North Africa

Egyptian Council of State has announced that 98 women had been appointed judges in one of the country’s main judicial bodies, for the first time. The judges were sworn in before the council’s chief judge in an event in the capital Cairo on Tuesday. Their appointment comes months after President …

The European Union has urged the Tunisian President Kaïs Saied to restore democratic order in the country and reopen parliament. During a parliamentary session, European Union’s foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell told EU lawmakers that the Tunisian parliament “cannot stay closed indefinitely”. “It is crucial for the future of the …

Government in Egypt has announced that it will bar unvaccinated public service workers from entering its buildings from mid next month. A cabinet notice on Sunday said workers would have to be vaccinated or take a weekly Covid test to be allowed into government buildings from 15 November. Egypt has …

The former provisional president of the Republic of Tunisia, Moncef Marzouki reacted on Thursday evening to the withdrawal of his diplomatic passport, decided the same day by Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed. “I am not at all surprised by the measures announced by the coup regime against me,” said Marzouki, in …

A big fire has swept through the main square of a landmark concert hall and conference centre in Egypt where the country’s top film festival is due to open on Thursday. A plume of black smoke rose from where the opening and closing ceremonies of El Gouna film festival are …

The Francophonie summit, scheduled for November on the Tunisian coastal island of Djerba, was officially postponed for a year on Wednesday, October 13. At a meeting of the Permanent Council of the International Organization of La Francophonie (OIF) the day before, the representatives of the 88 member and associate states …

The Algerian president Abdelmadjid Tebboune has asked “total respect” from France as the diplomatic tensions among the two countries are worsening. In his first public comments on the matter, Abdelmadjid Tebboune said France should forget that Algeria had once been its colony. The current dispute between the two countries was …

French President Emmanuel Macron said he hoped diplomatic tensions with Algeria would ease soon and that it would be better to hold talks in order to move forward. “My wish is that we can calm things down because I think it is better to talk to one another, and to …

Four suspected Islamic State-linked militants and one Sudanese soldier were killed during clashes in the capital, Khartoum, on Monday, state news agency Suna reports. “The terrorist group fired heavy shots at our forces from a variety of weapons, including… machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and grenades”, the agency reports. Read also: …

Against all odds, the winner of Paris’ prestigious best baguette award will not be supplying the French president with any bread, has announced the president’s cabinet. Makram Akrout, Tunisian-born and winner of the award, has been at the centre of a controversy since he won the award last month, after …