ADF

ADF STAFF Experts are worried that a planned $3 billion coal plant in Zimbabwe will increase pollution and plunge the country further into debt. The plant is to be built in the northern Zimbabwe town of Sengwa, near Lake Kariba, the world’s largest artificial lake and reservoir. Daily power outages in the area have hindered industrial capacity for decades, and the reservoir already is seriously depleted by droughts. China Gezhouba Group Corp. will help build the plant with RioZim Ltd. Commercial Bank of China has formally expressed interest in the project and is negotiating with Sinosure, also known as the…

ADF STAFF Vessels involved in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing are being used for more in Africa than removing tons of fish from already depleted fish stocks and depriving hundreds of thousands of people of their livelihoods. There is a trend of criminal groups using IUU fishing as a cover for drug and weapons smuggling, according to Ecotrust Canada, a nonprofit organization with a focus on fisheries management, and other organizations. The use of small fishing vessels in drug smuggling has tripled worldwide in the past eight years and represents roughly 15% of the total global retail value of…

ADF STAFF A notorious ivory and rhino horn poacher known as Mansour awaits trial in United States federal court after his arrest in July 2020 by Kenya’s Directorate of Criminal Investigations. Mansour, whose real name is Abubakar Mansur Mohammed Surur, was arrested July 29, 2020, at Mombasa’s Moi International Airport as he stepped off a chartered flight from Yemen. Mansour is a Kenyan citizen and has a Yemeni identity card. He is a suspected member of a transnational criminal gang based in Uganda led by Moazu Kromah of Liberia. Chris Thouless, director of the Elephant Crisis Fund at Kenya-based Save…

ADF STAFF The restive Tillaberi region of Niger is part of a vast, semiarid tri-border area of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso. Militants attack small towns and villages just south of the Malian border with alarming frequency. In the wake of recent attacks that made international headlines, the federal government and its security forces, known as the FDS, are taking steps to stanch the bloodshed. Tillaberi’s regional government is doing the same and is tapping into a network of local and tribal leaders to partner on their security needs. In November 2020, the Tillaberi government and a U.S. Army civil…

ADF STAFF The jaws of a debt trap are starting to clamp down on Kenya now that payments are due for an infrastructure project financed by huge Chinese loans. When the Standard Gauge Railway connecting Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, and the port city of Mombasa opened to blasts of confetti and streamers in 2017, it was a gleaming symbol of China’s vast plans to connect Asia to Africa, the Middle East and Europe through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Now, it’s another example of the hidden price tag that comes with an infrastructure project that cannot sustain itself. “The country…

ADF STAFF Ghanaians are proud of their country’s reputation throughout Africa as a pillar of stability. Late in the fall of 2020, they celebrated and reinforced it. Former President Jerry John Rawlings, a mammoth figure in Ghana and a symbol of the country’s democracy, died at age 73 in the midst of a contentious presidential election. Rawlings led Ghana for 20 years, first as the engineer of two coup d’etats, then as a two-term president who completed the fledgling nation’s transition from corruption and authoritarianism to stable democracy. Luis Franceschi, leader of the Commonwealth of Nations’ team of election observers,…

ADF STAFF The industrial fishing trawler Lu Rong Yuan Yu 956 was detained in Ghana in 2019 for using nets with a mesh size below the legal minimum and catching undersized fish. The vessel’s owner was fined more than $1 million but refused to pay. As the case returned to court, the vessel’s fishing license was renewed, and it was back in the waters of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. As the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) reported, officials apprehended the trawler again on the same charges in Ghana in May 2020. The Lu Rong Yuan Yu 956 saga highlights the ways…

ADF STAFF Social media blackouts and internet shutdowns are increasingly common across Africa. In the past five years, at least 15 African nations have shut down the internet during elections, protests or times of crisis. Shutdowns last anywhere from days to months, causing a cascade of problems for the nations along the way. Government officials say the blackouts are needed to preserve social order. Internet advocates call it censorship. “Internet shutdowns during elections simply mean some African countries are unable to carry out free and fair elections,” Oluwatomiwa Ilori, a researcher with South Africa’s Centre for Human Rights, told ADF.…

ADF STAFF Cooperative efforts and military professionalism were the topics of U.S. Africa Command’s 2021 gathering of the continent’s chiefs of defense. The conference included 46 defense chiefs or their designees, who met virtually due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. Gen. Stephen Townsend, AFRICOM commander since 2019, reminded the assembled chiefs that whether the subject is defeating violent extremists, disrupting illegal fishing or fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. and African interests are intertwined. “We are in this together,” Townsend said. “Your opportunities are our opportunities. Your challenges are our challenges. Your successes are our successes.” On the subject of cooperation and…

ADF STAFF Sierra Leone’s government is battling tax evasion in the maritime sector in its continuing efforts to eliminate illegal fishing, which costs the country about $29 million a year. The government says it will close businesses, take court action or withhold port clearance certificates from companies that don’t pay taxes. The country also has invested in six boats to patrol coastal inshore waters and in radio equipment, electronic tablets and Android phones to “strengthen the monitoring, control and surveillance of the fisheries sector,” President Julius Maada Bio said in a Sierra Leone Telegraph report. Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU)…