ADF

After a series of crises, the African Union creates a new rapid-response mechanism for military intervention In October 2014, Mali’s Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop spoke before the United Nations Security Council and pleaded for help. His speech came after several bloody weeks during which insurgents set roadside bombs and launched motorbike attacks against peacekeepers in the nation’s troubled north. The attacks killed nine Nigerien Soldiers in Gao and 10 Chadian Soldiers in Kidal. “The international community must send these terrorists a strong message,” Diop told the U.N. “That’s the only message that they understand.” Diop went on to make a suggestion.…

Efforts are Underway in Somalia and Elsewhere to Protect Civilians in Peacekeeping Missions As African Union forces tried to take back Mogadishu, Somalia, from al-Shabaab insurgents, they were faced with a deadly dilemma. Al-Shabaab had entrenched itself in the capital city’s Bakara Market, on top of a hill in the city’s business district. From the densely populated area, the militants recruited members, extorted money from traders, and dug deep ditches around the market to keep out tanks and military vehicles, Voice of America reported in 2011. “The problem is that Bakara is a very difficult place,” Rashid Abdi, a Somalia…

It’s danced to Tchaikovsky’s famous melody, but it’s not your traditional Christmas Nutcracker: South Africa’s Joburg Ballet has set the ballet in the Kalahari Desert among ancient Bushmen paintings. The winter theme has been replaced with sun, sand and baobab trees. The role of the Sugar Plum Fairy is instead played by a sangoma, or traditional healer, and the famous Russian Dance is performed in overalls and gumboots. Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere comes around midsummer so “trying to pretend that it’s winter outside is a little bit ridiculous,” said Dirk Badenhorst, CEO of the Joburg Ballet. “So the idea…

Zimbabwe’s cricket team beat Australia for the first time in 31 years on August 31, 2014, as Captain Elton Chigumbura led his team to a three-wicket win in a one-day, three-team international tournament in Harare. Zimbabwe’s only previous success against Australia, one of the world’s top-ranked teams, came in their first meeting in 1983. Since then, Zimbabwe had endured 27 defeats and one abandoned match. “I had to be there at the end, and the most important thing was to stay calm under pressure,” Chigumbura said. “The guys have worked really hard for this, and the pleasing thing was that…

South Sudan’s capital, Juba, hosted the Festival of Fashion and Arts for Peace to raise money and awareness of the plight of thousands of South Sudanese who have been affected by the country’s political crisis. The world’s newest nation has been besieged by a political crisis, where at least 10,000 people have been killed since fierce fighting erupted in South Sudan in December 2013. But organizers behind the August 2014 festival hoped to inspire South Sudanese to come together and showcase some of the country’s riches, including culture and fashion. In its second edition, the festival aimed to promote peace…

VOICE OF AMERICA Kenya is renowned for its distance runners who have won races all over the world. But not all Kenyans are built for speed. Some are built for power. The Kenyans showed their prowess again at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, where they won 10 gold medals. Nine of the 10 golds came in running events, while Julius Yego made history as the first Kenyan to be crowned Commonwealth Games champion in the javelin. Yego’s winning throw of 83.87 meters came in the third round of the javelin competition. The 25-year-old decided to pass on his…

A Turkish company Albayrak Group has signed a 20-year agreement to manage the Mogadishu port with promises to modernize it and oversee its growth. Outsourcing port operations is one more sign of Somalia’s slow rehabilitation, a dramatic shift from more than two decades of war in which clans battled for control of the nation’s most valuable asset and let its facilities decay. “If you come to the Mogadishu port at the moment, you will wonder if it is a market or a port,” said Abdirahman Omar Osman, an advisor to the Somali presidency. He described how porters rush to dhows and…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE International donors pledged $8 billion in development aid for projects across eight countries in the Horn of Africa, United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon announced at the start of a visit to the region in October 2014. The aid, from organizations including the World Bank, African Development Bank, European Union and Islamic Development Bank, will support efforts to boost economies and stem conflict and hunger across the volatile region. Countries targeted are Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda. “The countries of the Horn of Africa are making important, yet unheralded, progress in economic growth and…

DEFENCEWEB French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has announced his country’s intention to deploy more than 3,000 Soldiers to begin military operations under a broadened trans-Sahel counter-terrorism initiative set to operate from bases in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger. The regional force will have its main air force base in the Chadian capital, N’Djamena; a regional operations base in the Malian city of Gao; a special forces base in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso; and an intelligence base in the Nigerien capital, Niamey. Code-named Operation Barkhane, the operation seeks to track down and disrupt Islamist trans-Sahel jihadist militant networks that…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Ugandan security forces stopped a cell of Somalia’s al-Shabaab insurgents in the nation’s capital that was planning an imminent attack. Police arrested people in September 2014 in raids two weeks after Ugandan troops, fighting in Somalia, reportedly provided intelligence that helped U.S. special forces kill al-Shabaab chief Ahmed Abdi Godane in an air strike. “Joint security agencies in Uganda have foiled a terrorist attempt at one of its installations,” police spokesman Fred Enanga said without giving further information. Security forces have boosted patrols around major sites, the U.S. said in a warning statement to its citizens in the…