French and Qatari commercial interests are the clear winners from Presidential wife Cécilia Sarkozy's success in persuading Libyan leader Colonel Moammar el Gadaffi to release five Bulgarian nurses...

Algerians were fascinated and concerned by Nicolas Sarkozy's win in the French presidential poll. Many worry about the upsurge in terrorism at home and persistent reports about President...

Hopes are high that the 19 April inauguration of Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi as Mauritania's first democratically elected President since Independence in 1960 will prove a break...

The Algiers bombings of 11 April confirmed that the radical Islamist underground was on the move. For years, it has been confined largely to its strongholds in parts...

The celebrities were missing from Algeria's 'trial of the century' at Blida Criminal Court, when Judge Fatiha Brihimi sentenced fugitive banker Rafik Abdelmoumen Khalifa to life imprisonment. The...

Independent candidate Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi squeaked to victory in Mauritania's 25 March presidential elections.

Only 27% of Egypt's voters turned out for President Hosni Mubarak's referendum on constitutional change and anti-terrorism powers.

President Hosni Mubarak, 78, promises far-reaching constitutional changes in 2007. He also pledges to serve Egypt as long as ‘there is breath in his body’. Obviously,...

There was no winner in the parliamentary elections on 19 November, the first since Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall's coup of 3 August 2005 (AC Vol 45 No...

Woodside Petroleum is Mauritania's largest foreign investor by far. It has sunk around US$1 billion into its Chinguetti offshore project, pumping the only oil between the North Sea...