Sunday, April 5, 2020
Cairo, April 4, 2020 – Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox church has decided to suspend prayers preceding Easter celebrations later this month as part of efforts to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus. The church, which last month ordered the closure of...
Sunday, April 5, 2020
Algiers, April 5, 2020 – An Algerian court on Sunday sentenced to eight months in jail a journalist who had provided images of months-long anti-government protests to foreign media, a prisoners’ support group and a non-government organisation said. ...
Sunday, April 5, 2020
Algiers, April 4, 2020 – As adversity strikes in the form of the coronavirus pandemic, Algeria has found a helping hand in China, an old friend and the top exporter to Africa’s largest country. An Air Algerie plane arrived in the capital Algiers from...
Sunday, April 5, 2020
Rabat, April 5, 2020 – Morocco’s King Mohammed VI on Sunday pardoned more than 5,600 prisoners and ordered their release in stages to avoid contagion in the country’s overcrowded jails. The justice ministry said the 5,654 detainees that would be...
Sunday, April 5, 2020
Mahmud Jibril, the former head of the Libyan rebel government that overthrew dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011, died Sunday of the coronavirus, his party said. Jibril, 68, died in Cairo where he had been hospitalised for two weeks, said Khaled al-Mrimi, secretary of the...
Sunday, April 5, 2020
Friday, April 3, 2020
Maiduguri, Nigeria, April 3, 2020 (By Audu Abba Kurama and Aminu Abubakar in Kano) – Men and women cluster around plastic wash basins hastily set up outside one of northeast Nigeria’s sprawling displaced persons’ camps, lathering their hands with...
Friday, April 3, 2020
Bamako, April 2, 2020 – Turnout for Mali’s parliamentary elections this week was 36 percent, officials said on Thursday, after voters dealt with threats of violence and the coronavirus pandemic. Voters in the war-torn West African country cast their...
Friday, April 3, 2020
Casablanca, Morocco, April 2, 2020 (By Hamza Mekouar) – “Give us our money!”, demands a group of home buyers, standing on land that should by now be finished condos — one of many fictitious projects that together comprise what is described as...
Friday, April 3, 2020
Paris, April 2, 2020 – Four French soldiers deployed in the Sahel region of western Africa in France’s anti-jihadist Barkhane force have tested positive for coronavirus, the army said on Thursday. The infections are the first confirmed by the French army...
Friday, April 3, 2020
Dakar, April 2, 2020 – More than five million people in Africa’s conflict-ravaged Sahel region are facing hunger, the World Food Programme said Thursday, just as the novel coronavirus is spreading into affected countries. In a statement, the WFP called the...
Friday, April 3, 2020
April 2, 2020 – Measures to stem the novel coronavirus pandemic have affected the distribution and publication of newspapers across Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria, according to local media and officials. In Tunisia, seven daily newspapers and 20 weeklies have been...
Friday, April 3, 2020
April 3, 2020 – Reporters Without Borders has accused Algeria’s government of taking advantage of the coronavirus epidemic to “settle scores” with independent journalists, including those covering long-running anti-government protests. In a...
Friday, April 3, 2020
Friday, April 3, 2020
Friday, April 3, 2020
Friday, April 3, 2020
Friday, April 3, 2020
Friday, April 3, 2020
Friday, April 3, 2020
Friday, April 3, 2020
Thursday, April 2, 2020
The coronavirus is creating acute shortages of high-consumption foods and commodities. Despite the calls for social distancing, with Algeria ordering a distance of at least one meter between people, there have been mass gatherings of people looking to buy semolina and...
Thursday, April 2, 2020
Warri, Nigeria, April 1, 2020 – Thousands of Nigerians have been left cut off from homes and businesses as states across Africa’s most populous nation have shut their borders to halt the spread of coronavirus. Central Benue on Wednesday became the latest...
Wednesday, April 1, 2020
April 1, 2020 – Tunisia has proposed a UN Security Council resolution calling for “urgent international action” to curb the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, a draft obtained Wednesday by AFP shows. In broad terms, the draft resolution echoes UN...
