ADF

ADF STAFF A joint effort by Mauritanian security forces led to the seizure of 1 ton of cocaine at the Nouadhibou seaport. The Army, Coast Guard, military police and other police forces launched the coordinated operation at the port more than 400 kilometers north of the capital, Nouakchott, in August 2016 after authorities were tipped off that a vessel was carrying the drug, the North African Post reported. The vessel’s port of origin was not known, but authorities have launched investigations to identify accomplices. Mauritania has become a main West African transit point for drugs bound for Western Europe. In…

MEDIA CLUB SOUTH AFRICA In 2001, there were 56,000 pairs of African penguins in South Africa. By 2014, there were just 19,000 pairs. This drastic decline has prompted BirdLife South Africa to try something it has never done before to prevent the penguin from going extinct. Led by Christina Hagen, BirdLife South Africa wants to establish a new African penguin colony that will help increase the species’ numbers. “The penguins need all the help they can get,” said BirdLife chief executive Mark Anderson. “Establishing new mainland colonies are immensely important management interventions.” Two major populations of the birds remain, made…

NGALA KILLIAN CHIMTOM/INTER PRESS SERVICE Cameroon is reaching out to children of the Baka Tribe, trying to get them to pursue education without forsaking their tribal traditions. Almost all Baka children who enroll in primary school leave before advancing to the secondary level. A number of factors contribute to inadequate education for the Baka people, including poverty, discrimination and an ill-adapted educational policy. Of the 30 Baka children who initially enrolled in 2014 at one school, only one remains. The others dropped out to join their parents in their traditional Baka hunter-gatherer role. David Angoula, a Baka parent whose two…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE They have proven their worth in detecting land mines, and now Africa’s giant pouched rats are demonstrating another surprising skill — saving lives by helping to detect tuberculosis. It’s all in the nose, says the Belgian nongovernmental organization APOPO. Its founders, in 1997, saw potential for these abundant rodents that possess a sense of smell as keen as a dog’s but are dismissed as vermin. “The biggest obstacle has been the negative perception that people have of the rat,” said APOPO director Christophe Cox, whose NGO has been based in Morogoro in Tanzania’s eastern highlands since 2000. That…

SEYCHELLES NEWS AGENCY The Seychelles is taking steps to limit the damaging effects of fish aggregating devices (FADs) on the island nation’s reefs and other areas through a new project that aims to intercept FADs before they wash up on beaches. FADs are free-floating platforms used by the tuna industry to attract fish. They are commonly made up of a 4-square-meter bamboo raft covered with shade material and fishing nets or ropes hanging down from the corners to a depth of 20 to 50 meters. Gathering data on the seriousness of the issue around the Seychelles’ islands and getting the…

MIRIAM GATHIGAH/INTER PRESS SERVICE Mirantsoa Faniry Rakotomalala is different from most farmers in the Greater South of Madagascar, who were devastated after losing an estimated 80 percent of their crops to drought during the May/June 2016 harvesting season. The drought was said to be the most severe in 35 years. Rakotomalala lives in a village in one of the three hardest-hit areas. But she and her father were prepared for the drought. “Most farms are dry, but ours has remained green and alive because we dug boreholes which are providing us with water to irrigate,” she said. As of August,…

BUSANI BAFANA/INTER PRESS SERVICE Brightly colored cans, bags of fertilizer and packets containing all types of seeds catch the eye upon entering Nancy Khorommbi’s agro dealer shop, tucked at the corner of a roadside service station in South Africa. But her seeds and fertilizers have not exactly been flying off the shelves since Khorommbi opened the shop in 2010. Her customers are smallholder farmers in the town of Sibasa in Limpopo, one of South Africa’s provinces hard hit by drought in 2016. The reason for the slow business is that smallholder farmers lack training on how to use plant-nourishing fertilizers…

The ruler of what is now Angola fought her would-be conquerors for decades ADF STAFF Southwest Africa never had a stronger advocate than Queen Nzingha of Ndongo, in what is now Angola. She fought to protect her people from slave traders for most of her long life. And she was good at it. American scholar John Henrik Clarke described her as “the greatest military strategist that ever confronted the armed forces of Portugal.” Ana Nzingha was born around 1580 in Kidonga, the capital of the kingdom. Her father was the king, and he was succeeded on the throne by his son,…

Clues: This is the largest church in the world. It can hold 18,000 people inside its walls, and the esplanade can accommodate 300,000. Its design is based on St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, with a 149-meter-tall dome and colonnade forming a Latin cross.  The colonnades are supported by 272 Doric columns, which are up to 31 meters tall. ANSWER: Basilica of Our Lady of Peace, Yamoussoukro, Côte d’Ivoire

Vigilante groups offer short-term security, but northern Cameroon needs long-term development ADF STAFF When a female suicide bomber came to Mora, Cameroon, and refused to stop at a checkpoint, it looked like another gruesome attack was about to occur in a region that has grown used to carnage. Then something unusual happened. A civilian who is part of a self-defense group in the town shot an arrow with a poison tip at the attacker. The shot killed the woman as a second suicide bomber detonated her vest, but the blast killed only the terrorist. The armed citizen’s quick action likely saved…