The new Pan-African Parliament has already made an impact. As it opened in Midrand on 16 September, Pretoria established diplomatic ties with the Polisario Front's government-in-ex...

President Maaouiya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya has turned the latest alleged coup plot, on 10 August, to his advantage, detaining Islamist leader Mohamed Jemil Ould Mansour and a dozen sen...

The 3 August announcement that Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Mohamed Lamari had resigned for health reasons (for treatment in Spain for an eye condition) came after weeks of ne...

After seven frustrating years, former United States Secretary of State James Baker III has resigned as the United Nations Secretary General's Special Envoy to Western Sahara. He is...

British Prime Minister Tony Blair hailed a triumph for constructive engagement as he met Colonel Moammar el Gadaffi on 25 March. British business was pleased, too.

On 8 April, Abdelaziz Bouteflika will almost certainly become Algeria's first civilian president to win re-election. If he does, it will reflect less on his popularity than his hol...

On 9-10 March, fighting in Chad's Tibesti region, near the Niger border, indicated that fighters from Algeria's biggest active Islamist militia, the Groupe Salafiste de Préd...

The Algerian security services' relaxed approach to the growing United States' military presence in the Sahel reflects their concern at the number of arms in circulation, especiall...

The row over who owns the Western Sahara's mineral rights is reopening. British-based Wessex Exploration has applied to Morocco's Office National des Hydrocarbures et des Mines to ...

Reports of an ambush at the end of January somewhere between 'north of Tamanrasset' in southern Algeria and northern Mali point to the complex and lethal war games under way across...