Tunisia: Some policy challenges facing President Kais Saied
Tunis, Oct 16, 2019 – Tunisia’s president-elect Kais Saied has won a clear mandate to fight corruption and promote social justice, even though his role focuses on security and diplomacy. Here is an overview of key policy challenges facing the conservative...
Algérie: le régime perd le contrôle de l’économie, le secteur de la construction s’effondre
Version Anglaise ici – Arezki Daoud – 10 Octobre 2019 -Alors que le gouvernement algérien s’emploie à adopter à une vitesse vertigineuse son budget 2020 et une loi des hydrocarbures extrêmement controversée, les statistiques sur le secteur de la...
Algeria: Regime loses control of the economy, construction sector collapses
French version here- By Arezki Daoud – 10 October 2019: While the Algerian government is working to pass its 2020 budget and an extremely controversial petroleum law at a breath-taking speed, the statistics on the construction sector in the country are...
Libya: Warlord Haftar’s warplanes kill at least three children near Tripoli
Tripoli, Oct 14, 2019 – At least three children were killed and eight civilians wounded Monday in an air strike on a residential neighbourhood near the Libyan capital, the health ministry said. Spokesman Lamine al-Hachemi said another child was seriously wounded...
Tunisia: Kais Saied wins presidential election
Tunis, Oct 14, 2019 – Conservative political outsider Kais Saied has won Tunisia’s presidential election by a landslide taking 72.71 percent of the votes, the North African country’s electoral commission said Monday. Saied garnered 2.7 million votes...
Morocco: Amnesty accuses Morocco of using spyware on rights activists
London, Oct 10, 2019 – Two rights activists in Morocco have been targeted by surveillance technology developed by an Israeli firm that enables the sender to seize near-full control of mobile devices, Amnesty International said Thursday. The rights group said...
Inside the Moroccan cannabis business: local marijuana being replaced by hybrid varieties
Ketama, Morocco, Oct 10, 2019 – Morocco’s rugged Rif Mountains have long been renowned for their cannabis but traditional varieties are being smoked out by foreign hybrids offering higher yields and greater potency. The local strain of marijuana, known as...
Tunisia: Presidential candidate Nabil Karoui released from prison, campaign to intensify
Tunis, Oct 10, 2019 – Tunisian presidential hopeful Nabil Karoui said Thursday he will “wage battle and win” a weekend runoff against a political newcomer, a day after the business tycoon was released from jail. “There is a day or two left but...
Algeria: All-out repression as military regime seeks to impose unpopular status quo
Algiers, Oct 8, 2019 – Algerian police Tuesday prevented a weekly protest by students in the capital for the first time since an anti-regime movement took to the streets in February, AFP journalists and witnesses said. They forcefully barred access to a square...
Sahel: Conflict with Jihadists expands to southwest Niger
Niamey, Oct 7, 2019 – Two soldiers were killed and five others wounded in a “terrorist” attack in southwest Niger, a region that until recently had been spared jihadist raids, the interior ministry said Monday. “A detachment of the security...
Libya: Warlord Haftar’s air raid targets civilians, injures children
Tripoli, Oct 7, 2019 – An air raid on riding stables near the Libyan capital Tripoli has wounded at least six people, including children, sparking condemnation from the United Nations and the unity government. An African worker was also among the six people...
Tunisia: Negotiations to form new government underway after election failed to produce single winning party
Tunis, Oct 7, 2019 (AFP) – Tunisia’s parliamentary elections held on Sunday appear to have failed to forge a clear path to forming a government. Closed door negotiations are already underway, even ahead of official preliminary results due on Wednesday and...
Sahel: Prison uprising in Chad, one killed
N’Djamena, Oct 7, 2019 (AFP) – At least one inmate was killed and another 11 wounded on Monday in a prison uprising in eastern Chad before troops retook control, officials said. The uprising broke out in Abeche, the capital of Ouaddai province, where...
Algeria: Regime finds no helper, unable to replace PM Bedoui
The Algerian military command and its civilian allies (the regime) are reported to be unable to find a prime minister to replace the highly unpopular acting PM, Nourredine Bedoui. According to investigative web magazine Algerie Part, “no credible political figure has...
Sahel: Mali president Boubacar Keita dismisses coup speculation
Bamako, Oct 6, 2019 – Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita on Sunday rejected as speculation talk of a military coup after recent jihadist attacks left dozens of soldiers dead near the border with Burkina Faso. Keita said lessons would be learned after 38...
Tunisia: Legislative elections underway
Tunis, Oct 6, 2019 (By Caroline Nelly Perrot) – Tunisians go to the polls Sunday for the third parliamentary polls of a successful but hectic transition to democracy since the North African country’s 2011 revolution. Polling stations open for the...
Egypt: Tension escalates with Ethiopia over Nile dam
Cairo, Oct 6, 2019 – Egypt has urged international mediation over what it called “deadlock” in talks in Sudan over a massive dam under construction on the Nile River, sparking fresh tensions with Ethiopia. Negotiations between the three countries...
