"Scientists tracking a crop-destroying caterpillar known as armyworm say it is now spreading rapidly across mainland Africa and could reach tropical Asia and the Mediterranean in the next few years, threatening agricultural trade."

"Hunger, malnutrition and death threaten 6.5 million children in the impoverished drylands of Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya due to back-to-back droughts, a charity said on Friday, with spring rains also predicted to be poor."

"Scientists have mapped what they say is the largest peatland in the tropics, an area larger than New York State in the Congo Basin in Central Africa."

"The world's fastest land animal, the cheetah, is in danger of extinction because it is running out of space, research led by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) has found."

"In a tradition dating to Biblical times, men rise at dawn in the rugged Cal Madow mountains of Somaliland in the Horn of Africa to scale rocky outcrops in search of the prized sap of wild frankincense trees."

"The much anticipated results of the largest ever continent-wide wildlife survey, the Great Elephant Census, will be released tomorrow at the World Conservation Congress in Hawaii. The worrying finding: Africa now has 352,271 savanna elephants left in 93 percent of the species’ range."

"Libya has shipped the last of its chemical weapons stocks out of the country on a Danish vessel, under a UN-backed plan to eliminate the arsenal, officials said Tuesday."

"KINSHASA, Congo — As a yellow fever outbreak in central Africa exploded, 1 million vaccines disappeared in Angola. Thousands more vaccinations were delayed when accompanying syringes got waylaid. Ice packs to keep the shots potent went missing. And while the epidemic of the hemorrhagic fever spilled across international borders, a senior outbreak expert at the World Health Organization acknowledged their response had "lagged" for months."

"As one of the worst droughts recorded in southern Africa persists ... dry conditions are threatening lives of the region's most vulnerable."