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BBC NEWS AT BBC.CO.UK/NEWS Nigerians are congratulating countryman Wellington Jighere, who became the first African to win the English-language World Scrabble Championship. The 32-year-old beat Englishman Lewis MacKay 4-0 in the final in Australia in November 2015. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari was among those to congratulate him, saying he has “done the country proud.” Jighere said on his Facebook page that he felt he was playing with the “whole continent” behind him. He added that it baffles him that he managed to win, given how tired he felt because he had not slept well in about a week. He told…

BBC NEWS AT BBC.CO.UK/NEWS Genzebe Dibaba of Ethiopia won the International Association of Athletics Federations female athlete of the year award for 2015. Dibaba, 24, set a new 1,500-meter world record of 3 minutes, 50.07 seconds, at the World Championships competition in Beijing in August 2015. She also won the 1,500-meter gold and 5,000-meter bronze. Dibaba’s family is something of an athletic dynasty. Her older sister Tirunesh is a celebrated athlete who won more than 19 major medals, including five Olympic medals in the 2008 and 2012 games. Another older sister, Ejegayehu, won the silver medal in the 10,000 meters…

DEFENCEWEB The German government donated two Husky fixed-wing light aircraft to the Tanzania National Parks and Tanzania Wildlife Authority to help combat wildlife poaching. The aircraft were donated through the Frankfurt Zoological Society to be used to monitor Tanzania’s elephant hot spots, including the Selous Game Reserve and Serengeti National Park. Pilots will patrol for poachers, help rangers coordinate forces on the ground, and carry out wildlife censuses and habitat monitoring. The aircraft were handed over in November 2015 at Arusha airport in a ceremony attended by Serengeti Chief Park Warden William Mwakilema; Alan Kijazi, director of Tanzania National Parks;…

DEFENCEWEB The U.S. government donated 18 Toyota pickup trucks, a trailer truck, a front-end loader and other equipment to Cameroon’s military, which will use it to fight Boko Haram. Some of the other equipment includes seven 1,500- to 3,000-liter water tanks and six generators. U.S. Ambassador to Cameroon Michael Stephen Hoza handed over the equipment and vehicles to Cameroonian Defence Minister Joseph Beti Assomo in Yaoundé in December 2015. Hoza said the U.S. hopes that the new equipment will enhance the Army’s mobility and extend its operational capabilities. Hoza said the donation is a symbol of the strong partnership between…

THE STAR, Kenya Kenya is working with France on a project to give communities around Lake Victoria access to clean water and improve security in some of the nation’s slums. France has given Kenya a $43 million grant that will cover 27.5 percent of the project. In the deal, signed in 2015, the Lake Victoria Water and Sanitation project was allocated $5.4 million and the slums upgrade project received $38 million. French Ambassador Remi Marachaux said 21 floodlights will be erected in slums in Nakuru, Eldoret and Mombasa. Another 27 floodlights are under construction in Machakos, Nairobi and Naivasha, he…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Zimasa Mabela grew up under apartheid in a South African village just two hours’ drive from the ocean, but it wasn’t until age 18 that she first saw the sea. Now 38, she is the first black woman to command a South African naval vessel. Lt. Cmdr. Mabela recalled that her first visit to the beach coincided with the end of white rule in 1994 — and she caught the historic wave of change that followed. “I wasn’t terrified of the water,” she said, gazing out from the bridge of her sleek minehunter, the SAS Umhloti. “In my…

DEFENCEWEB Sierra Leone commissioned a new patrol boat to monitor fishing vessels and poachers in its territorial waters. President Ernest Bai Koroma presided over the ceremony on November 11, 2015, in Freetown. The boat, Fisheries Patrol Vessel Sorie Ibrahim Koroma, is named after a former vice president. In his address, Koroma said poachers pose serious challenges to the fishing industry, which contributes to the nation’s healthy living, employment and economic activity. He said the government has increased revenue generation in the fishing industry from $1.5 million in 2007 to $6.5 million in 2014, adding that managing it well will further…

VOICE OF AMERICA A senior official at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) said the group’s policies to combat violent extremism in the region are worth replicating elsewhere. Remi Ajibewa, ECOWAS director for political affairs, said member nations have been sharing intelligence and information to combat numerous terror organizations, including the Nigeria-based extremist group Boko Haram, whose attacks in Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria have killed thousands. Speaking during a panel on violent extremism at United Nations headquarters in New York, Ajibewa said the ECOWAS bloc’s rich body of counterterrorism experience includes national and regional counterterrorism strategic training,…

THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE The Nigerian Navy is using an Israeli-designed, United Arab Emirates-built Falcon Eye mass surveillance system to track activity in the Gulf of Guinea. The waters off the coast of Nigeria are notorious for piracy, especially kidnappings and oil theft, and the technology is intended to help the country’s Armed Forces combat maritime crimes. Rear Adm. Raphael Osondu said piracy is a persistent threat to Nigeria’s economy and that countering it is a military priority. Falcon Eye’s six electro-optical stations allow for the monitoring of aircraft, vessels and offshore oil infrastructure. The system has a range of up…

VOICE OF AMERICA Scientists may have hit on a way to prevent the transmission of malaria with a drug originally developed to treat parasitic illnesses. The drug, whose creators were honored with a Nobel Prize, is called ivermectin, and it’s being tested in parts of Africa. Ivermectin has completely revolutionized the treatment of worm diseases such as river blindness and elephantiasis and could lead to their eradication if it’s used effectively. Now it appears ivermectin may be effective against the spread of malaria. Vector biologist Brian Foy of Colorado State University in the United States led a study in Burkina…