Libya: As the war for Tripoli drags on, the Libyan capital is in disarray
Tripoli, Oct 3, 2019 – Faraj al-Doukali hastened to unload the dozens of rubbish bags from his van onto a sidewalk dump in Siyahiya, a residential district west of the Libyan capital. “Each weekend I collect the rubbish from my four brothers at the farm...
Sahel: France wants to drag Europe into a conflict with no endgame
France has begun asking its European partners to send special forces to Mali and other Sahel nations in Africa, to shore up local forces who are being increasingly targeted by deadly jihadist attacks across the vast desert expanse. The idea is to improve on the basic...
Western Sahara: The forgotten conflict that is likely to perdure
United Nations, United States, Oct 3, 2019 (AFP) – UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he hopes to maintain the political “momentum” to seek a solution to the Western Sahara conflict, despite having not had a special envoy to the region for...
Tunisia: Alleged lobbying contract by Nabil Karoui guarantees election victory of Kais Saied
Tunis – The publication by US authorities of a $1-million international lobbying contract to promote a jailed front-runner in Tunisia’s presidential election has triggered an uproar in the North African country. The US Justice Department published a copy...
Egypt: Fear of more unrest prompts Sisi government to lower fuel prices
Cairo, Oct 4, 2019 – Egypt lowered fuel prices on Friday, the oil ministry said, following several rounds of price hikes as part of an austerity programme that have triggered discontent. The move comes a week after rare protests broke out in Cairo and other...
Algeria: West silent at arbitrary arrests and human rights abuses in Algeria
The west has had a great deal of sympathizing for the struggle of the people of Hong Kong. There has been an uproar about abuses against the Sudanese people. But no single western nation has said a word about the abuses taking place in Algeria. Opposition figures and...
Algeria: Forced election will destabilize the Mediterranean region
By Arezki Daoud – 4 October 2019: The Algerian political crisis is in its 33rd week with no sign of any of the protagonists standing down. The standoff continues, with the military command intensifying its repression against members of civil society, while the...
Algeria: Military command plays its last card, political crisis reaching its climax
By Arezki Daoud – 1 October 2019: This is make-or-break moment for Algerian military chief General Ahmed Gaid Salah and the few generals left standing around him. After eliminating the visible figures of those considered as their political foes, culminating...
Africa: ISWAP kills five vigilantes in Nigeria’s Gubio region
Kano, Nigeria, Oct 1, 2019 – Jihadists killed five members of a civilian militia during an attack on a town in conflict-hit northeast Nigeria over the weekend, security sources said Tuesday. Fighters aligned to the Islamic State group on Sunday launched an...
Sahel: Intense fighting between insurgents and Mali army in Mopti
Oct 1, 2019 – A large contingent of Malian troops, backed by air support, fought Tuesday with jihadist fighters who made an incursion into a military camp in the country’s fragile central region, sources said. Two military posts came under attack at dawn...
Morocco: Journalist Hajar Raissouni sent to jail for “illegal abortion”
Rabat, Sept 30, 2019 – Moroccan journalist Hajar Raissouni was sentenced in a Rabat court Monday to one year in jail for having had an “illegal abortion” and sexual relations outside marriage. Her gynaecologist was given two years and her Sudanese...
Tunisia: Presidential candidate Nabil Karoui still in jail
Tunis, Sept 27, 2019 – One of two presidential candidates to have won through to a runoff election in Tunisia has called for his rival to be released from prison. “The situation leaves me morally uncomfortable… I would sincerely like to see him...
Libya: US kills suspected IS insurgents in raid on Libya
The US military command for Africa announced Friday it killed 17 suspected Islamic State group jihadists in southern Libya, in the third such strike in a week. “At this time, it is assessed the airstrike killed 17 terrorists” on Thursday, Africom said in a...
Egypt: Online warfare rages as pro and anti-Sisi clans fight with same intensity
Cairo, Sept 26, 2019 (By Mona Salem) – Rival hashtags, angry videos and calls to march — the war for Egyptian minds is raging online ahead of possible mass demonstrations against President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Encouraged by rare protests that erupted last...
Algeria: Military court sentences former political and intelligence chiefs after only a one-day trial
Algiers, Sept 25, 2019 (AFP) – An Algerian military court has sentenced the brother of former president Abdelaziz Bouteflika and three co-defendants to 15 years in prison, the state APS news agency reported on Wednesday. Said Bouteflika, widely seen as the real...
Egypt: Grim picture in Egypt as military seeks to contain unrest
Cairo, Sept 25, 2019 – Egyptian authorities have arrested more than 1,000 people, rights groups said Wednesday, broadening a crackdown launched after rare protests calling for the ouster of general-turned-President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. The wave of arrests comes...
Algeria: The rise and fall of a criminal- Head of disgraced FLN party, Mohamed Djemai is now in jail
Mohamed Djemai, the recently imposed head of the disgraced nationalist party FLN, and member of parliament representing the northeastern region of Tebessa had grandiose goals. He was propelled to head the country’s most powerful party, albeit the most hated one too,...