Photo: John S. on Flickr
October 11, 2020 : Algeria and China sign an economic and technical cooperation agreement
Algeria signed on Sunday an economic and technical cooperation agreement with the Chinese International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA).
The agreement was signed at the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Algiers) by its Secretary General, Mr. Chakib Rachid Kaïd and the President of the CIDCA, Wang Xiaotao who accompanied the member of the political bureau and director of the office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Yang Jiechi.
Mr. Yang Jiechi had begun Saturday evening an official visit to Algeria at the head of an important delegation with the aim of strengthening and promoting the ties of friendship and cooperation between Algeria and China.
For more information, please consult (in French) the following link.
October 10, 2020: Unpaid gas/electricity bills exceeded DA 171 billion
“In this exceptional period (health crisis) and in a spirit of unwavering solidarity with its customers, SADEG has suspended the cuts for unpaid bills, which has significantly increased the level of debt held by its subscribers, both private and public sector,” said the statement.
“These receivables, which remain in constant growth, have reached, at the end of the first half of the year, record levels with more than 171.442 billion DA, nationally, a rate of change of 300%,” says the same source.
According to the public company, the financial difficulties arising from this situation “affect on the one hand, the cash flow of SADEG which works to ensure the sustainability of income throughout the chain of stakeholders in its business and, secondly, slow the implementation of various projects included in the development plans of activities, electricity and gas networks, as well as various services offered to its customers.
For more information, please consult (in French) the following link.
October 10, 2020 : What is the impact of the new school year on COVID-19 spread?
While Algeria continues to see a rapid decline of the Coronavirus on its soil, specialists fear a galloping return of the epidemic with the start of the school year expected in about ten days. This is in any case what the epidemiologist and specialist in preventive medicine, public health and hygiene, Pr Abdelkrim Soukehal confided on Saturday, October 10, to the information site Tout sur Algérie – TSA.
Everyone already knows it, the Coronavirus is sneaky and can infiltrate everywhere. For Soukehal, despite the “satisfactory” epidemiological situation, the “gradual descent of the epidemic curve” and the “downward trend” that the country has been experiencing since July, the social movements whose return to the classroom may present the country with the risk of contagion. Thus jeopardizing all the efforts made so far.
For more information, please consult (in French) the following link.
09 October, 2020: HRW denounces the thousands of illegal expulsions of migrants from Algeria to Niger
In a report published Friday, the NGO Human Rights Watch denounces the deportation of migrants from Algeria to Niger without giving them the possibility to seek international protection. Since the beginning of September, more than 3,400 people have been deported from the country.
More than 3,400 migrants have been expelled from Algeria since the beginning of September. Over the year, there are more than 16,000 of them. In a new report published on Friday, October 9, the human rights NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) denounces the illegal expulsions carried out by the Algerian authorities without giving migrants the possibility to ask for international protection.
These deportations concerns mainly Migrants from sub-Saharan Africa though it also the case of non-African people such as Syrians, Palestinians or Yemenis.
“Algeria has the right to protect its borders, but not to arbitrarily detain and collectively expel migrants, including children and asylum-seekers, without legal process,” said Lauren Seibert, refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Before deporting someone, the authorities must individually verify their immigration or asylum status and ensure that they are subject to individual judicial follow-up,” she added in the report.
Arbitrary arrests
Based on testimonies from migrants from Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire, HRW describes how in Algeria migrants are arrested in the street, at home or at work. These abuses took place in Tlemcen but also in Oran, Algiers, Blida, Bourmerdes, Tipaza, Zeralda, Setif and Annaba, the NGO details.
These arrests and deportations have not spared the children – some of whom are barely ten years old – HRW is still outraged.
Several migrants also reported being beaten after their arrest and detained in police stations, detention centres and camps.
Migrants are usually sent by bus to cities in southern Algeria from where they are deported and abandoned in the middle of the desert, close to the Nigerian border.
“The road to Niger is this direction”.
Several migrants expelled in July and interviewed by HRW testified to the same experience. “They took us to the desert and left us there saying ‘the road to Niger is this direction’,” said Abdul, from Sirerra Leone. “I had no shoes. I walked barefoot. It took us five or six hours [to get to Niger]. »
Tamara, a young Ivorian, said that soldiers had even taken the clothes of babies. “They told us, ‘You arrived in Algeria with nothing, you will leave with nothing’.
In its report, HRW reminds Algeria that “as a signatory to the UN and African conventions on refugees and the convention against torture, [it] is bound to respect the principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits the forced return of any person to countries where he or she may be subjected to torture or threats to his or her life or freedom.
The NGO urges the new Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune to put an end to “arbitrary detention” of migrants and “collective expulsions” and to investigate accusations of ill-treatment and to provide migrants and asylum seekers with a fair and individualised examination of their situation.
For more information, please consult (in French) the following link.
October 09, 2020 : A case of COVID-19 registered in the government?
The Secretary of State for Elite Sport, Salima Souakri announced this Friday, October 9, to be contaminated by COVID-19. It is the member of the Algerian government, who announced it herself on her official Facebook page.
