Oil markets are well supplied and high prices are the result of speculation, a weak dollar and geopolitical problems, Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) president Chakib Khelil said on Monday. ”As for Opec, indications show that there is no shortage [of supply],” he told a public forum on energy.
Saharan sand dunes stretch to the horizon in Timimoun, an oasis town of red clay where visitors can ride camels with Tuareg nomads and sleep on dunes under the stars. Timimoun should be easy to get to, but it isn’t. It offers few comforts after a long, arduous journey. But those few tourists who make it here value its remoteness.
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/ 29 January 2008
A car-bomb attack on a police station killed two people and wounded 23 in a town east of Algiers on Tuesday, the second such bombing in the Opec member in a month. Some residents said the blast in Thenia appeared to be a suicide attack, the tactic used in a twin bombing in the capital on December 11.
Suspected Islamist rebels killed five soldiers in an ambush on a military convoy east of Algiers on Wednesday, a security source said. The attack occurred near the town of Tizi Ouzou, 120km east of the capital, the source said, without giving further details.
The death toll from political violence in Algeria jumped to 56 in December from six in the previous month, bringing to 491 the number of those killed in 2007, according to a Reuters count based on newspaper reports. A total of 37 people, including 17 United Nations staff, were killed in a double suicide bombing in the capital, Algiers, on December 11.
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/ 20 December 2007
War may break out again in Western Sahara if United Nations-sponsored talks between Morocco and the Polisario Front independence movement fail, Polisario said on Friday. A third round of UN-brokered talks to resolve Africa’s longest-running territorial dispute are set for January 7 to 9 in Manhasset, New York.
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/ 14 December 2007
Two convicted terrorists who had been freed in an amnesty carried out this week’s suicide bombings at United Nations and government buildings that killed 37 people, an Algerian security official said. One of the bombers was a 64-year-old man in the advanced stages of cancer, while the other was a 32-year-old from a poor suburb.
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/ 13 December 2007
Two Algerians, aged 30 and 64, carried out Tuesday’s twin car-bomb attacks in Algiers that killed scores of people, the Algerian daily Liberte reported on Thursday. According to official figures, at least 31 people were killed in the bombings, including five foreigners.
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/ 12 December 2007
Rescuers on Wednesday kept up the search for survivors of two al-Qaeda bomb attacks as grieving families started funerals for dozens of victims. The United Nations said 11 of its staff were killed by one of the suicide bombers and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has ordered a worldwide security review after the attack.
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/ 12 December 2007
Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for a car bomb strike in Algiers that killed dozens of people as rescuers continued to work to find survivors. Amid a disputed death toll, rescuers pulled seven people alive from the debris of one of the bombs which tore through the offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
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/ 11 December 2007
A twin car bomb strike rocked Algiers on Tuesday killing at least 62 people and devastating a United Nations office where staff were trapped for hours after the blasts, hospital officials said. It was the worst of a series of bombings in the capital and other major Algerian cities this year. All the past attacks were claimed by al-Qaeda.
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/ 11 December 2007
Two bombs exploded in the Algerian capital, Algiers, on Tuesday, killing 20 people and wounding 43, a security source said. One blast killed 15 people near the Constitutional Court building and the other killed five close to the United Nations offices and a police station in the upscale Hydra district, the source said.
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/ 15 November 2007
The Algerian army is ”on the road to victory” over the Maghreb branch of the al-Qaeda network, responsible for suicide attacks in the North African country, according to a French anti-terrorism expert. The Maghreb branch has introduced suicide bomb attacks that have targeted government and army positions in Algeria.
An Algerian army operation against a group suspected of links to al-Qaeda has left 22 militants and seven soldiers dead in recent days, the daily Liberte reported on Monday. Security officials would not immediately comment on the sweep, which reportedly targeted the region of Tebessa, 650km east of the capital, Algiers.
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/ 21 September 2007
A suicide bomber rammed a booby-trapped car into a convoy in Algeria on Friday, wounding two French engineers and an Italian, in an attack only hours after al-Qaeda called for an offensive against French targets. Six Algerians, five of them police, were also injured in the attack near the town of Lakhdaria.
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/ 10 September 2007
The terrorist who on Saturday apparently helped drive a truck loaded with explosives into a marine barracks in the eastern Algerian city of Dellys and detonate it, killing 30 people and injuring 47, was only 15 years old, the daily El Watan reported on Monday.
