First Independent Mena Newspaper
Morocco and Niger have strengthened their partnership with the signing on Tuesday in Rabat of 16 cooperation agreements destined to lift their strategic partnership to higher levels. The deals, sealed during the 4th session of the Morocco-Niger Joint High Committee, include projects in the sectors of trade, tourism, culture, health, training, justice, customs and transport. […]
Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni is to ask the Parliament’s permission to redeploy troops currently stationed in Iraq to Niger where terrorist groups are increasingly engaging in human trafficking, contributing to the surge of illegal immigration in the Mediterranean region. Gentiloni said Italy’s 1,400-strong military force, present in Iraq, could now be reduced after victories […]
Algerian authorities have been rounding up sub-Saharan Africans in and around Algiers and have deported more than 3,000 to Niger since August 25, 2017, without giving them an opportunity to challenge their expulsion, Human Rights Watch said. Those expelled include migrants who have lived and worked for years in Algeria, pregnant women, families with newborn […]
Niamey has had enough with Algeria’s ill treatment of Nigerien nationals, after 950 of them were summarily deported last week to Niger’s borders. As Algeria turns a deaf ear to the calls by international rights NGOs to halt the inhumane treatment of Sub-Saharan migrants, Niger’s Foreign Minisiter Ibrahim Yacoubou officially expressed his country’s concern over […]
Algeria, Africa’s largest country, shares borders with 6 countries, all of them are closed with the exception of its land frontiers with Tunisia. This closed-border attitude is reflective of a lack of a neighborhood policy in an increasingly integrated continent where collective efforts are the best means to countering trans-border challenges. With Morocco, the borders […]
After the scandalous racist remarks of Algerian leaders against sub-Saharan migrants, and in a blatant violation of commitment under the 1951 Geneva Convention, Algerian authorities resumed earlier this week arbitrary expulsions of Sub-Saharan migrants and asylum seekers who were abandoned in harsh conditions on the border with Niger, media reports said quoting international humanitarian NGOs. […]
Morocco’s Banque Centrale Populaire (BCP) Group has become the largest banking group in Niger, after it finalized Tuesday the acquisition of the International Bank for Africa, so far the second-largest banking institution in the African country. With the completion of this transaction, the BCP Group holds, through its subsidiary ABI, 69.51% of the capital. BCP […]
The UN Security Council unanimously welcomed in a resolution the deployment of a military force by West African states to combat terrorism and arms, drug and human trafficking in the Sahel region after France and the US reached a consensus on the issue. To secure the support of the US, France softened the resolution language […]
Morocco’s Attijariwafa Bank obtained on May 3 the regulatory approval to acquire the Egyptian branch of Barclays which has shifted towards focusing its activity on the US and Britain. Attijariwafa Bank has finally obtained all regulatory requirements to acquire 100% of Barclays Egypt capital after an agreement was signed by the two banks in October […]
Morocco’s foreign Minister, Salaheddine Mezouar, visited several member countries of the West African Economic Community (ECOWAS) in a bid to gather support for Morocco’s bid to join the sub-regional grouping. In this respect, Mezouar handed messages from King Mohammed VI to President of Senegal Macky Sall and President of Niger Mahamadou Issoufou during visits to […]