Posts tagged Algeria
Chinese petroleum company wins Algeria oil permits
Dec 20th
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Algeria’s Energy Ministry on Sunday awarded three exploration licenses out of 10 permits on offer, the head of its licensing committee Djilali Takherst said.
The licenses were awarded at a public session to select the winning companies in a bid round. In Algeria’s last licensing round, only four out of 16 permits initially on offer were granted.
Sunday’s round saw a consortium led by China’s CNOOC win the Hassi Bir Rekaiz permit, while a consortium headed by Total was awarded the licence for Ahnet and Spanish Repsol and its partners got the South-East Illizi permit, Takherst added. More >
Algeria confirms to keep OPEC supply unchanged
Dec 20th
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ALGIERS, Dec. 20 (Xinhua) — The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is likely to leave the daily production quota of crucial oil unchanged, said Algerian Energy and Mines Minister Chakib Khelil on Sunday.
OPEC’s 12 member countries will hold a meeting on Tuesday at ministerial level in Luanda, the capital of Angola, to discuss the current status of the international oil market and the bloc’s future policies on oil production.
“There will be no change in OPEC supply of crude oil. OPEC will not reduce supply and it will not increase supply,” Khelil said before leaving for Luanda. More >
Algeria ready to clean its corruption
Dec 17th
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Algeria is probing corruption cases in the wake of public outrage over the alleged misappropriation of billions of dinars and other manipulation of government projects for personal gain.
“The corruption cases revealed lately are just the tip of the iceberg,” financial journalist Slim Abdulrahman said last week. “What lies under wraps is far greater.”
The government estimates that $1.7 billion in public-sector funds have been lost to corruption.
Finance Minister Karim Djoudi has unleashed investigations into the scandal-plagued agriculture, water resources and transportation ministries, among others, to snuff out fraudulent contracts and exchanges of funds.
“The investigations squads conducted 128 monitoring operations across the concerned sectors in 2009 to look into some of the scandals. Also, 154 reports were issued on the reported transgressions,” he told Magharebia on Monday (December 14th), adding that hundreds of similar monitoring operations and investigations were conducted in the general directorates of customs and taxes.
The investigations were set in motion by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who on October 28th called for the creation of a National Anti-Corruption Committee at the start of the new legislative year, setting in motion compliance with an article in the 2006 Anti-Corruption Law.
The president also pledged the fair use of several legislative and regulatory mechanisms in order to bring to justice all those involved in corruption cases.
The new anti-corruption measures also mean that more than 70% of the projects currently under way have been reassessed by the National Fund for Preparation for Development, which monitors funding for 72% of all public projects. More >
Algeria-Egypt – brothers again
Dec 17th
On the surface, Egyptian and Algerian relations appear to be improving after the disastrous incidents surrounding the Egypt-Algeria soccer matches, reports Dina Ezzat at Al-Ahram Weekly.
Throughout the month of November, qualifying soccer matches between Egypt and Algeria have been tarnished with violent incidents as the two Arab countries competed for a spot in the 2010 FIFA World Cup. While the Egyptian team prevailed in Cairo, Algeria was the ultimate victor in Khartoum, Sudan.
Aggressive rhetoric preceded the games, as both Egyptians and Algerians engaged in vicious comments through the media. “For weeks, Egyptian and Algerian fans engaged in cyberwars, taunting each other in online forums, trading doctored team photos, provocative homemade songs, and YouTube videos,” writes Ursula Lindsey for Foreign Policy.
Lindsey recounts an inflammatory comment by Amr Adeeb, anchor of “Al-Qahira Al-Youm (Cairo Today).” The night before the match in Cairo, Adeeb stated, “What annoys me is the way the Algerians talk … this provocation, this conceit … Why do the Algerians hate us so much? We supported them during their million-martyr revolution; we sent them teachers to teach them Arabic.”
Algerians also engaged in the taunting, using Egypt’s controversial relationship with Israel to degrade their opponent. Before the games started, Algerian hackers installed an image of the Star of David over the Egyptian flag on the teams’ official website. An Algerian newspaper also referred to Cairo’s stadium as the “Tel Aviv stadium.” According to Gulf News, Algerian and Egyptian youths composed rap songs demonizing their opponents as “villains who must always lose.”
The rivalry was not limited to heated words– injuries among athletes and fans alike were reported throughout the matches, although Algerian and Egyptian sources offered drastically different accounts. Lindsey notes that the Algerian newspaper Echorouk posted a video claiming that an Algerian rapper’s brother was killed in Egypt, however the video was apparently a hoax.
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Algerian soccer team gets FIFA points
Dec 16th
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PARIS – FIFA has awarded Wednesday Spain as the team of the year, with 15 victories in 16 games in 2009, while Algeria and Brazil have the highest increase over the previous year with a gain of 322 points each in the Fifa rankings.
This is the second consecutive year that Spain won this distinction. The only defeat of Spain in 2009 was in the semi-finals of the Confederations Cup this summer against the United States. Spain tops FIFA’s latest rankings released in November.
Algeria, qualified for the World Cup 24 years after her last participation, achieves the rank of its history, winning 38 seats to climb to 26th place. Brazil, however, is in second place behind Spain.
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