A tank damaged during the fighting between Ethiopia’s National Defense Force (ENDF) and Tigray Special Forces stands on the outskirts of Humera town. (Reuters)
Eritrea on Monday angrily rejected US sanctions imposed on its army chief over allegations of widespread rights abuses in Ethiopia’s war-torn Tigray region.
“The government of Eritrea rejects, both in letter and spirit, the utterly baseless allegations and blackmail directed against it,” the Eritrean foreign ministry said in a statement on Twitter.
The US Treasury Department earlier Monday announced the sanctions against General Filipos Woldeyohannes, saying forces under his command were responsible for “massacres, looting, and sexual assaults” in Tigray.
But the Eritrean foreign ministry described the accusations as “unacceptable”, saying: “This is not, indeed, the first time for the US Administration to float such baseless smear campaigns against Eritrea.”
“In the face of the repetitive and unwarranted accusations, Eritrea cannot remain silent. In the circumstances, Eritrea calls on the US Administration to bring the case to an independent adjudication if it indeed has facts to prove its false allegations.” Alarabiya News
Endangered Black Rhino protection means tourism protection. Photo eTurboNews
Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Tanzania this week launched a new protection method to save the most endangered black rhino within its conservation ecosystem and the rest of the East African region. Jointly with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism with technical support from Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS), Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) is now protecting its rhino population with special marks and electronic devices for radio monitoring for ease tracking.
The official numbers designated for the rhinos in Ngorongoro in Tanzania start from 161 to 260, conservation officials said.
Identification tags on the rhinos’ left and right earlobes will be placed, while 4 of the male mammals will be fixed with devices for radio monitoring to monitor their movements while venturing beyond the conservation boundaries.
Protection of these black African rhinos in Ngorongoro is going on at this time when conservation experts are facing problems connected to an increasing human activity in this heritage area due to rocketing human population sharing its ecosystem with wildlife.
Save the Rhino International, a United Kingdom (UK) based conservation charity for in situ rhino conservation, said in its latest report that there are just 29,000 rhinos left in the world. Their number had dropped sharply over the past 20 years.
Researchers from the Sigfox Foundation have been fitting rhinos in Southern Africa range states with special gadgets with sensors to track their movements the save them from poachers, mostly from Southeast Asia where the rhino horn is desired.
By tracking the animals, the researchers can protect them from poachers and better understand their habits to protect, then swap them to breed them, within protected areas and ultimately conserve the species.
The Sigfox Foundation is now partnering with 3 of the largest international wildlife conservation organizations to expand the rhino tracking system with sensors.
The first phase of the rhino tracking trial, called “Now Rhino Speak,” took place from July 2016 to February 2017 in areas protecting 450 wild rhinos in Southern Africa.
South Africa is home to 80 percent of the world’s remaining rhinos. With populations decimated by poachers, there’s a real danger to lose the rhino species in forthcoming years unless the African governments take serious steps to save these big mammals, Save the Rhino experts said.
Black rhinos are among the most poached and endangered animals in Africa with their population decreasing at an alarming rate.
Rhino conservation is now a key target which the conservationists are looking to ensure their survival in Africa after serious poaching which had decimated their numbers in past decades.
Mkomazi National Park in Tanzania is now the first wildlife park in East Africa specialized and dedicated for rhino tourism.
Overlooking Mount Kilimanjaro to the north, and Tsavo West National Park in Kenya in the east, Mkomazi National Park boasts an array of wildlife including more than 20 species of mammals and some 450 species of birds.
Through the George Adamson Wildlife Preservation Trust, the black rhino was reintroduced into a heavily-protected and fenced area within the Mkomazi National Park which is now conserving and breeding black rhinos.
African black rhinos were translocated to Mkomazi from other parks in Africa and Europe. Black rhinos in Africa have over the years been the most hunted animal species facing great dangers to their extinction due to a high demand in the Far East.
