Libya’s Colonel Moammar el Gadaffi who, in 40 years of power, has traded his status as scourge of the United States and self-appointed leader of the Arab resistance for a new-found...

Like its western neighbour, Tunisia is a prime target for Islamist fighters. President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali (born September 1936) has used the AQIM threat to rationalise his ext...

The ousting of civilian President Sidi Mohammed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi in a dawn putsch last August has prompted African, European and American sanctions against the new junta. The ...

President Hosni Mubarak will be working to ensure that his term ends with his son, Gamal, at the helm. The main electoral challenge would come from Al Ikhwan al Muslimeen (Muslim B...

The financial position is much better in Algeria, which amassed over US$130 billion in foreign reserves during the oil boom. Despite free-falling prices for crude oil exports, offi...

Under its most talented Foreign Minister in decades, Taieb Fassi-Fihri, Morocco is working hard to keep hold of the disputed Western Sahara (AC Vol 49 No 7). This adds to tensions ...

If the willingness of a parliament to rubber-stamp the extension of presidential powers and the diminution of its own signals the atrophy of a country’s political system, then Alge...

Algeria’s 12 November constitutional amendment consisted of two main proposals: to remove the limit of two five-year terms for the president, and to change the title and role of ‘h...

France’s Total and Spain’s Repsol YPF oil companies are under pressure to divulge who received more than US$6 million in consultant fees paid to suspected politically connected int...

Heading the unwieldy OIC, Ihsanoglu needs all his considerable reserves of tact and political determination. It may help that he can draw on his wide-ranging personal history, w...