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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,…

ADF STAFF As COVID-19 continues to spread throughout Africa, national health authorities may need to impose quarantines and containment measures to isolate people who have been in contact with those infected. The World Health Organization (WHO) has devised a list of guidelines for COVID-19 quarantines. A summary of these measures is below. The full guidance can be found at this website: https://www.who.int/publications-detail/considerations-for-quarantine-of-individuals-in-the-context-of-containment-for-coronavirus-disease-(covid-19) A quarantine involves restricting the movements of healthy people who may have been exposed to the virus or separating them from the rest of the population so authorities can monitor their symptoms and detect illness early. Quarantines must…

A 57-year-old shrimp dealer at a Wuhan, China, “wet market” started out thinking she had a cold, but she became one of the first known people to contract SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in December 2019. Doctors said her illness was “ruthless” — and that she was not alone. About two dozen people connected to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market had tested positive for COVID-19, according to The Economic Times, an Indian newspaper. The infections point to the wet market as a source. In the busy Wuhan market, and others like it worldwide, live animals are kept in cages…

Somalia has sent a team of doctors to Italy to help fight the COVID-19 in one of Europe’s hardest-hit countries. About 20 doctors from Somali National University in Mogadishu took a charter flight to Rome. The aid is in response to appeals from the Italian government for international assistance. Doctors from Cuba and several other nations responded to the request, the news site Garowe Online reported. “The 20 doctors have already been registered in Italy and are expected to team up with some doctors from across the world to help Italy to contain the novel coronavirus,” Somali government spokesman Ismail…