Covering an area of 3,245 kilometers, Mkomazi National Park is one of Tanzania’s newly-established wildlife parks where wild dogs are protected together with the black rhinos. Tourists visiting this park may see wild dogs which are counted among endangered species in Africa.
In past decades, black rhinos used to roam freely between the Mkomazi and Tsavo wildlife ecosystem, extending from Tsavo West National Park in Kenya to the lower slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro.
African black rhinos are a native species living in Eastern and Southern African range states. They are classified as a critically endangered species with at least 3 sub-species declared extinct by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). - Apolinari Tairo, eTurboNews Tanzania
Lady Justice Fatuma Sichale follows proceedings during the ruling of the BBI at the appeals court on August.20th.2021/EZEKIEL AMING'A
She said that the IEBC as currently constituted with three members is constitutionally compliant.
In Summary
•She said the Constitution struck a balance between stability & instability by providing for amendments.
•"What is good for one generation may not necessarily be good for the next. Present and future generations should not be ruled by the dead hand of their ancestors," she said.
Lady Justice Fatuma Sichale follows proceedings during the ruling of the BBI at the appeals court on August.20th.2021/EZEKIEL AMING'A
Justice Fatuma Sichale has upheld the high court order that President Uhuru Kenyatta cannot be the promoter of a popular initiative.
"On personal and official capacity; Can a president cease to be president without handing over power during the tenure of his office?" she posed.
"The president cannot be a Wanjiku and therefore cannot initiate process to amend constitution through popular initiative."
Reading her judgement on Friday, Sichale also agreed with the high court that the president can be sued in his personal capacity in civil matters.
Justice Sichale further said the president was not served with the petition and that he had a right to be heard.
"He is entitled to the protection. It was wrong for the court to proceed with the hearing without ascertaining whether he had been served," she said.
She noted that at no point was the high court shown the affidavit of service adding that the president was entitled to a fair hearing and right to be heard.
On IEBC quorum, Justice Sichale says the verification of signatures by IEBC did not require quorum.
She said that the IEBC as currently constituted with three members is constitutionally compliant.
"Therefore it can carry out its mandate. The issue of verification of signatures is not a policy but operational decision," Sichale said.
"Verification of signatures was not null and void due to lack of signatures."
This is contrary to what Justice Francis Tuiyott said in his judgment on the Building Bridges Initiative.
Tuiyott upheld the decision by the High court which ruled that IEBC had quorum when it embarked on the referendum's verification of signatures.
"IEBC should have filled the vacant positions. IEBC should carry out its functions with all hands on deck," he said on Friday.
Tuiyott said the Statute fixes the composition of IEBC to seven and a quorum of five which has not been challenged.
On the excess of the judiciary, Justice Sichale said in her view it is not correct to elevate judges to the status of demigods.
"And just as it is possible to have a distrustful and rogue parliament, it is also possible to have a rogue and distrustful Judiciary," she added. Edited by N.Agutu
•“The whole process was null and void and in the end am happy we have kept the constitution sound and safe up and until this moment and may it remain as such,” Justice Patrick Kiage said.
•The Judges also appeared to raise the bar on amending the Constitution through popular initiative and making even harder to amend the country’s supreme law.
Court of Appeal has upheld the High Court ruling that BBI is null and void and its processes were unconstitutional.
In a majority decision on Friday, six of the seven-judge bench, headed by the Court’s President Daniel Musinga tore into the BBI process, declaring several stages and actions unconstitutional and unlawful.
The judges however expunged part of the High Court orders including one that said that President Uhuru Kenyatta had contravened Chapter Six of the Constitution.
The judges unanimously set aside the declaration that Uhuru contravened chapter six of the constitution for initiating the BBI process.
All judges have agreed that the basic structure is applicable in Kenya.
However, 5 judges affirmed that the basic structure doctrine limits the power to amend the constitution. Judges Okwengu and Sichale dissented.
All the judges have also unanimously ruled that civil proceedings can be instituted against the present, Justice Tuiyott dissented.
