ADF

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Malian Soldiers and former Tuareg rebels staged their first joint patrol in northern Mali, a key step in a 2015 peace agreement meant to help calm a region under threat from extremism. As helicopters with the United Nations peacekeeping mission hovered overhead, 50 men in distinctive turbans started to patrol the city of Gao in February 2017. The city has been a frequent target of attacks by extremists, including one in January that killed 54. The joint battalion of 600 people is the first to formally combine Malian Soldiers with the rebels from armed independent groups of…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Tunisia’s Coast Guard seized 31 kilograms of pure cocaine, valued at more than $6 million, off the Mediterranean coast. The March 2017 bust came after “suspicious movements” were sighted on a boat off Cape Bon, a peninsula on the strait of Sicily, said Lt. Col. Mohamed Walid Ben Ali, who heads the Coast Guard in La Goulette, near Tunis. Two men fled with the boat after hurling “a large red sack” into the sea that was recovered by authorities and found to contain 30 blocks of pure cocaine. It was the first time that Tunisian authorities have netted…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE South Africa’s Phelophepa train draws a crowd wherever it goes. The sound of the lumbering 19-car clinic-on-rails signals the arrival of badly needed free health care for thousands of South Africans as it tours the country. At a stop in Pienaarsrivier, a town in South Africa’s Limpopo province, dozens of elderly patients and women clutching children showed up to take advantage of the service. “We are so happy. I got two pairs of spectacles, and now I’m going to see the doctor for a checkup,” said 60-year-old Janette Rakgetse from nearby Hammanskraal. “I’ve saved a lot of money.…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Nineteen African countries have launched a network to tackle piracy, high-seas robbery, kidnappings and human trafficking in the strategically important Gulf of Guinea. The Gulf of Guinea Interregional Network (GOGIN) officially began operations after a ceremony in the Cameroonian capital, Yaoundé, in June 2017. “Coastal nations, from Angola to Senegal, have begun working together to combat criminality at sea,” said an official statement from the group. The $9.8 million, four-year initiative funded by the European Union is designed to clamp down on maritime crime in a region where trafficking in human beings and drugs is common. Illegal fishing…

BRAND SOUTH AFRICA A former child soldier in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been awarded an international environmental prize for his work as a park ranger and conservationist in Virunga National Park, Africa’s oldest wildlife park. Rodrigue Katembo won the Goldman Environmental Prize in April 2017 for his work to prevent potentially damaging oil exploration in the park. In addition to mobilizing DRC citizens to protest plans to drill for oil in Virunga, he also worked undercover to expose bribery and corruption of government officials by foreign oil companies. Environmental research has shown that oil exploration in…

ADF STAFF Work is set to begin on a 4,000-kilometer shipping lane that will connect the Mediterranean Sea with Lake Victoria, improving trade for 10 countries. The waterway, which includes using the Nile as a shipping lane, is scheduled for completion by 2024. It will pass through Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. Ethiopia was a late arrival to the project, only deciding to join in early 2017. The project will be for small- and medium-size commercial ships to boost trade among the 10 countries. It is one component…

BBC NEWS AT BBC.CO.UK/NEWS Nigerians call the gargantuan traffic jams of cars, trucks and other vehicles in Lagos “go-slows.” Trying to get anywhere is often an exercise in patience and perseverance. But apart from the frustrations of driving in Lagos, there is the serious health impact of air pollution. Many vehicles belch out huge, dark, sulfurous clouds — the effects of diesel fuel with high amounts of sulfur, also known as “dirty” fuel. Now, Nigeria is tackling this major cause of air pollution. In December 2016, Nigeria was among five countries in West Africa that pledged to stop importing dirty…

VOICE OF AMERICA Thousands of HIV-negative Kenyans will for the first time be placed on daily antiretroviral medication in a bid to prevent new infections. The new program seeks to lower the country’s HIV transmission rate for people who face a substantial risk of contracting HIV, such as rape victims and HIV-negative drug users. Martin Sirengo, head of the National AIDS and STI Control Program, said the measure involved the use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). “We are introducing PrEP to a selected population, not to everyone, and this selected population includes, for instance, HIV-negative partners in a discordant relationship, where…

AFRICA CENTER FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES On January 7, 2017, Ghana held its seventh presidential inauguration since 1992. It marked the third time the party in power has changed — an unusual event in Africa, where nearly all countries hold elections, but the parties in power almost always remain the same. Among the continent’s 54 countries, only 19 African incumbent leaders from 11 countries have been voted out of office since the end of colonialism. These two feats alone — holding regular elections and changing the party in power — have helped institutionalize Ghana’s process of political transition through elections. Yet,…

When Janani Luwum, Anglican archbishop of Uganda, stood up to President Idi Amin and his atrocities in 1977, he knew Amin would not tolerate it. Turning to one of his friends, Luwum said, “They are going to kill me. I am not afraid.” His prediction soon came true. ADF STAFF Janani Luwum was born in 1922. He was educated as a schoolteacher, and in 1948 he converted to Christianity. He became a priest in 1956 and studied for a year in Canterbury in England. In 1969, he was consecrated as bishop of Northern Uganda. His country was going through a…