She is the first member of the Algerian government to be declared positive for the coronavirus. Salima Souakri announced this news on her official account. “I am declared positive to COVID-19,” she announced. The former African judo champion also wished a speedy recovery to all.
For more information, please consult (in French) the following link.
October 09, 2020: 2nd consecutive day of increase in new cases
For the second consecutive day, the daily assessment of the coronavirus epidemic in Algeria is slightly up, with 146 new cases recorded in the last 24 hours, against 138 the day before and 121 cases Wednesday, according to the official assessment of this Friday, October 9.
The epidemic was in decline until Wednesday with 157 cases recorded on Friday, October 2, 148 cases on Saturday, October 3, 141 new cases on Sunday, October 4, 134 cases on Monday, October 5, 129 cases on Tuesday, October 6, 121 cases on Wednesday and 138 cases yesterday Thursday.
For more information, please consult (in French) the following link.
October 08, 2020: France keeps Algeria among the countries at risk
Indeed, Algeria is still among the 16 countries with a very large number of cases of covid-19, a list drawn up by France, despite the constant stable cases of contamination in recent days. Thus, Algeria is present alongside India, the United States, Turkey, Peru, Panama, South Africa and Brazil.
Moreover, despite the reopening of most of the borders of the Schengen area, implemented by the European Union, this reopening is subject to several precautions taken by certain countries in order to avoid a second wave of covid-19 contamination.
For more information, please consult (in French) the following link.
October 07, 2020: Draft amendment to the Constitution, start of the referendum campaign
The referendum campaign on the draft amendment to the Constitution, submitted to a popular referendum on 1 November, begins Wednesday under the slogan “November 1954: liberation, November 2020: change”.
This campaign, for which all the conditions of “transparency and impartiality” have been met, will be marked by awareness-raising activities on the importance of this popular consultation which should lay the foundations of a “modern state at the service of the citizen.
The Independent National Electoral Authority (ANIE) announced on 28 September last, the launch on 7 October of an awareness campaign in anticipation of the referendum on the amendment of the Constitution and published an order setting out the rules of the referendum campaign, pursuant to the organic law on the electoral system.
These rules stipulate, in particular, that the campaign will be run by government staff, political parties with a parliamentary group in both houses of Parliament or 10 seats in both houses of Parliament, or seats in local People’s Assemblies in at least 25 wilayas.
National associations with effective representation in at least 25 wilayas and political personalities are also entitled to lead the referendum campaign.
The speaking time reserved for speakers in the public audiovisual media has been defined by ANIE, in coordination with the Audiovisual Regulatory Authority (ARAV).
The referendum campaign may also be conducted through posters, distribution of leaflets, correspondence and all written or electronic means. Abroad, posters are displayed at the headquarters of diplomatic and consular representations.
For further information, please consult (in French) the following link.
October 06, 2020 : Back to school 2020 / 2021 in Algeria- Details of the health protocol
The day after the official setting of the date of the beginning of the school year for the school year 2020-2021 in Algeria, Professor Riad Mahyaoui, member of the Scientific Committee for monitoring the evolution of the epidemic in our country presented a detailed presentation of the health protocol developed with a view to a safe return of students to school.
It is in an interview to the information website Tout Sur l’Algérie – TSA; put online yesterday, October 5, that the doctor unveiled, point by point, the health protocol supposed to protect teachers and their students subject to the scrupulous application of the various rules of conduct, which compose it, according to the words of the teacher. The new school year is scheduled for October 21 for the primary school and November 4 for the middle and high school.
For more information, please consult (in French) the following link.
October 05, 2020 : After a slowdown due to the COVID-19, initiatives to animate the cultural scene
In the literary field, the publishing house “Dar El Izza Wa El Karama” inaugurated a new bookstore Nadji Mega bookstore, the seventh of its chain of bookstores spread across the national territory, but the largest in terms of space and titles displayed there (14,000 titles in several languages), said Redouane Lemsioui, one of the managers of this publishing house.
This mega bookstore whose primary objective is to “promote and enhance” the book is intended for different age groups and is a meeting place for intellectuals, writers, creators among other actors in this field,” he continued.
Outside the capital and in order to encourage reading, the writer Abderrazak Boukebba organized within his association “Fasila” a series of cultural cafes in Bordj Bou Arréridj, also proceeding with the distribution of literary works to cafes in the city to promote books and reading, reads the writer’s Facebook page.
For more information, please consult (in French) the following link.
October 05, 2020 : The resumption of flights depends on the evolution of COVID-19 in France?
Indeed, the member of the scientific committee in charge of monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic Dr. Mohamed Bekkat Berkani expressed himself in a statement by stressing that the decision of the president regarding the resumption of flights and the reopening of borders is “closely related to the number of COVID-19 contaminations recorded in Algeria, in foreign countries in general and in France in particular; being a country that is home to many Algerians”, reports, Sunday, October 4, the specialized site Djalia DZ.
The expert also said that the decision is always for the benefit of the Algerian people, that “it is impossible to endanger the lives of Algerian citizens, for fear of being faced with the nightmare of the second wave of COVID-19, that neighboring countries are currently suffering because of the hasty opening of borders” reports the same source.
For more information, please consult (in French) the following link.
