Southern Africa

ADF STAFF Authorities seized 3,000 rifles, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and antitank missiles from a fishing vessel in the Gulf of Oman on January 15. The Iranian weapons were destined for the Houthi militia in Yemen. Eleven…

ADF STAFF Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing continued to be a costly issue around the continent in 2022. That fact was highlighted by an October 2022 report by the Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC) that showed…

ADF STAFF COVID-19 took Sikhulile Moyo on a roller coaster ride in late 2021. The Zimbabwean laboratory director at the Botswana-Harvard AIDS Institute Partnership led the team that sequenced and discovered the highly infectious omicron…

ADF STAFF Illegal fishing is decimating South Africa’s once-thriving stocks of abalone, rock lobster and other marine species. As in other coastal nations, vessels engaged in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in South…

ADF STAFF African nations that join the Joint Analytical Cell (JAC) to counter illegal fishing can harness Skylight, a maritime monitoring tool that tracks fishing vessels in real time and alerts authorities to suspicious behavior. The…

ADF STAFF Mozambique’s restive northeastern province is abuzz with action. Despite recent losses, violent insurgents continue to attack villages and residents, while thousands of security forces fight to secure towns in order to welcome…

ADF STAFF South Africa’s newest wave of COVID-19 infections is proving to be substantially different from previous waves. This is partly because of the high level of immunity in the population, according to experts from the country’s…

ADF STAFF After Russia invaded Ukraine in February, prices for food and other goods skyrocketed around the globe. Parts of Africa, where food insecurity already was exacerbated by COVID-19 and severe droughts, were hardest hit. In…

ADF STAFF When the omicron variant appeared in researcher Sikhulile Moyo’s Botswana laboratory, it become the latest contribution African scientists have made to fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. A study in the British Medical Journal…

ADF STAFF When South Africa experienced a COVID-19 outbreak at a hospital in Durban in early 2020, researchers at the nearby KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP) swung into action. Teams there examined…