An assessment of historical contexts, current economic indicators, emerging geopolitical
trends, and viable strategies for Africa’s navigating shifting global power dynamics.

He was known as a founding member of what was described as the “Sons of Toussaint”, a group of nationalist leaders who initiated the armed struggle against French imperialism on November 1, 1954. He is a national hero in Algeria.

Perhaps five million of France’s six-and-half million Muslims are Algerian. Most are poor, regarding themselves as second-class citizens in the land of equality. There is a critical historical context to this and the Paris attack that needs to be appreciated.

The documentary is about the first Pan-African Cultural Festival in the continent that took place in Algiers, seven years after Algeria’s independence. The radical gathering was a genuine meeting of African cultures united in their denunciations of colonialism and fights for freedom.

In the run up to Algeria’s presidential elections on 17 April, a tragic comedy unfolds in which presidential candidates contest against a rigid regime with false stability. The outcome of the election is predetermined; and the people will lose, no matter which candidate wins

Ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, 77, who suffered a stroke last year, has announced he will run again in elections next month. He apparently wants to die in office and the clique around him will not let him go

Despite pretensions to the contrary, the regime in Algiers is an obvious ally of Western imperialism. Algeria’s position, as can be seen from its response to foreign interventions in Libya, Mali and Syria, shows that the country has lost its heavy-weight and daring diplomacy of the 1960s and 1970s

cc A ZWith Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika facing ill health, speculations are arising as to whether he will participate in the elections scheduled for next year and whether real change will shift the prevailing status quo whether he stays in power or does not

Sit-in of Algerian citizens in London to oppose the exploitation of shale gas without a national debate

At independence 50 years ago, Algeria inherited the oppressive cultural structures imposed by France. Today things are worse: the government allocates a meager budget to promote culture.

Algerians want 'frank acknowledgement' of crimes committed against them during the French colonisation of the country, a minister said, ahead of the 58th anniversary of the war for independence. 'In view of the crimes committed by this coloniser against a defenceless people... the Algerians want frank acknowledgement (of them),' Mohamed Cherif Abbas, minister of the mujahedeen (veterans of the war), told news agency APS.

A generation of leaders who won their spurs during Algeria's 1954-62 independence war against France remains in power, having defeated a violent challenge by armed Islamists in the 1990s and, at least for now, seen off the rebellious spirit that toppled Arab autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya last year. Among the old guard is President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, 75, who has served three terms and is thought unlikely to seek a fourth, if only for undisclosed health reasons. But with a presidential election due in 2014 there is no clarity on who might take over Africa's biggest country, an OPEC oil producer which supplies a fifth of Europe's gas imports and cooperates with the West in combating al Qaeda-style militancy.

Algerians celebrated with unprecedented enthusiasm on Wednesday (July 4th) the eve of the nation's 50th independence day. The country's 48 wilayas joined together with concerts, parades and processions that punctuated a long, emotionally-charged evening that remembered the 1962 break from 132 years of French rule.

Algerians are by nature anarchists. Whether at the level of local daily life or in periodic broader social movements, large numbers of grassroots Algerians over the past five decades have refused to accept the authoritarian and corrupt regime imposed since independence. That struggle continues.

Algeria's government has been paralysed by arguments over who should be anointed as favourite to be the next president, exposing divisions within the ruling elite that could shatter the country's fragile stability. The cohesion and control with which Algeria's establishment runs the energy exporting former French colony has kept it steady even as its neighbours were buffeted by the 'Arab Spring' upheavals over the past 18 months.

Algeria’s fratricidal war has divided democrats, seriously damaged civil society and left a political vacuum in the face of the ruling parties. There is almost no opposition with a proper base that can take the demands of the people forward.

Algeria swore in newly elected MPs on 26 May amidst protests from Islamists alleging electoral fraud. Mohamed Larbi Ould Khelifa presided over the first plenary session of the new People's National Assembly (APN), assisted by two younger MPs, Assia Kenane and Hocine Maaloume. Islamist protesters disrupted the proceedings when 49 Green Algeria Alliance members held up placards and called the May 10th election a fraud, followed by a similar act by the 28 MPs representing the Front for the Protection of Democracy.

Dozens of legislators have walked out of the inaugural session of Algeria's parliament to protest what they say was an election rigged to hand a majority to the ruling elite's party. Saturday's walk-out saw 49 legislators from the Green Algeria Alliance (AVV) along with MPs from two smaller parties, who combined hold 60 of the 462 seats in the parliament, boycott the first meeting of the chamber since a May 10 election.

In contrast with Morocco, Tunisia and Libya, Islamists in Algeria refused to join the incoming government. Furthermore, the Movement of Society for Peace (MSP), which has four ministers in the current government, decided to withdraw them altogether. The Islamist party, which until now had been a partner in the governing coalition, on Saturday (May 19th), decided to return to the ranks of the opposition after a resounding 134 to 35 vote by the consultative committee.

The International Trade Union Confederation is demanding that the Algerian authorities stop repression of the country’s emerging independent trade union movement. A wave of harassment of members of the National Independent Union of Public Administration Personnel (SNAPAP) has led to seven members of the union’s board, including four women, starting a hunger strike on 6 May. One of them, Fayza Abrakan, has been admitted to hospital in a serious condition.