First Independent Mena Newspaper
Malta played host this weekend to the Five-plus-Five summit, gathering five Maghreb and five European countries whose heads of state or government came together to discuss ways to foster inter-Mediterranean ties. The Five-plus-Five forum, which brings together leaders from Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia, the five countries forming the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA) along […]
Before the Soviet Union controlled the former republics of Central Asia, Sufi brotherhoods dominated the religious scene in Chechnya, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. However, the Soviet policy toward Islam drove these Sufi groups underground for fear of persecution. In the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet bloc, legions of radical Islamists filled the gap left […]
US House lawmakers have blocked a $450 million emergency aid the Obama administration was planning to give to the new government of President Mohammed Morsi, facing unprecedented economic crisis, with an estimated budget deficit of $12 billion. Republican Rep. Kay Granger of Texas, chairwoman of the Appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations, says “I am not […]
Tunisia Amen bank, the 2nd largest private bank in the North African country, has received backing from the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank, to boost the company’s efforts to improve governance and modernize management practices. The IFC backing comes at a time when Tunisian banks are implementing new central bank regulations […]
Head of Tunisia moderate Islamist Ennahda party, Rached Ghannouchi, has vowed to fight and stand up to the hardline salafists who showed lately their real face when they added oil to the fire in the deadly violence that rocked the country over anti-Islam film. “These people pose a threat not only to Ennahda but to […]
The countries of the Maghreb set up in February 1989 a union that was designed to be a milestone in promoting inter-Maghreban relations on the political, economic, cultural and social scales. More than twenty years after the Arab Maghreb Union, also known by its French acronym as UMA, came into being, little has been achieved […]
France, fearing a backlash after a French satirical magazine published provocative cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, has decided to temporarily close on Friday its diplomatic missions, cultural centers and schools in 20 Islamic countries and asked the authorities of these countries to tighten security measures around these compounds. In some countries, French schools were shut […]
When fruit seller Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire in December 2010 and started the first of the series of “Arab Spring” revolutions, it was not just the decade-long dictatorship that he was protesting against but also the poor state of the Tunisian economy that had been for long unable to provide its people with […]
Morocco, Jordan and Tunisia will soon benefit from investments coming from Europe’s Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) as their economies continue to struggle. The bank is looking forward to an investment that could swell up to 200 million Euros. The investment in these three countries will be followed by several similar projects in the […]
While protest movements and demonstrations, sometimes violent, are being staged across the Islamic world to denounce the video deemed insulting to Islam’s prophet Mohammed and to Muslims’ beliefs, Washington is fearing this violence may spread to the United States. According to US media, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have released a joint […]