FOCUS ON
ALGERIA
Click here to sign up for free weekly email
Email recaps are sent every Thursdays.
Sign up today
Western Sahara: Tension in the Maghreb increases after killing of three Algerian truckers in contested region
Algeria-Morocco: Decades of tensions As Algeria accused Morocco of killing three of its truck drivers on a desert highway, we look at the North African neighbours' worsening relations. The disputed Western Sahara, which Rabat considers part of its kingdom but where...
North Africa’s skilled workers looking to leave their countries in droves
Subscriber access: Algeria is experiencing a mass exodus of medical doctors and other skilled professionals, challenging its efforts to contain the Covid-19 crisis and deal with the other emerging crises. The public sector is the most affected, with doctors, nurses...
Return to authoritarianism fuels anger in the Arab world
By Ezzedine Said A military coup in Sudan has dealt another blow to democracy in the Arab world, months after a power grab by the president of Tunisia, where the 2011 Arab uprisings were born. For some, the latest setbacks spell the end of the democratic experiment in...
Algeria to halt gas exports to Spain via Morocco
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune on Sunday ordered state energy firm Sonatrach to halt gas exports to Spain through a pipeline that traverses Morocco due to tensions with Rabat. Algeria, Africa's biggest natural gas exporter, has been using the...
Business: Algeria puts an end to Maghreb pipeline
Algeria will from now on deliver its natural gas to Spain exclusively through an undersea pipeline, ministers from both countries reportedly said Wednesday, after Algiers abandoned use of a line through Morocco. In August Algeria cut diplomatic ties with its Maghreb...
Criminality: Drug baron Hambli arrested in Moroccan hospital
A notorious French drug baron who skipped bail in March this year has been re-arrested in a Morocco hospital where he is being treated for a serious facial wound, security sources told AFP on Monday. Sofiane Hambli, a 46-year-old Franco-Algerian, used false papers to...
Algeria: Regime’s war against civil society intensifies
A court in Algiers dissolved NGO and civil society organization Youth Action Rally (RAJ), causing uproar among opposition parties and rights organizations. The politically motivated court ruling essentially banned an organization that was largely involved in charity...
Algeria: IED explosion kills border guard during patrol mission in Tlemcen province
An Algerian border guard was killed and two wounded on Wednesday evening when a bomb went off near the Moroccan border, the defence ministry said Thursday. The home-made device exploded as they passed during a patrol to "secure the borders and tackle organised crime",...
Western Sahara: Veteran diplomat De Mistura takes on the impossible task of reconciling Algeria and Morocco on Western Sahara
Algeria urges Morocco to quit W. Sahara buffer zone Algeria, the main backer of Western Sahara's Polisario Front independence movement, called on Morocco Thursday to withdraw from a key buffer zone, after the United Nations named a new envoy. The UN on Wednesday named...
Algeria: Prison time piles against former government leaders over more corruption
Two detained former prime ministers under Algeria's longtime ex-president Abdelaziz Bouteflika were handed additional prison sentences on Monday for corruption, local media reported. Ahmed Ouyahia and Abdelmalek Sellal were sentenced to six and five years respectively...
Algeria: Retired General Ali Ghediri gets four years in prison for “undermining army morale”
An Algiers court on Thursday sentenced a former presidential candidate and retired general to four years in prison for undermining army morale, the official APS news agency reported. Ali Ghediri had said he would stand in Algeria's April 2019 election against longtime...
Algeria’s first post-Bouteflika leader, interim President Abdelkader Bensalah, dies aged 79
Veteran Algerian politician Abdelkader Bensalah, who served briefly as interim president after his mentor Abdelaziz Bouteflika was forced to resign in 2019, died Wednesday aged 79, the president's office said. His death after what friends said was a long illness came...
Algeria closes airspace to all Moroccan planes
By Abdellah Cheballa: Algeria said Wednesday it has closed its airspace to all Moroccan planes due to "provocations and hostile practices" by its neighbour, in the latest dispute between the countries at odds mainly over Western Sahara. The move comes after Algeria...
Algeria buries ex-president Bouteflika in muted funeral
By Abdellah Cheballah with Francoise Kadri in Tunis: Algeria on Sunday buried Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the North African country's longest-serving president, at a cemetery for its independence heroes, but without the honours accorded to his predecessors. Bouteflika...
Algeria: Attacks on journalists continue
(Photo: Journalists Mouloudj (left) and Bouras (right)): An Algerian journalist and rights activist was taken into custody on Sunday facing a charge of "glorifying terrorism", one of his lawyers said. Hassan Bouras was also charged with belonging to a terrorist...
Algeria: Another bus crash kills 13 people in Naama
Thirteen people died and eight were injured in Algeria on Sunday when a bus collided with a truck in the northwest, emergency services said. The crash happened in the Oued Khebaza locality in Naama province, some 650 kilometres (400 miles) south of the capital...
Algeria: Former Tunisian presidential candidate Karoui placed in pre-trial detention in Algeria
The runner-up in Tunisia's 2019 presidential election, Nabil Karoui, has been placed in pre-trial detention in neighbouring Algeria, accused of "entering the country illegally", local media reported Sunday. Karoui and his brother Ghazi, an MP, had faced a hearing...
Regimes in Algeria and Tunisia gang up to kill democracy and human rights
Algeria-Tunisia: Scratch my back, I'll scratch yours Tunisian opposition politician and media owner Nabil Karoui and his brother, a member of the Tunisian parliament, were arrested by the Algerian authorities during a trip to the Algerian city of Tebessa, on the...
Tunisian businessman and ex presidential candidate Karoui arrested in Algeria
Liberal party leader Nabil Karoui, runner-up in Tunisia's 2019 presidential election that saw Kais Saied elected, has been arrested in Algeria along with his MP brother, media reports said Monday. The privately owned Radio Mosaique FM said border police arrested the...
Algeria says it will end natural gas transiting deal with Morocco
Algeria said Thursday it was ready to divert all its Spain-bound natural gas exports via an undersea pipeline that bypasses Morocco, state media said, two days after Algiers cut ties with its North African rival. In a meeting with Spanish Ambassador Fernando Moran,...
Connect
You can find us on a few social media platforms. Feel free to connect with us there.