ADF

Imagine the stress of being a health worker on duty during a deadly global pandemic. Personal protective equipment is in short supply. The disease, COVID-19, is highly contagious and can spread quickly. Those sickest with the virus require intensive medical care, up to and including ventilation. Health workers must cope with a lack of sleep and countless hours spent separated from their families.  At Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya, health care workers are trying to do something about all of that pent-up stress. Nurses participated in a Zumba aerobic fitness program. Dozens of nurses in blue scrubs and face…

Things did not go as planned. On May 15, 2020, 10 pirates boarded the Chinese-flagged Hailufeng 11, subdued the 18 crew members and turned off its automatic identification system (AIS). The AIS transponder broadcasts the boat’s location, and the pirates believed switching it off made the vessel invisible to monitoring systems. But authorities were still watching. Having received an urgent call from the vessel’s owner, authorities were able to manually plot the last known location of the Hailufeng. They monitored its movements in real time using maritime domain awareness (MDA) tools shared by all countries in the region. As the…

ADF STAFF A Malawian court sentenced nine members of the Lin-Zhang wildlife trafficking gang to a total of more than 56 years in prison for dealing in endangered species in Africa. The gang, named for its husband-and-wife leaders, was one of the world’s most notorious wildlife trafficking syndicates and had been operating out of Malawi for 10 years, conservation groups told Voice of America.  Gang members were convicted of trafficking in rhino horn, ivory, hippopotamus teeth and pangolin scales. Such gangs and syndicates, also called McMafia groups, have proved to be enormously difficult to prosecute. But as some high-profile cases such…

ADF STAFF In The Gambia, rosewood is big business.  China merchants buy it — hundreds of thousands of metric tons over recent years — even though it’s illegal to harvest. Government officials are bribed to look the other way, loggers have told reporters. Senegalese and Gambian businessmen profit from it, as do some armed groups. The Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance, a separatist organization that has been fighting for the independence of Senegal’s Casamance region since 1982, is financed in part through timber trafficking. The Gambia, the smallest nation on mainland Africa, was stripped of most of its rosewood…

ADF STAFF A visitor to Lusaka, Zambia’s capital city, doesn’t need to go far to see China’s impact.  Passengers arrive at the glass-walled, $100 million Kenneth Kaunda International Airport. They drive past construction crews building the $1.2 billion Lusaka-Ndola carriageway. Football fans can watch a match at the 60,000-person, $94 million Heroes National Stadium. And when lights are switched on, the power is generated by the Kariba Dam and hydropower station on the Zambezi River. All of these projects were financed through Chinese loans and built by Chinese contractors. The projects are impossible to miss. What is harder to see…

EDWARD A. DURELL, P.E., SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ADVISOR, U.S. AFRICA COMMAND Important technological innovations don’t typically come out of the blue. They are made possible by planning and support. At least 25 African countries have science, technology and innovation (STI) strategies. However, the African Academies of Sciences noted that these policies often focus solely on business and industrial development, and “social and environmental goals are not adequately integrated.”  Today, Africa’s research strengths are in agriculture, tropical medicine and infectious diseases, according to an STI implementation report. Widening the scope of research and investment could help unlock the vast scientific potential…

ADF STAFF A decades-old border dispute between Ethiopia and Sudan is threatening to turn into a border war. The sides clashed in December 2020 and have since positioned heavily armed forces in the fertile agricultural region of al-Fashqa. The countries share a 744-kilometer border, which has been disputed since the 19th century colonial era. In recent years, al-Fashqa has become a flashpoint. Located inside Sudan’s internationally recognized borders, al-Fashqa is isolated from the rest of the country by two rivers and does not have checkpoints or barriers at its border with Ethiopia. Sudan has asserted its rights to the territory,…

ADF STAFF Five years after launching as Sub-Saharan Africa’s first light rail system, Addis Ababa’s transit system remains mired in debt to its Chinese lenders and has been penalized millions of dollars in fines for missed payments. According to Ethiopia’s The Reporter, a recent review by the Office of the Auditor General found that, during its first four years, the system took in $11.1 million but cost $154 million to operate. In the report, auditors note the system is falling far short of its original feasibility study, which said it would pay for its construction costs within 10 years through…

ADF STAFF A boat carrying Special Forces Sailors from Ghana sped across the Gulf of Guinea. When it pulled alongside a massive crane ship, the Sailors climbed a ladder and searched the vessel with their guns drawn. The drill performed alongside Sailors from Poland, Denmark and the Netherlands marked the beginning of Obangame Express 2021 (OE21), the largest international maritime military exercise in West Africa. OE21, a 13-day exercise in the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean, is sponsored by U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), conducted by U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa and hosted by the Ghanaian Navy. Last year’s exercise…

BBC NEWS AT BBC.CO.UK/NEWS Formula E auto racing wants to expand its operations in Africa. The series has one race on the continent. Marrakesh, Morocco, hosts one of the season’s 14 rounds, but another could be added within the next two years. The championship has not featured an African driver since it started in 2014, but there also are plans for change. Formula E is a single-seater motorsport championship that uses only electric cars. “One of the locations we’re talking to is Cape Town,” founder Alejandro Agag said. “We have some people there working to see if we can make…