ALGIERS, June 05, 2013 (AFP) An Algerian man is suspected of killing five people south of the capital to "cleanse his family's honour" after his niece eloped with her boyfriend to avoid an arranged marriage, residents said on Wednesday. The 44-year-old surrendered to police after the Tuesday killings in the rural Djelfa region south of the capital, the residents said. First to die were two cousins of the su ...

ALGIERS, May 27, 2013 (AFP) Thirteen people, including dual nationality French-Algerians, went on trial in Algiers on Monday accused of kidnapping Algerian children and selling them for adoption in France. The case first emerged in 2009 and the prosecution alleges the defendants kidnapped an unknown number of children and transported them to the French city of Saint-Etienne, where they were adopted for a fe ...

 ALGIERS, May 24, 2013 (AFP) Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the one-eyed Islamist reportedly behind Thursday's suicide bombings in Niger, is an Al-Qaeda veteran who was the mastermind of the devastating attack on an Algerian gas plant in January. Branded "the Uncatchable," Belmokhtar personally supervised the operational plans for the twin car bombings in Niger that killed at least 20 people, according to a spokesman ...

ALGIERS, May 19, 2013 (AFP) A 5.5-magnitude earthquake on Sunday struck Algeria's Bejaia region, 250 kilometers (155 miles) east of Algiers, injuring five people and damaging some houses, the APS news agency said, citing medics. "There are no serious cases -- the victims are mainly suffering from trauma," a medic said. The injured included two workers who fell from scaffolding when the quake hit, while anot ...

 by Beatrice Khadige ALGIERS, May 19, 2013 (AFP) Algeria censored two newspapers for reporting that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has fallen into a coma three weeks after being hospitalised in Paris, raising speculation on Sunday about his well-being. The newspapers, reflecting growing concern in Algeria about Bouteflika's health, said the 76-year-old would return home in a comatose state after his health ...

 ALGIERS, May 05, 2013 (AFP) Algerian police beat tens of young people with batons as they protested outside parliament on Sunday about a lack of job security, and arrested several, an opposition MP said. "This morning, almost 200 young people gathered peacefully outside parliament to make MPs aware of their difficult situation. Police beat them with their batons and arrested seven of them," said Ahmed Beta ...

 ALGIERS, May 05, 2013 (AFP) Two Islamists accused of killing 500 people during Algeria's civil war, including the rape and murder of 60 women, were sentenced to death on Sunday, an AFP correspondent said. The judge sentenced Djilali Kouri, 32, and Antar Ali, 35, to death for "founding and running a terrorist group that killed and spread terror among the population and that murdered hundreds of civilians an ...

PARIS, April 28, 2013 (AFP) Algeria’s President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was in a Paris hospital on Sunday after suffering a mini-stroke, raising media doubts about his ability to govern less than a year before a presidential election. The 76-year-old, who has been in power since 1999, suffered a “transient ischaemia” on Saturday. This is a temporary blockage of blood flow to the brain often called a “mini-stro ...

ALGIERS, April 23, 2013 (AFP) Jihadist leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who Chad said was killed in Mali last month, and four members of his group were condemned to death in absentia by an Algerian court on Tuesday. Four other defendants present in court were jailed for 13 years and fined 1 million dinars (10,000 euros) each, with another two sentenced to one and nine years respectively. Mohamed Lamine Bencheneb, ...

ALGIERS, April 17, 2013 (AFP) The Polisario Front on Wednesday strongly denied that Islamist militants fleeing the conflict in Mali had infiltrated Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria, as African military sources in Mali claimed. "The Sahrawi government categorically denies... that fighters from the Movement of the Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO)" have entered Sahrawi refugees camps, the separatist gr ...

ALGIERS, April 14, 2013 (AFP) Beijing has invested more than $1.5 billion (1.1 billion euros) over the past decade in Algeria, where 50 top Chinese companies and 30,000 workers are based, media reported on Sunday. By the end of 2012, China's total investments in the North African country over the past decade reached $1.5 billion, Beijing's ambassador to Algiers Liu Yuhe told the daily Liberte. "More than 30 ...

By Youssef El Kaidi Morocco World News Fez, April 14, 2013 In modern Algeria, in the twenty first century, a girl walking in the street, which is a male space par excellence in Arab societies in general, can likely be arrested by the police to find herself in a hospital for virginity test. This illegal traumatic act is very recurrent in Algeria today in total violation of personal privacy and human rights, ...