The animals were transported in a chartered Boeing 747 and were placed in two grassy enclosures - each the size of a football stadium - after arriving in the park. Photo Simon Wohlfahrt/AFP

Thirty endangered white rhinos have arrived in Rwanda after a long journey from South Africa in a Boeing 747 with conservationists hailing it as the largest single transfer of the species ever undertaken.

The majestic animals, which can weigh up to two tonnes, travelled some 3,400km (2,100 miles) from South Africa’s Phinda Private Game Reserve as part of a programme to replenish the species’ population, decimated by poaching since the 1970s.

At least 22 people have been killed in an attack in a camp for displaced people in Ituri province in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

The attack has been blamed on the armed group Cooperative for the Development of the Congo (Codeco) who are said to have opened fire on the camp.

Twenty people were buried immediately in two common graves, while another two were buried later, the AFP news agency quoted a Red Cross official as saying.

An attack on the same camp last week killed 29 people.

Ituri and neighbouring North Kivu province were put under a state of siege on 7 May – for the authorities to tackle insecurity in the area caused by armed groups including Codeco and the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).

As part of the siege, military officials replaced civilian officials who were in charge of the area’s administration.   Source: KBC

IEBC chairperson Wafula Chebukati (L) and Interior PS Dr Karanja Kibicho (R). Photo Standard

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has written to Interior PS Karanja Kibicho announcing its withdrawal from the 2022 election preparedness team.

In a statement dated Monday, November 29, IEBC chairperson Wafula Chebukati cited the need for independence as the main reason the commission has opted to leave the National Multi-Sectoral Consultative Forum (NMSCF) on Election Preparedness and the Technical Working Committee (TWC) on Election Preparedness.

“After consultations and in-depth critical appraisal of the Terms of Reference of NMSCF on Election Preparedness and TWC, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission would wish to withdraw from further engagements in the activities of the NMSCF and TWC,” said the statement by Chebukati.

The chairperson said a number of the terms of reference of the NMSCF and TWC have a net effect of violating the Constitution by purporting to direct the Commission on how to discharge its mandate, contrary to provisions of the Constitution.

The IEBC boss also expressed fear that NMSCF, as currently constituted, has pushed IEBC to the periphery while giving the centre stage to other institutions which, he said, was "a clear violation of the Constitution".

 The NMSCF on Election Preparedness brings together top officials from the Interior Ministry led by CS Fred Matiang’i, ICT Cabinet Secretary Joe Mucheru, and Attorney-General Kihara Kariuki; Judiciary led by Chief Justice Martha Koome and other government agencies.

He added that heavy involvement of the institutions will, probably, erode public confidence in the electoral board, which has the mandate to conduct credible polls.

He said as it is; the NMSCF has not only infringed on the independence of the commission but also assumed the role of other institutions, notably the Parliamentary Departmental Committees, especially National Assembly's Justice and Legal Affairs Committee.

The statement comes after a protest letter by the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) to IEBC over the inclusion of Cabinet Secretaries Fred Matiang'i (Interior) and Joe Mucheru (ICT) to the multi-agency team planning the 2022 polls.

UDA wanted Matiang’i and Mucheru removed from the team since they have "openly campaigned for ODM leader Raila Odinga's presidential candidature".

Through its Secretary-General Veronica Maina, UDA also wants the electoral body to stop the CSs from meddling in the election preparations, and instead take charge of the exercise as per the law.

Maina said it was wrong and dangerous for IEBC to allow CS Matiang'i to dictate to it how to prepare for the election, whereas it's their constitutional mandate to carry out elections.

UDA is also on record writing to CJ Koome over her involvement in the activities of the Technical Working Committee of the NMSCF on Election Preparedness.

The Chief Justice, however, said contrary to UDA’s claims, it is the Judiciary Committee on Election (JCE) that is involved in the Technical Working Committee’s activities, and not herself.

“The Chief Justice does not sit in the Technical Working Committee as implied in your letter. She leads the Multi-Sectoral Consultative Forum on Election Preparedness by didn’t of seniority,” she said in her response to UDA. - Mireri Junior, The Standard

A British citizen who was released from death row in Ethiopia after a high-profile government lobbying effort has been accused of telling soldiers to carry out genocide in the East African nation’s bloody civil war.

Andargachew Tsege, an Ethiopian-born UK citizen who was freed after pleas from Philip Hammond and Jeremy Corbyn, urged soldiers to resort to “the most savage of cruelties”, in a speech seen by The Telegraph.

“I tell you, you must not hesitate from resorting to the most barbaric of cruelties when you face them,” he said, referring to the ethnically Tigrayan opposition army that is advancing on the capital, Addis Ababa.

“You must be merciless, you must act beyond what our [ethnic] Amhara or Ethiopian cultural values permit,” Mr Tsege, a top government advisor dressed in army fatigues, yelled at a cheering crowd which included armed fighters. 

Mr Tsege’s inflammatory rhetoric comes at a time when ethnic Tigrayans are allegedly being rounded up into concentration camps and murdered. It has been widely interpreted as a call to kill Tigrayan civilians.

“It is genocide incitation against Tigrayans. It adds to the list of similar public incitements by public figures of the regime in Addis [Ababa],” said Mehari Taddele Maru, a professor at the European University Institute in Florence.

“What is more baffling is the international community’s, including UK’s and US, silence to genocidal incitement and war by their nationals.”

Tens of thousands of people have died since the war between Ethiopian federal and allied troops, and fighters from the northern country’s Tigray region broke out late last year.

Now the prospect of the ancient nation of 115 million people breaking apart has alarmed observers who fear what would happen to the already fragile Horn of Africa.

The British man’s outburst comes after the country’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was filmed in army gear surrounded by soldiers on what he claimed was the frontline.

In 2015, Mr Tsege, an Ethiopian-born UK citizen was at the heart of a diplomatic feud between Addis Ababa and London.

The 66-year-old is an opposition leader who first fled Ethiopia in the 1970s after the country’s old Marxist dictatorship murdered his brother.

The UK granted him asylum in 1979 and he went on to study the works of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant at the University of Greenwich.

Later he married in the UK, fathered three children and was granted full UK citizenship, voiding his Ethiopian citizenship as the country does not allow dual nationality.

In the 1990s, Mr Tsege returned to Ethiopia to work in opposition politics against the new authoritarian government which was dominated by ethnic Tigrayan elites.

The Tigrayans are just one of more than 80 ethnic groups in Ethiopia but despite its small size, the group has played a huge role in Ethiopia’s modern history and dominated the country’s politics for almost 30 years up to 2018.

Accused of organising a failed coup

In 2009, he was accused of organising a failed coup and sentenced to death in absentia. Then five years later he was arrested by airport guards in Yemen and extradited to Ethiopia where he was put in solitary confinement on death row.

Mr Tsege was dubbed “Andy Tsege” by parts of the British press. His plight was covered widely and his family appeared on Good Morning Britain and other major news shows, to advocate for his release.

Jeremy Corbyn, Mr Tsege’s local MP, tried to lead a delegation to Ethiopia to secure his release in early 2015.

Later, Philip Hammond, at the time foreign secretary, warned Ethiopia - one of the top recipients of UK aid - that the country’s relationship with the UK was being threatened by the treatment of Mr Tsege.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch also campaigned heavily for his release.

In 2018, he was pardoned by the newly appointed Prime Minister Abiy. He is believed to be an advisor to the Nobel laureate.

According to ABC News in America, at the start of November, the US government is considering designating the Ethiopian federal army atrocities in the northern Tigray region over the last year as a genocide. By Wiil Brown, The Telegraph/Yahoo News