First Independent Mena Newspaper
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 […]
Morocco is illustrative of a rising power that has cannily deployed its soft power toolbox, including investments, human development projects, media, culture and religion to boost stability in the Sahel and Africa. In an article on the World Politics Review on the contribution of four main players in the security arena in the region, Morocco […]
The Polisario used to relay triumphalist communiqués since the signing of the ceasefire agreement in 1991, boasting victories and listing successes, even if they are more imaginary than real. However, the language of an official internal document distributed recently to members of the front’s leadership betrays this triumphalism and concedes “fatal errors” made in the […]
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 […]
Gulf States have offered Israel official recognition should the Jewish state embrace peace. The offer comes as leaders of the Gulf States doubt Israel’s keenness to enter in negotiations with Palestine. Tel Aviv is mulling plan to move the Israeli capital to Jerusalem; an idea backed by Washington, which also indicated that it would move […]