in 2022 warned of heavier flooding in the wet season and

Soldiers stand at their outpost near Nzara, South Sudan on Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)Soldiers stand at their outpost near Nzara, South Sudan on Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

Barnaba said there are plans to rehabilitate old coffee plantations and build an agriculture school, but details are murky, including where the money will come from. South Sudan hasn’t paid its civil servants in more than a year, and a rupture of a crucial oil pipeline through neighboring Sudan has tanked oil revenue.Growing the coffee isn’t always easy, either. Farmers have to contend with fires that spread quickly in the dry season and decimate their crops. Hunters use fires to scare and kill animals and residents use it to clear land for cultivation. But the fires can get out of control and there are few measures in place to hold people accountable, say residents.A worker tends to excelsa seedlings inside a greenhouse near Nzara, South Sudan on Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

A worker tends to excelsa seedlings inside a greenhouse near Nzara, South Sudan on Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)Still, for locals, the coffee represents a chance at a better future.

Bashiama said she started planting coffee after her husband was injured and unable to help cultivate enough of the maize and ground nuts that the family had lived on. Since his accident she hasn’t been able to send her children to school or buy enough food, she said.

Another farmer, 37-year-old Taban John, wants to use his coffee earnings to buy a bicycle so he can more easily sell his other crops, ground nuts and cassava, and other goods in town. He also wants to be able to afford school uniforms for his children.KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said he plans to speak by phone Monday with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, followed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and leaders of various NATO countries, about ending

Trump said the call with Putin will be about stopping the “bloodbath” in Ukraine.“Hopefully it will be a productive day, a ceasefire will take place, and this very violent war, a war that should have never happened, will end,” Trump wrote Saturday in a post on his social networking site Truth Social.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed in comments to Russian media that preparations were underway for Monday’s call.Trump’s remarks came a day after the first