ADF

A Study of Boko Haram’s Public Communications Can Offer Hints About Its Strategy ADF STAFF In July 2011, the Nigerian government unveiled plans to make telecommunications companies dedicate toll-free phone lines so civilians could report Boko Haram activity. Months later, insurgent spokesman Abu Qaqa threatened to attack service providers and Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC) offices. “We have realized that the mobile phone operators and the NCC have been assisting security agencies in tracking and arresting our members by bugging their lines and enabling the security agents to locate the position of our members,” Qaqa announced, according to a 2013 article by Freedom Onuoha on the E-International…

BBC NEWS AT BBC.CO.UK/NEWS Somalia of the early 1970s was a country with style. In Mogadishu, men wore afros and flared pants, while women sported stylish dresses with their heads uncovered. The city’s architecture was proof of its centuries of cross-cultural trade. Now Somalis around the world can relive these rich memories of Mogadishu through an archive of more than 10,000 tapes uncovered in 2016 by Vik Sohonie in Hargeisa, capital of the self-declared republic of Somaliland. The rich and varied recordings feature funk, rock, jazz and Bollywood influences. The tapes harken back to a time of relative economic and…

BBC NEWS AT BBC.CO.UK/NEWS The president of African athletics says the continent will bid to host the 2025 World Championships. Africa has never staged the biennial track and field event, which started in 1983, despite being home to many world champions. Confederation of African Athletics President Hamad Kalkaba Malboum said he believes a bid is set to come from one of six African nations. “We are talking with Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco — those countries have the facilities,” said Malboum of Cameroon. “People said that Africa could not host the World Cup in football, but we did…

BRAND SOUTH AFRICA Nigerian artist Peju Alatise won the South African 2017 FNB Art Prize, one of the most coveted art awards on the continent. Her work focuses on the experiences of contemporary African women. Alatise’s early paintings, later sculptures and current installations were showcased in September 2017 at the annual First National Bank Joburg Art Fair. The fair, one of South Africa’s leading art events, featured more than 60 exhibitions across five categories, including traditional and modern art. Artists and cultural organizations from 11 countries participated. Born in 1975 in Lagos, Nigeria, Alatise studied architecture before being inspired by…

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The United Nations Security Council has backed reforms to reduce inefficiencies, corruption and abuse in far-flung peacekeeping operations. Although many peacekeeping missions have been hailed as successful — Sierra Leone most recently — others have been criticized for sexual abuse violations and corruption, especially in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There are 16 U.N. peacekeeping operations underway, with more than 100,000 personnel, at an annual cost of nearly $8 billion. The U.N. has said that, adjusted for inflation, the cost to member states has decreased by 17 percent in the past…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE The French Navy conducted a series of 10-day regional exercises named African NEMO (Navy’s Exercise for Maritime Operations) from the Dixmude aircraft carrier. The goal is to prepare more than 20 West African countries to step up their battle against maritime crime. “We went from tactical training of teams boarding the boats to lifesaving at sea, to how to make the centers put into place by the Yaounde process work,” said Dixmude Capt. Jean Porcher. The Yaounde process was adopted in 2013 as a code of conduct by West and Central African nations to share intelligence and coordinate…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE A Nigerian lawyer who helped secure the release of more than 100 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram in Chibok was awarded one of the United Nations’ top prizes. Zannah Mustapha was given the annual Nansen Refugee Award for his “crucial mediating” role and his work helping children affected by the long-running conflict. Mustapha, 58, said the award was unexpected but he was “exceedingly happy” to have been chosen. “I look forward to being a worthy ambassador for such a noble award,” he said in an interview in the capital, Abuja. Mustapha set up the Future Prowess Islamic Foundation…

REUTERS Five countries in the Sahel are setting up a security bloc to crack down on trafficking, terror and other cross-border crimes. The force assembled by the G5 Sahel bloc — Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger — is expected to comprise about 5,000 troops. “We bring this combat against terrorism not only to protect our own people and countries but for the whole world,” Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou said at a news conference in the capital, Niamey. The idea of the G5 force was conceived in 2015 and was expected to be operational by the end of 2017. In…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Algeria announced that it has destroyed the last of its stock of anti-personnel mines, 10 months after fully demining the entire country. A total of 5,970 mines were destroyed at a ceremony in Djelfa in southeast Algeria. Algeria ratified the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel mines in 2000 and said it completed the demining of its territory in December 2016, clearing 9 million land mines. The scourge claimed 7,300 civilian lives in the North African country, mostly during the 1954-1962 war of independence, according to Deputy Defense Minister Ahmed Gaid Salah. Algerian demining specialists cleared mines from 1963 to…

REUTERS Maritime police from Somalia’s semiautonomous region of Puntland seized a boat loaded with weapons from Yemen. Puntland authorities displayed dozens of anti-aircraft guns, machine guns, AK-47 rifles and boxes of ammunition from the boat apprehended off the Horn of Africa. European maritime forces patrolling sea lanes off Somalia tracked the small vessel, known as Al Faruq, from Yemen, said Abdirahman Mohamud Hassan, director general of Puntland maritime police force. He said they had seized other boatloads of weapons destined for Islamic State and al-Shabaab militants active in Somalia. However, on this occasion the cargo was believed to be owned…