When President Barack Obama, in a speech in Cairo University in 2009, pointed to education and innovation as being the mechanisms of progress in the 21st century, these ideas must have resonated in capital cities across North Africa. Although different countries in the region have made various efforts to improve education and innovation and create […]
Editorials
Arab Spring and Burma Transitions: Different Societies but Same Hopes and Aspirations
The transitions away from authoritarian rule in North Africa and Burma (also known as Myanmar) have often been compared to one another, highlighting major challenges but also reasons for hope. When Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and leader of Burmese opposition, addressed the Clinton Global Initiative Conference in New York in 2011, […]
One Year Ends, Another Begins, Expectations Still Great
As 2012 is drawing to a close, The North Africa Post deemed it timely to reflect upon some of the major events that happened over the past twelve months in North Africa, as the region is still at grips with the aftermath of the Arab Spring. In Morocco, the year began with the appointment, for […]
What Future for the North Africa-to-Europe Power Super-Grid?
With the EU aiming to increasingly meet its energy needs from renewable sources – 30 per cent by 2020 and almost 100 per cent by 2050 – a great portion of this renewable power will have to come particularly from large-scale photovoltaic (PV) installations in sunny regions of the North Africa. But since the Maghreb […]
FIFM : And the winner is…The Middle East…
The Middle East issue with its wars, crises, attempts, and death toll has been making the headlines for over 60 years, and last week in Marrakesh, the tragic stories of the Middle East were brought back to minds, if ever they can be forgotten, by the screening of the Attack by Lebanese Ziad Doueiri, during […]
Morocco, France, a continuing wonderful idyll
French President François Hollande will pay early 2013 a visit to Morocco at the invitation of King Mohammed VI. The announcement was made Wednesday in the two countries’ capitals following a telephone call between the two heads of state who both said they were looking forward to meeting each other. President Hollande thanked the king […]
What Arab Spring? The Folly that is Henry Kissinger
When the 26-year-old fruit vendor, Mohammed Bouazizi – after being slapped around by local authorities one time too many – in an act of desperation and protest, set himself on fire in the Tunisian city of Sidi Bouzid, no analyst or politician could have foreseen the wave of regional uprisings that were to follow. What […]
Changing Geopolitics of the Gaza Strip and Egypt’s Predicament
New Geopolitical Realities The escalating violence in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel, in which scores of Palestinians and Israelis have so far been killed, is being played out against a fast changing geopolitical setting. The current Israel-Gaza clash is the largest since Israel’s war in Gaza in 2008-2009, when Hamas was a political pariah […]
O Maghreb: Where Art Thou… in US Foreign Policy?
The US elections and the monotonous presidential debates bear little to no substance on North Africa. In the much-anticipated third debate on foreign policy, there was scant mention of the countries of the Maghreb and their important strategic worth in US global fight against terrorism. Except for Libya (mentioned 12 times) in the context of […]
The spirit of Eid Al-Adha Festival
The Islamic world is readying to celebrate Eid Al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice, commemorating Ibrahim’s (Abraham) obedience and his willingness to sacrifice his son as ordered by God. The story goes that Ibrahim, a believer, had a dream in which Allah wanted him to sacrifice his son Ismail. Both father and son accepted to […]









