Three years after Algeria's family code was revised, women are looking back with regret on their initial enthusiasm for the change. What appears to have been a well-intended effort to protect women and children's rights has inadvertently caused many of them to lose everything.

Algeria's Rural Renewal Programme has officially begun, with the training of the first group of regional experts tasked with implementing and overseeing the projects in the field. The multi-billion dinar programme aims to stimulate economic activity in the rural areas that are home to 40% of Algerians.

After widespread demonstrations on Saturday (January 19th), Algerian high school students called for a strike on January 27th over education reforms they claim are unreasonable. Prompted by a teachers' strike that paralysed schools on January 15th, the students are protesting the implementation of a new curriculum for students preparing for their baccalaureate examinations. Students in their final year claim the new syllabus is overloaded and that they may be unable to finish their coursework before taking the baccalaureate exams.

Cast out by their families and often fired for no valid reason, Algerians with HIV/AIDS are turning to NGOs for help. The El Hayet Association for People Living with HIV has been working since 1998 to dispel taboos about the illness and help HIV-positive men and women find ways of earning a living.

Although Algeria has been affected by large-scale internal displacement caused by the internal conflict that has ravaged the country since the early 1990s, very little information is available on the current situation of the displaced and their numbers. The European Union estimated in 2002 that violence had displaced one million people, while others put the number as high as 1.5 million.

Two car bombs detonated Tuesday morning (December 11th) outside an Algiers court building and a UN facility, leaving over 60 people dead, scores injured and others still missing in the rubble of collapsed buildings. When the first car bomb exploded at 9:50 a.m. outside the Constitutional Council in the downtown district of Ben Aknoun, it was heard up to 15 kilometres away.

A draft bill to regulate Algeria's journalism industry is being finalised and has been opened up to a closed-door debate. During a November 21st meeting on the 2008 budget, Communications Minister Rachid Boukerzaza said the bill had been submitted to over one hundred media professionals for review.

Under heightened security and heavy rain, Algerians began voting this morning to elect representatives to People’s Communal Assemblies (APC) and People’s Wilaya Assemblies (APW) for a five-year term. Recent floods and continued rain, however, may limit voter turnout. By 2 p.m., only 20% of the country’s 18 million eligible voters had cast ballots.

An Algerian exile, with refugee rights in Germany, has been arrested in Spain and now faces extradition to Algeria. In 2003, former Algerian colonel Mohammed Samraoui - at the time a political refugee in Germany - published the book Chronique des années de sang (Denoël, Paris).

Widespread apathy exhibited by Algerian voters during campaigning for local elections has led the Ministry of the Interior and 23 participating political parties to trade accusations of corruption and blame for a potential boycott.

Reporters Without Borders condemns the arrest of Noureddine Boukraa, the national daily "Ennahar"'s bureau chief in the city of Annaba (600 km east of Algiers), who was detained on 12 November 2007 in connection with an article about alleged corruption within the local security services and was held overnight. "Algeria's journalists are not able to work freely, despite the deceptive calm they seem to have enjoyed since the start of the year," the press freedom organisation said.

The Algerian government plans to reopen debate of the country's law on journalists, Minister of Communications Abderrachid Boukerzaza announced on October 3rd. Despite the appearance of private-sector media and numerous promises of a new law, there has been a legal vacuum in the industry since a 1990 information code failed to regulate the profession.

Algerian political parties and independents have been busy putting the finishing touches on their candidate lists for the November 29th local elections. The possibility of greater flexibility in governing at the local level has sparked more interest in the elections.

Algeria's National Council has approved the lower National Popular Assembly's amendments to the electoral law. The changes impose more difficult conditions for small and new parties to field candidates for election. The senators also approved the postponement of local elections from September until November.

Under pressure from the medical community, the Algerian government recently allowed distribution of a new preventive treatment for cervical cancer. A lack of early screening and treatment facilities and an increase in the cancer's prevalence in Algeria drove the Algerian government to register the vaccine as a government programme.

In a departure from tradition, religious communities in Algeria have become increasingly involved in AIDS education in the country. To this end, the Ministry of Religious Affairs organised a seminar on Monday (July 2nd) in Algiers, in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on the role of religious leaders in the fight against AIDS.

The chairman of the opposition Popular Front political party, Ch'bih Ould Cheikh Malainnie, has withdrawn complaints of defamation he filed against three journalists from privately-owned Nouakchott-based newspapers. The journalists, managing editor of the daily newspaper "L'Authentique", Oumar Moctar, managing editor of the daily "Al Vejr", Tah Ould Ahmed, and managing editor of the daily "Al Alem", Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Bakar, were on 28 May interrogated by police for about one and a half hours, following a complaint against them made by Malainnie.

The Algerian government has laid a defamation charge against blogger "Abd el Salam Baroudy", administrator of the "Bilad Telmesan" blog, for criticizing an official in an article published in February 2007. Baroudy is scheduled to face the Telmesan First Degree Court on 11 June 2007. In his article, Baroudy criticized the chair of Religious Affairs and Endowment in Telmesan province for banning cooperation between imams (religious leaders) from mosques and local broadcasters.

A proposed amendment to Algeria’s electoral law, expected this June, will set limits on the existence of non-representative or small parties, with the official intention of preventing the fragmentation of Algerian politics. The amendment is also expected to place stricter conditions on prospective candidates.

President Bouteflika's decision to reappoint nearly the entire previous government has come as a great disappointment to some Algerians who had been hoping for a change. Although most citizens were firm in their opposition to the decision, Algerian politicians were divided, Magharebia news reports.