After signing an agreement with the Ethiopian government last November, the Air Force is helping to modernize Arba Minch Airport in southwest Ethiopia, reports Addis Fortune, Ethiopia’s largest English-language newspaper. Workers are extending the airport’s 9,170 foot, hard-surface runway, and making facility and service improvements, so that the site could potentially accommodate USAF airlifters, according to the report. The airport is located about 340 miles south of the country’s capital, Addis Ababa. Seventeenth Air Force at Ramstein AB, Germany, supervises USAF’s air-related outreach activities on the African continent, including those to build the capacity of partner nations’ air forces. (For more, see Engagement in Africa from the Air Force Magazine archives)
The U.K. and the U.S. will continue to enjoy access to the ports, airfield, and workshops at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean for at least another century, under a deal inked between the U.K. and Mauritius May 22.