testing drones equipped with mapping sensors and atomizers to spray pesticides in parts of East Africa battling an invasion of desert locusts. Hundreds of millions of the voracious insects have swept across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia in what the U.N. has called the worst outbreak in a quarter century. Djibouti, Eritrea and Uganda also have been affected. The insects, which can travel up to 150 kilometers a day, threaten to increase food shortages in a region where up to 25 million people are reeling from three consecutive years of droughts and floods, aid…

REUTERS In his poem Rough Path, Yousef Kamara reflects on his years selling drugs and stealing as the leader of a street gang in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown. “Like a traveller in a rough jungle/Self propelling all alone/Edging through danger sharper than blades/My rough path is a cracked zone,” he writes. After quitting the gang three years ago, Kamara now hopes his journey to acclaim as a poet can offer an example to other young people in Freetown, where increasing numbers are joining gangs. Kamara has been published in several international poetry magazines and was invited in 2019 to attend…

ADF STAFF As a frightening new respiratory illness flared in western China and eventually made its way into Europe, Africa was dealing with several other infectious disease outbreaks. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), workers were trying to quell a stubborn Ebola epidemic in the east of the nation that began in August 2018. In January 2019, a measles outbreak hit the DRC, infecting more than 300,000 people by mid-March 2020. In Nigeria, health officials were facing their largest-ever outbreak of Lassa fever, a seasonal illness carried by rats and spread through their waste. All of this happened…

MAJ. GEN. PRINCE C. JOHNSON III As the world faces an invisible enemy, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, it might be helpful to revisit Liberia’s experience during the 2014-2016 outbreak of the Ebola virus. Although we made mistakes and suffered setbacks, we also learned quite a bit about the military’s proper role in fighting an epidemic. Ultimately, I believe, the efforts by the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) and its international partners helped slow the spread of the virus and saved lives. I am confident that the lessons we learned will leave us better positioned to face future outbreaks. As…

ADF STAFF As poachers go high-tech with helicopters, animal sedatives and high-powered rifles, the men and women protecting endangered wildlife are going old school — with dogs. Conservation authorities in Zimbabwe and South Africa say that poachers now fly in helicopters over game parks to identify rhinos and, while airborne, shoot drugs at the animals to sedate them. Once targeted animals become weakened, the rustlers land and brutally cut off their horns with chainsaws. There are no mercy killings here; the animals are left to bleed to death. To put them out of their misery would be to attract vultures,…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Photos by AFP/GETTY IMAGES When Fredie Blom was born, the automobile was in its infancy, the first airplane was less than a year old and World War I was in the future. More than 116 years later, Blom still got around with the help of his cane. On warm days he would sit outside his home in the Delft neighborhood of Cape Town, South Africa, and smoke his beloved cigarettes. “I have lived this long because of God’s grace,” Blom told Agence France-Presse on his birthday in May 2020. About three months later, however, Blom’s long life came…