Wednesday, April 1, 2020
Algiers, April 1, 2020 – An Algerian court issued heavy prison sentences Wednesday to a powerful former police chief and his family for illicit gains and misappropriation of land, local media reported. Abdelaghani Hamel, a former national security...
Wednesday, April 1, 2020
Mnilha, Tunisie, March 31, 2020 – Several hundred Tunisians demonstrated in a working class district of the capital Tuesday, demanding government support and protesting a week-old lockdown against the coronavirus pandemic that has disproportionately impacted the...
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Lagos, March 31, 2020 – Roads in Africa’s largest city Lagos were deserted Tuesday after Nigeria locked down its economic hub and shuttered its capital, in the continent’s latest effort to brake the juggernaut of coronavirus. Businesses were closed,...
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Algiers, March 31, 2020 – The 2021 Mediterranean Games have been postponed a year until 2022 as a result of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, Algeria’s sports minister Sid Ali Khaldi said Tuesday. The Games were scheduled for Algeria’s second...
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Nouakchott, March 31, 2020 – Mauritania has declared its first fatality from coronavirus, state media reported on Tuesday, adding to the growing death toll on the African continent. The victim is a 48-year-old French-Mauritanian dual national who tested positive...
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Algiers, March 31, 2020 – A year after the unexpected downfall of Algeria’s longtime president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the ailing octogenarian remains holed up in his plush and medically adapted home, with his detractors still demanding justice. Bouteflika...
Monday, March 30, 2020
Cairo, March 29, 2020 – Armoured vehicles in the streets, hundreds arrested, smartphone surveillance — sweeping measures to fight the coronavirus have raised concerns in the Middle East over the erosion of already threatened human rights. As the world...
Monday, March 30, 2020
Algiers, March 29, 2020 – An Algerian journalist was Sunday ordered to be held in pre-trial detention, press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and rights organisations said. “Our correspondent in Algeria, Khaled Drareni, has been...
Monday, March 30, 2020
Tripoli, March 29, 2020 – Libya’s justice ministry announced Sunday over 450 prisoners were being freed in a bid to protect against the spread of coronavirus in the wake of the war-torn country’s first declared infections. Judicial officials decided...
Monday, March 30, 2020
Lagos, March 30, 2020 (By Celia Lebur) – Over 20 million Nigerians on Monday scrambled to prepare for lockdown in sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest city Lagos and the capital Abuja, as the continent struggled to curb the spread of coronavirus. President...
Saturday, March 28, 2020
Rabat, March 27, 2020 – Morocco’s economy ministry said Friday it had allocated two billion dirhams ($201 million) to bolster medical equipment needed to fight the novel coronavirus, including the purchase of 100,000 testing kits. The money would also be...
Saturday, March 28, 2020
Algiers, March 27, 2020 – An Algerian journalist was arrested on Friday, press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said, accusing the country’s government of using the coronavirus crisis to crack down on independent media. Khaled Drareni, who...
Friday, March 27, 2020
Tunis, March 26, 2020 – By Caroline Nelly Perrot: In Tunisia, 150 people — mostly women — have isolated themselves in a factory for a month to make protective gear like masks to help their country’s fight against coronavirus. Due to strict...
Friday, March 27, 2020
N’Djamena, March 27, 2020 (AFP) – Chad has declared two departments near Lake Chad a “war zone”, giving local authorities more powers as they respond to an attack by Boko Haram jihadists that killed nearly 100 soldiers earlier this week. In the...
Friday, March 27, 2020
Listen to the podcast above or read the transcript below. Download MP3 file here. 26 March 2020: By Arezki Daoud: North Africa is bracing for an unprecedented economic contraction, even if the coronavirus crisis were to be contained soon. The fundamentals of economic...
Thursday, March 26, 2020
The Algerian Minister of Health, Population and Hospital Reform announced on 23 March the use of a drug to treat patients proven to carry the Covid-19 virus. “Based on the experience of some countries, Algeria’s top scientific committee decided to...
