News from Algeria 2006

[Al-khiyal]

Prices of public housing in Algeria will be cut by 40%, Finance Minister Mourad Medelci announced Thursday (October 19th) during talks on the 2007 draft budget. The measure will affect only the 600,000 housing units built before January 2004. According to Algeria's official news agency, the government has accelerated public housing building to defuse social tensions, in conjunction with a conditional granting of amnesty to Islamic terrorists.

A five-year economic programme envisages government spending of over $60 billion to stimulate economic growth and employment, develop infrastructure, accommodate social needs, and building up to 1 million housing units. Infrastructure projects aimed at linking the country's eastern and western provinces will cost $7 billion.

Public housing prices in Algeria to be cut by 40%

[Al-khiyal]

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) earmarked $50,000 over a five-year period to Algeria to support the fight against illiteracy under an agreement signed between its Algerian representative Raymond Janssens and the Algerian Association Fighting Illiteracy (IQRA), Quotidien d'Oran reported on Thursday (October 19th).

According to IQRA data, 21% of the Algerian population is illiterate. During the signing ceremony, Janssens stressed the alarming number of children who leave school without finishing their studies every year, estimated to be at least 400,000.

He said efforts should strive to make Algerian schools more interesting and attractive, with stronger focus on activities linked to computer sciences, sports, theatre, drawing, and reading.

UNICEF grants $50,000 to Algeria to fight illiteracy

[Al-khiyal]

Dozens injured in Algerian gas pipeline explosion

78 injured and a village escaped a real catastrophe

[Al-khiyal]

Two bombs exploded in Lakhdaria

[Al-khiyal]

More than 40 policemen are imprisoned because of their involvement in an array of abuses namely premeditated killing, theft and failing to fulfil their missions, well acquainted judiciary sources told El Khabar.

They further made clear that this year is the year in which security agents were the least arrested and prosecuted for different charges.

General Director of National Safety Colonel Ali Tounsi has decided to clean his sector in the light of the many reports submitted to him, the same sources noted. It is worth recalling that the same decision was taken last year by the same official.

Serkadji prison’s cell n° 30 overwhelmed by policemen whose number is estimated by a judiciary source at 25 policemen prosecuted for different charges.

According to well informed security sources, the national security statute is likely to reduce the abuses recorded in national safety corps.

25 policemen in Serkadji prison cell number 30

[Al-khiyal]

Genoa, Oct. 20 - Tomorrow in Genoa there will be an international meeting, sponsored by the presidency, entitled "For Euro-Mediterranean doctors: harmonizing differences". With this event, Italian doctors and dentists are enlarging European borders and are dialoguing with their colleagues on the other banks of Mare Nostrum. The intention is that of realizing a common strategy which gets rid of professional differences connected with belonging to one country instead of another, and of finding common ground for dialogue, by harmonizing diversity. The Mediterranean sea has become a small sea which sees hundred of thousands of lives cross it. It is to these lives that the professionals must look, beginning to organize a network of stable relationships on which to create healthcare policies. From training to medicine over the internet, from services to collaboration between the two sides of the Mediterranean. The Genoa event is putting on the field knowledge, intelligence, technologies and professional codes of ethics, in a constructive approach which, beyond cultural and social reference contexts, can be of concrete help in their daily jobs of these professionals who, in real time, on all sides of the sea, can work better to save as many lives as possible. This is why doctors and medical experts from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Malta - to name only a few - alongside representatives from GIPEF (the supra-national organization which on Sunday will be holding its works in Genoa) will discuss and compare to breathe live into this common design to identify mechanisms and tools which are adapted to emerging healthcare problems originating in our evermore multi-ethnic societies.

Healthcare: Euro-Mediterranean doctors

[Al-khiyal]

ANSA) -ALGERI, 22 OTT- Tre poliziotti sono morti in un attentato in Algeria attribuito al Gruppo Salafita per la predicazione e il combattimento vicino ad Al Qaida. L'attacco che ha avuto luogo ieri nella zona di Jijel (350 km a est di Algeri) ha portato a 27 il numero delle vittime durante il Ramadan di quest'anno. I tre poliziotti, riferisce la stampa locale, sono stati uccisi a colpi d'arma fuoco durante un agguato teso da un commando composto, secondo alcuni testimoni, da una quindicina di elementi.

Algeria: attentato, morti 3 agenti

Italian news agency report on the killing of three policemen yesterday at Jijel, believed to have been carried out by a 15-strong group belonging to the GSPC. The deaths bring to 27 the number of people killed in violent attacks in Algeria during Ramadan.