First Independent Mena Newspaper
The decision by Mauritanian authorities to seal off borders with Algeria as a military zone forbidden to civilians is the tree that hides the forest. The closing of the borders signals cracks in the Algerian-Mauritanian short-lived alliance. As Mauritania tilts towards its Sahel neighbors in their efforts to counter the terrorism scourge, it takes steps […]
The absence of Algeria from a meeting on Sahel security held on July 3 in Seville between the Interior Ministers of Spain, France and Morocco shows the low expectations of the international community of the Algerian regime when it comes to countering terrorism in the Sahel. During the Seville meeting, the participating ministers agreed on […]
Cutting US military aid to Tunisia is a “misguided and dangerous” decision representing a stark departure with the US President’s plan to “demolish and destroy” the Islamic State (ISIS), said Sarah Yerkes of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in an opinion piece on The Hill. The article criticizes Trump’s budget blueprint released on May […]
French President Emmanuel Macron Thursday told media in an interview that the removal of Bashar al-Assad was no longer a priority for France, adding that the embattled Syrian President represents an important pillar in the fight against terrorists. “The real change I’ve made on this question is that I haven’t said deposing Bashar al-Assad is […]
The Algerian-backed Polisario separatists suffered a severe legal setback in Panama where a maritime affairs court refused to hold a vessel carrying Moroccan Sahara phosphates bound to Canada. In a comment on the Panamanian legal decision, Abdellah Saaf, Director of the Centre for Studies and Research in Social Sciences (CERSS), said by rejecting the Polisario’s […]
The agreements signed between Morocco and Nigeria to build an offshore gas pipeline has effectively buried plans to achieve the Trans-Saharan Gas Project that was mulled in 2002 to bring Nigerian gas to the Mediterranean through Niger and Algeria. Former Algerian Interior Minister and ex-Ambassador, Abderrahmane Meziane Cherif bemoaned that his country has been outperformed […]
A tanker loaded with phosphate rock cargos exported by Morocco’s state-owned phosphates company (OCP) to Canada was detained in Panama after the Algerian-sponsored Polisario front filed a complaint challenging the legality of the transaction. The vessel is the second held within a month after a New Zealand-bound ship loaded with 50,000 tons of OCP phosphates […]
A diplomat using fists to vent his frustration at the foreign policy failures of his country? That is what the Director General of the Algerian Foreign Ministry, Soufiane Mimouni, did by physically assaulting a Moroccan diplomat, Mohamed Khamlichi, at an event in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in the Carribean. The attack shows the scale […]
Food security has been a salient feature of Morocco’s cooperation in Africa as evidenced with the agreements signed by the Kingdom and several African countries notably in the fields of Agriculture and fertilizer production. This endeavor to boost food security on the continent has been materialized notably by Morocco’s state-owned phosphates company (OCP), which sealed […]
Morocco and Nigeria are making headway towards the achievement of the Atlantic Gas Pipeline that is meant to carry Nigerian gas through six countries to Morocco with a potential for export to Europe. To materialize this project, additional agreements were signed in Rabat in the presence of King Mohammed VI and Nigeria’s Foreign Minister Geoffrey […]