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/ 9 September 2007
Al-Qaeda’s north Africa wing said it was behind two suicide attacks that killed at least 57 people in Algeria in the past two days, according to a statement posted on the internet on Saturday. It said the al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb was behind Saturday’s suicide truck bombing at a coast guard barracks east of Algiers and an attack in the town of Batna less than 48 hours earlier.
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/ 9 September 2007
A car bomb has killed at least 28 coast guard officers in Algeria just days after a blast ripped through a crowd waiting for the president. The bombings are being seen as a show of strength by the country’s main extremist group, which has gained force after linking up with al-Qaeda. Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni warned terrorists that they have ”one choice: turn themselves in or die”.
Forest fires fed by winds off the Sahara and still burning out of control in northern Algeria have claimed eight lives in the past 48 hours, the country’s civil protection services said on Thursday. A lack of specialised water-bombing planes has added to the challenges faced by firefighters and soldiers sent in as reinforcements.
Algeria saw foreign trade for its mining sector post positive results in 2006 for the first time in 11 years, with a surplus of ,58-million, the Energy and Mines Ministry said on Tuesday. The official APS news agency said it was ”the first positive balance” since 1996.
Olympic chiefs should give the All Africa Games the same priority as other continental competitions if they are to be taken seriously by the rest of the world, the event’s director general said on Sunday. The officials said African nations had to change their ”attitude” and respect deadlines set by organising committees.
The African Olympic body is expected to take over the running of the All Africa Games to attract more private sponsors and top athletes, its president said on Tuesday. The Games are currently organised by the Supreme Council for Sports in Africa, the sporting wing of the African Union.
A Nigerian woman weightlifter and an Angolan male swimmer have tested positive for banned substances at the All Africa Games. Blessed Udoh, a medallist in the 48kg category, tested positive for diuretics, Zohir Bensohane, a Games official in charge of anti-doping control, told reporters.
Louis Van Zyl led a medals sweep for South Africa in the men’s 400m hurdles at the All Africa Games on Saturday. Meanwhile, Algeria and Egypt tied for golds at the top of the medals table with just two days to go. The 22-year-old Van Zyl won in 48,74 seconds.
World champion Gerhard Zandberg of South Africa won two gold medals in swimming at the All African Games on Monday, setting a competition record in the 50m backstroke and helping his team to victory in the 400m freestyle relay. Zandberg won the backstroke in 25,68 seconds, edging Egypt’s Ahmed Hussein and Kenyan Jason Dunford.
Olympic champion Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe won two swimming gold medals on Saturday at the All Africa Games and was denied a silver when her team were disqualified from the 4x100m relay. In men’s swimming, South Africa claimed two more gold medals, bringing the team’s total haul of swimming golds to 12.
South Africa continued to dominate swimming at the All Africa Games, winning five out of six gold medals on Friday. Amanda Loots won the women’s 50m butterfly in 27,60 seconds, Melissa Corfe the women’s 200m freestyle in 2:02,45, and Suzaan van Biljon the women’s 200m breaststroke in 2:32,30.
A suicide bomber detonated explosives at an Algerian military barracks on Wednesday, killing himself and about eight other people in the restive Kabylie region east of Algiers, residents said. The blast 120km east of the capital was one of the worst rebel attacks in months.
Banayana Banyana drew 2-2 with arch-rivals Nigeria on Tuesday in their first fixture at the All Africa Games in Algiers, Algeria. Nigeria found themselves 1-0 down early in the game after a dreadful own goal. The South Africans capitalised and further increased their lead after netting a superb cross from the left wing.
Deprived of international competition for 15 years due to the threat of Islamic terrorism, Algeria is primed and ready this week to host the ninth edition of the All Africa Games. The North African state will be only the second country after Nigeria in 1973 and 2003 to host the event on two occasions, having already been the venue for the Games in 1978.
Algeria’s state oil and gas company KBR, a former Halliburton subsidiary, signed a ,88-billion deal on Saturday for a liquefied natural gas plant. The Skikda plant, on Algeria’s eastern Mediterranean coast, will be the country’s largest liquefied natural gas facility, with a capacity of 4,5-million tonnes of LNG a year.
Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika asked the army on Thursday to step up attacks on Islamist rebels, saying they were ”enemies of the people”. ”As armed forces commander in chief, I want the fight against residual terrorism doubled in intensity,” the official APS news agency quoted him as saying.