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…
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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
There are many kinds of coronaviruses, and some can cause disease. A newly identified type has caused an outbreak of respiratory illness now called COVID-19. Coronaviruses are named for their appearance: Under a microscope, the viruses look like they are covered with pointed structures that surround them like a corona, or crown. COVID-19 can be passed from person to person through droplets from coughs and sneezes, says Lauren Sauer, director of operations with the Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response. COVID-19 has been detected in people all over the world. So far, symptoms appear to be showing…
What is a vaccine? A vaccine is a small, but harmless amount of a virus injected to stimulate the body’s immune system to develop a response to the illness called an antibody. The production of antibodies protects the person from future exposure. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “Vaccines contain the same germs that cause disease. (For example, measles vaccine contains measles virus, and Hib vaccine contains Hib bacteria.) But they have been either killed or weakened to the point that they don’t make you sick. Some vaccines contain only a part of the disease germ.”…
Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that are common in people and different species of animals, including bats, camels, cats, cattle and pangolins. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States says that rarely, animal coronaviruses can infect people and then spread among other people. Such was the case with Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, which first appeared in Saudi Arabia in 2012. Severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which first was identified in China in 2003, also is a coronavirus, as is COVID-19, which first was identified in China in late 2019. COVID-19, like…
ADF STAFF As COVID-19 continues to spread across Africa and the world, people will have to rely on a strict regimen of personal sanitation and social distancing practices to prevent becoming infected, at least until a vaccine or reliable medicinal treatment can be found. The African Union, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and other health authorities recommend a series of steps that begins with diligent hand-washing. Everyone should wash their hands thoroughly and frequently for at least 40 seconds with soap under running water. The washing should include both sides of the hands, the thumbs, the fingertips,…