Kenyans brace for second — and possibly worse — onslaught of locusts
After desert locusts invaded her farm in central Kenya, Mary Muthoni, 61, ran around her corn fields shouting and banging on an old iron sheet in a desperate attempt to drive them away. "They came here yesterday evening and sat on top of these trees ...
Mighty Nile River threatened by waste, warming and a giant Ethiopian dam
Early one morning in Cairo, volunteers paddle their kayaks across the Nile, fishing out garbage from the mighty waterway, which gave birth to Egyptian civilization but now faces multiple threats. Egypt's lifeline since pharaonic days and the source of 97 percent of its water is ...
'Stand with refugees,' Ethiopian Olympian says ahead of Tokyo Marathon
Nobody chooses to become a refugee: This is what Yonas Kinde, a 39-year-old from Ethiopia, wants people in Japan to realize when they see him competing in the Tokyo Marathon on Sunday in his bid to qualify for the 2020 Olympics. Kinde, who fled his ...
Ethiopia marathon runner Yonas Kinde aims for spot on Refugee Olympic Team
A runner who fled Ethiopia nearly a decade ago is preparing for Sunday's Tokyo Marathon with hopes of returning to Japan as a member of the Refugee Olympic Team. Yonas Kinde, 39, who competed at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, has been training this ...
Somalia declares locust plague emergency, appeals for funding
Somalia declared the worst desert locust invasion in a quarter-century a national emergency that's posing a major threat to an already fragile food situation. Swarms of the insects are breeding in Djibouti, Eritrea and Sudan and have also spread to neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia, where ...
Ethiopians demand action over kidnapping of students amid simmering ethnic violence
Several thousand protesters took to the streets in Ethiopian cities this past week, demanding Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed do more to tackle simmering ethnic violence following the kidnapping of a group of university students. Armed men abducted the students from Dembi Dollo University in the ...
African locust invasions believed triggered by climate change
Climate change may be powering the swarms of desert locusts that have invaded eastern Africa, ravaging crops, decimating pasture and deepening a hunger crisis, locust and climate experts said. Hundreds of millions of the insects have swept over the Horn of Africa in the worst ...
A tragic airline crash with far-reaching consequences, cataclysmic cyclones that may be a harbinger of the future, the death of an African icon and a new leader who won the Nobel Peace Prize. These African stories captured the world's attention in 2019 — and ...
Ethiopia launched its first satellite on Friday, a landmark achievement for the country's space program that caps a banner year for the African space industry. The launch of the Ethiopian Remote Sensing Satellite took place at a space station in China, though scores of Ethiopian ...
One-third of tropical plants in Africa threatened with extinction, study estimates
A third of the species of tropical plants in Africa are potentially threatened with extinction, according to a preliminary estimate published Wednesday by the journal Science Advances. The most authoritative list of threatened species is the famous "Red List" maintained by the International Union for ...
Sudanese hope Ethiopian dam will end flooding problem along course of Blue Nile
The Blue Nile is a renegade river, according to Sudanese farmer Osman Idris, its unpredictable flooding swallows crops and houses as it crashes through Sudan from Ethiopia on its way to Egypt. "Tonight, the level of water will be low," said Idris, a resident of ...
Heavy rains and floods have killed more than 50 people and forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes across East Africa as researchers warn warming oceans are causing unpredictable weather patterns in the region. South Sudan declared a national emergency last week after ...
