ADF

VOICE OF AMERICA At a time when bad news seems inescapable, the aid group Save the Children has some good news: Across the globe, children are healthier and safer than ever before. This is particularly true in Africa. According to a report by the U.S.-based charity, the overall situation for children has improved in 173 of 176 countries since 2000. Among the highlights are 4.4 million fewer child deaths per year, 115 million more children in school and 11 million fewer married girls. To quantify the status of children, the group created an “End of Childhood” index and ranked countries…

BBC NEWS AT BBC.CO.UK/NEWS An invention by a South African engineer that dispenses pills has won a major engineering prize. Neo Hutiri invented the Pelebox, a locker patients can unlock with a one-time personal identification number sent to their phone. These lockers cut wait times down “from 3 ½ hours to under 36 seconds,” he told the BBC. South Africa runs the world’s largest HIV/AIDS treatment program, which has led to high numbers of patients with repeat prescriptions. Hutiri won the $32,000 2019 Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation from the Royal Academy of Engineering. He said he came up with…

VOICE OF AMERICA Kenya is facing one of the worst stretches of drought in years, causing underdevelopment, fights over water and fears of starvation. However, a village in western Kenya is using a high-tech solution to water scarcity with “digital wells.” In Nakuru County’s Solai village, people have long been dependent on seasonal rivers and salty Lake Solai for their animals and irrigation. But drought has reduced the local river to a stream. Residents such as Anne Chesire said the drilling of so-called digital wells has been a lifesaver.  Previously, she said, they would have to wake up early to…

VOICE OF AMERICA South Sudan is celebrating a technological advance with the launch of a nationwide system for mobile money transfers. The new service called M-Gurush — M for mobile and Gurush for money in Arabic — removes the need for a bank account, which most South Sudanese lack. Lado Kenyi of the National Communication Authority has high hopes for the new system. “The real success of mobile money is in targeting the people of low income and our rural population,” Kenyi said. “Those are the people we want to reach and include them into the financial system.” South Sudanese…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Kenya has formally launched Africa’s biggest wind power plant, a mammoth project in a gusty stretch of wilderness that already provides nearly a fifth of the country’s energy needs. The $680 million project, a sprawling 365-turbine wind farm on the eastern shores of Lake Turkana, is delivering 310 megawatts of renewable power to the national grid. The largest private investment in Kenya’s history, the Lake Turkana Wind Power project was beset with delays and took nearly a decade to rise from the arid landscape 600 kilometers north of Nairobi. The turbines, scattered across Turkana’s stark lunarlike landscape and…

SEYCHELLES NEWS AGENCY The Seychelles is beginning to support the aquaculture industry by issuing licenses to farm five types of marine species. At the beginning of this new project, only Seychellois investors will be considered for licenses. Licenses will be for red snapper, grouper, two types of trevally and sea urchins. “Aquaculture” refers to the breeding, rearing and harvesting of animals and plants in all types of water environments, including ponds, rivers, lakes and the ocean. Aubrey Lesperance, an official with the Seychelles Fisheries Authority, said the project eventually will be open to foreign investors and will allow for additional…

VOICE OF AMERICA Ghana is preparing to conduct its first digital population and housing census beginning in March 2020. It will join Eswatini, Kenya and Malawi as one of the first countries in Africa to collect census data electronically. Ghana’s 2010 census featured paper questionnaires. It took months to gather and assemble the data, and about 3% of the population was left out of the survey. Now the government will use tablets and satellite images to make sure everyone is counted. Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia said the data would help fight inequality. “We must count everyone and make everyone accountable…

VOICE OF AMERICA Tanzania is planning to build a cable car service on Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s tallest peak and a World Heritage site. The country wants to boost tourism, but a quarter-million porters and mountain guides worry the quick ride up the mountain will threaten their livelihoods.  Officials say the cable car will cater to the physically disabled, the elderly and children, and it also will help tourists get up the mountain faster. About 50,000 tourists climb Kilimanjaro annually, bringing tens of millions of dollars to the region. Tanzanian authorities say cable cars will increase tourism by as much as…

ADF STAFF The storyteller historians of the Kingdom of Benin say that in about the year 1200, Evian, the kingdom’s aging administrator, tried to pass his title on to his son. But the administrator was not of royal blood, so the rule of succession did not apply.  The empire, in what is now southern Nigeria, traditionally had been ruled by kings. After 40 years under the control of Evian, the Edo people of Benin wanted to return to the relative stability of a king’s rule. They wanted a king with Edo royal blood. The Edo chief reached out to a…

CLUES It is an oasis known as “the pearl of the desert.” The area has been settled since prehistoric times, and it once was home to a Roman garrison. The typical domestic architecture in the town incorporates a vertical functional division: storage on the ground floor, a second floor for family living space and an open-air terrace on top. The town has a network of passageways on the ground level. ANSWER  Old Town of Ghadamès, Libya