Briefs Bound

Morocco ended 2025 with a below‑average cereal harvest and higher food inflation, leaving the country more dependent on grain imports going into the 2025/26 marketing year, according to a new country brief from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The report notes that while late‑season rains improved conditions for the winter crop now in the ground, cumulative rainfall during the 2025 growing season was more than 60% below normal in key cereal‑producing areas, sharply curbing yields and forcing authorities to extend subsidy measures and step up import plans to secure supplies.

French prosecutors are investigating former Algerian justice minister and ex-International Court of Justice president Mohammed Bedjaoui over alleged tax fraud, money laundering, and unexplained wealth running into the millions. The case reaches from a controversial ICJ ruling in a Qatar–Bahrain maritime dispute to high-end property deals in France and corruption scandals around Algeria’s Sonatrach, raising broader questions about how international justice, energy contracts, and opaque financial networks can intersect.

France’s National Assembly has unanimously approved a reform that makes it easier for people exposed to French nuclear tests in Algeria and Polynesia to obtain compensation, replacing an onerous case‑by‑case causality test with a presumption of exposure for those who were present in designated test zones and later developed recognized radiation‑linked illnesses.