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Central Africa

A lab assistant looks at an assay plate to prepare sequencing at the Wellcome Sanger Institute that is operated by Genome Research in Cambridge, Thursday, March 4, 2021.

From Congo to Chile, small labs are playing a growing role in global understanding of COVID

COVID-19

Scientists are tracking the evolution and spread of SARS-CoV-2 and developing critical responses to it. Efforts have ramped up a lot this year — thanks to a growing global network. 

elephants

Report: African wildlife threatened by militia poaching

Global Politics
Rose Nakimuli

23 women have been murdered in these Ugandan towns since May. Police blame witchcraft.

Conflict
Artisanal gold miners in the Democratic Republic of the Congo use their hands and crude tools to find and extract gold.

Tracing conflict gold in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Jobs
Fortuné gets up at 4 a.m. to prepare homemade spaghetti, which he starts selling at his stand at 6 a.m.

Fortuné’s big dreams and small spaghetti business

Development

United States commits ground soldiers to battle militia in Uganda

The U.S. deployed about 300 special forces soldiers to Uganda to help battle the Lord’s Resistance Army. Could it be a new beachhead in the War on Terror?

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, and Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza speak to the press in Gitega, Burundi.

US Ambassador Samantha Power: ‘The match could be laid’ to ignite Burundi conflict

Conflict

Burundi’s leader seems hellbent on dragging his country into more ethnic violence.

An endangered mountain gorilla rests inside a forest in a Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Rwanada.

We still don’t know for sure how Ebola reached humans

Health

Scientists are still trying to figure out when and how the Ebola virus first emerged in humans. Many believe that fruit bats are the so-called “reservoir hosts,” but that remains to be definitively proven. Science writer David Quammen ventured deep into the forest of central Africa to try to find out for his latest book “Ebola: The Natural and Human History of a Deadly Virus.”

Elephants thermal camera

Researchers are unlocking ‘mating pandemonium’ and other secrets of forest elephants

Science

In the wild, animal mating is rarely a private event. Now, research shows that forest elephants take this idea to a whole new level, and the discoveries could help shed light on their relatively mysterious lives.In the wild, animal mating is rarely a private event. Now, research shows that forest elephants take this idea to a whole new level, and the discoveries could help shed light on their relatively mysterious lives.

VIDEO: A sanctuary in the Congo takes in orphaned chimpanzees

Orphaned chimpanzees are common in central Africa, their parents poached and killed for exotic restaurants or sold into the pet trade. But a sanctuary for young chimps is taking them in and hopes to return them to the wild.