All judges have also agreed that the president does not have the authority to initiate changes to the constitution.
The bench has also held that the BBI steering committee has no legal capacity to initiate changes to the constitution.
Six judges have held that the constitution of Kenya cannot be subjected to the referendum unless. Justice Sichale dissented.
Justice Sichale also disagreed with the majority who held that IEBC did not have a quorum for carrying out verification of signatures and other administrative processes.
The judges also unanimously agreed that at the time of collection of BBI signatures there was no legislation given on verification of signatures.
"A permanent injunction is hereby issued barring IEBC from conducting a referendum on the constitutional amendment bill 2020," the judges said.
The Judges also appeared to raise the bar on amending the Constitution through popular initiative and making it even harder to amend the country’s supreme law.
The majority faulted the President for riding on a popular initiative – an avenue reserved for the common man – to instigate constitutional changes. By SHARON MAOMBO AND ANNETTE WAMBULWA, The Star
Britain and the United States imposed sanctions on Friday on men they said were Russian intelligence operatives responsible for the poisoning one year ago of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
The two countries both targeted seven Russians with sanctions and also issued a joint statement warning Russia over chemical weapons. Washington separately imposed sanctions on another two men and four Russian institutes it said were involved in chemical weapons research or what it described as an assassination attempt against Navalny.
Navalny was flown to Germany for medical treatment after being poisoned in Siberia on Aug. 20 last year with what Western experts concluded was the military nerve agent Novichok.
Moscow has rejected their findings and accused the West of a smear campaign against it.
An updated version of the British sanctions list published by the government on the first anniversary of Navalny’s poisoning included seven new names.
“The sanctioned individuals are directly responsible for planning or carrying out the attack on Mr Navalny,” a Foreign Office statement said.
British foreign minister Dominic Raab said the move was a warning to Russia. “We are sending a clear message that any use of chemical weapons by the Russian state violates international law, and a transparent criminal investigation must be held.”
Russian Foreign Ministrys spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on social media that the “unilateral sanctions are illegitimate as they have not been approved by the UN Security Council”.
“Russia has destroyed the chemical weapons arsenal in line with international obligations it has taken upon itself. You can’t say the same about the NATO countries, for example, the USA,” she said.
The sanctions will affect those people named who have overseas assets.
The U.K. document listed Alexey Alexandrov, Vladimir Panyaev, Ivan Osipov, Vladimir Bogdanov, Kirill Vasilyev, Stanislav Makshakov and Alexei Sedov. It said they were all members of Russia’s FSB security service and were either directly or indirectly involved in the poisoning.
The U.S. Treasury later said it was imposing sanctions on the same seven men and two additional Russian officials it said were involved in the poisoning: Konstantin Kudryavtsev and Artur Zhirov.
It also targeted the FSB Criminalistics Institute, a lab where most of those implicated in the attack worked, and the Russian defence ministry’s State Institute for Experimental Military Medicine.
The State Department also imposed sanctions on two other Russian military scientific institutes involved in chemical weapons, it said.
The individuals cited have not offered any immediate comment.
The British government cited evidence including phone and travel records showing some of the operatives were present in the Siberian city of Tomsk at the time of the poisoning.
For others it said there were reasonable grounds to suspect that, due to their positions in the intelligence service, they had “responsibility for, provided support for, or promoted the actions of the operatives who carried out the operation”.
Navalny was jailed for parole violations on what he says were politically motivated charges when he flew back to Russia earlier this year from Germany.
“We call on Russia to comply fully with the Chemical Weapons Convention, including its obligations to declare and dismantle its chemical weapons programme,” the joint U.S.-British statement said.
“We remain determined to uphold the global norm against the use of chemical weapons.”
(Reporting by William James in London and Simon Lewis in Washington; additional reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow; Editing by Timothy Heritage, Mark Heinrich, Frances Kerry and Cynthia Osterman) Metro
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