ADF

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Troops from Niger have freed 11 villagers, four of them children, who had been seized by Boko Haram extremists and taken across the border into Nigeria. “The hostages were freed by our troops on the Nigerian side of Lake Chad, near a Boko Haram base,” said Yahaya Godi, secretary of the Diffa region governorate in southeast Niger. “There are 11 people, including three women and four children, two of them babies, who were seized by the Boko Haram terrorist group.” The abductions took place August 11 and 12, 2020, in two villages in Gueskerou, a district on the…

BBC NEWS AT BBC.CO.UK/NEWS Plans to allow industrial logging in one of Central Africa’s last intact forests have been halted in a move welcomed by environmentalists. Ebo forest in southwestern Cameroon is home to 40 Banen communities and numerous endangered wildlife species, including Western gorillas, chimpanzees, forest elephants, grey parrots and large frogs.  Cameroon’s government formally announced it was canceling a previous decree that would have allowed timber extraction across nearly half of the 150,000-hectare forest. The conservation group Greenpeace responded, saying the suspension of logging operations must be the first step toward protecting Ebo’s residents. It has vowed to…

BBC NEWS AT BBC.CO.UK/NEWS A little-known mammal related to an elephant but as small as a mouse has been rediscovered after 50 years of obscurity. The last scientific record of the “lost species” of Somali elephant shrew was in the 1970s, despite local sightings. The creature was found alive and well in Djibouti during a scientific expedition. Elephant shrews, or sengis, are neither elephants nor shrews, but are related to aardvarks, elephants and manatees. They have distinctive trunk-like noses, which they use to feast on insects. There are 20 species of sengis in the world, and the Somali sengi is…

VOICE OF AMERICA Students in Malawi were out of school for six months because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although most were able to study from home with internet or radio lessons, many in remote villages were left out.  Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO), an international development organization, and partner One Billion helped bridge the gap by distributing 1,000 solar-powered tablet computers with programmed lessons to rural primary school students. All content is in Malawi’s main language, Chichewa, and helps students improve reading, writing and math.  Parents say the donation eased education worries during the school closure.  “I lost hope, but with…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Quick adaptation has enabled Ethiopian Airlines to pull through tough COVID-19 restrictions and “saved the airline,” its CEO said. CEO Tewolde GebreMariam said the airline maximized freight operations due to air travel restrictions. Despite losing $1 billion and having 850 of its employees contract COVID-19, the company reported a $44 million profit for the first half of 2020 and has not defaulted on its loan repayments, the CEO said. The company also has avoided laying off full-time employees or seeking debt restructuring, Tewolde said. The airline, which is the largest in Africa, responded to a 90% drop in…

WORLD BANK Nestled in the dense rainforest of the Kafa Biosphere Reserve in southwest Ethiopia are thousands of genetic variants of coffee, an important seed bank of wild arabica that faces extinction. Preserving Ethiopia’s prized arabica coffee is key not only for coffee drinkers worldwide, but also for the estimated 15 million people in Ethiopia whose livelihoods depend on it. Ethiopia is Africa’s biggest coffee producer and the world’s fifth-largest exporter. In 2018, Ethiopia’s coffee production was 7.5 million 60-kilogram bags, according to the International Coffee Organization. The Kafa zone, about 460 kilometers southwest of Addis Ababa, is considered the…

ADF Staff In 2020, John Oroko of Kenya witnessed the devastation wrought by desert locusts. It was a call to action. His agricultural company, Selina Wamucii, launched a mobile app called Kuzi that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to fight the crop-devouring swarms as a second wave hit East Africa in early 2021. “It is nothing short of a catastrophe,” Oroko told ADF. “I shudder to think what it means for the livelihoods of already-vulnerable communities on this continent.” The worst locust invasion in 70 years has threatened the food supplies of East Africa, where millions already were going hungry. By…

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Women in Uganda are taking on a new role, as drivers for an all-female ride-hailing service, Diva Taxi.   The taxi service, dreamed up by a local woman who lost her logistics job at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, was launched in June 2020 and has recruited more than 70 drivers. They range from college students to mothers hoping to make good use of their secondhand Toyotas. It’s uncommon to find female taxi drivers in Uganda, a socially conservative country where most women labor on farms or pursue work in the informal sector. Diva Taxi believes…

VOICE OF AMERICA In Ghana and elsewhere in West Africa, organic food is growing in popularity. But organic produce is not easily regulated, and consumers are paying extra for unverified claims. Farmers across the region have created their own system, with support from international bodies, to certify that produce is organic, meaning it is grown without the use of chemical pesticides or synthetic fertilizers. Organic farmer Kobina Hudson grows about 40 types of vegetables and fruits in Ghana. Up until about a year ago, the only way his customers could be assured of his organic practices was by trusting his…

ADF Staff Almost 500 years ago, a man named Yasuke drew crowds wherever he went in Japan. He was the first foreign-born man to become a samurai, Japan’s elite warrior caste. He also was the first, and only, black man most Japanese people had ever seen. A fellow samurai described him at that time as being stunningly tall, “and his skin was like charcoal.” He is believed to have been 1.88 meters tall, towering over Japanese men, who averaged 1.6 meters at that time. His given name is not known. Yasuke, pronounced yas-kay, was his Japanese name. He arrived in…