Asked if Algeria would help off-set a drop in Iranian exports, Youcef Yousfi said in parliament: “We have a programme with regard to oil exports. This programme will not change.”

Referring to the impact on crude of the euro zone debt crisis, he said: “Oil prices will remain as they are and I hope they will not fall because of the financial crisis.”

The minister also said that the Arzew oil refinery, in the west of the country, would re-open in February following maintenance and improvement works. He said the work would increase the plant’s production capacity by 50 percent. (Reporting by Hamid Ould Ahmed; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Jason Neely)

The sentence against Mokhtar Belmokhtar and the three others was handed down in absentia last night after a day-long trial in Algiers.

Six other suspected members of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), who are also currently on the run, received sentences of between two to 20 years.

All 10 had been accused of involvement in acts of terrorism and “participation in voluntary acts of homicide” against members of the armed forces.

Among the attacks on the charge sheet was a deadly attack in May 2010 when an army commander was killed in Djelfa, which lies around 270 kilometres south of Algiers, by members of the group.

Algerian courts have twice sentenced Belmokhtar to life in prison, including in 2008 for the assassination of 13 customs officers, but the authorities have never been able to capture him and enforce the sentence.

Algeria has had a moratorium on the death penalty since 1993.

AQIM also operates in Niger, Mali and Mauritania but its leadership is dominated by Algerians and was previously known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, founded in the late 1990s with the aim of toppling the Algerian government and creating an Islamic state.

Algeria’s Islamist movement is divided into several parties. The largest is part of Belkhadem’s ruling coalition.

Even if Islamist parties take a plurality, they may not succeed in uniting and heading the next government as has happened recently in Tunisia and Morocco.

Algeria has promised transparent elections in May, and on Sunday called for the participation of international observers.

When an Islamist party was poised to win elections in 1991 in Algeria, there was a military coup.

In attendance were more than 3000 people from different sections of the Algerian civil community, representatives from Algerian political parties, Palestinian families and Freed Palestinian Prisoners. In October, 477 Palestinian prisoners were released in exchange for a captured Israeli soldier. More than 9000 Palestinian captives are still in Israel’s prisons.

Kamel Chenine, head of the Algerian organizing committee said this event also coincides with the massacres of thousands of Algerians in December 11, 1960 by former French colonizer. Algerians walked a long road to reach their freedom and they never gave up on Palestine, he added.

The leader of the National Front for Change, Abdelmajid Menasra, said Muslims should not forget the occupied Palestinian territories amid their awakening.

Some of the recently freed Palestinian prisoners attended such event for the first time, and were praised by both Algerian and Palestinian organizing committee members.

Presenting the bill, Communications Minister Nacer Mehal said that the aim was “a better protection of journalists on the socio-professional front.” “The government commits itself to respecting all freedoms and above all the freedom of expression in the framework of the laws of the republic,” Mehal told the people’s national assembly.

But critics like Hakim Messaoui of the Initiative for the Dignity of Journalists said, “We want a law on news and not a penal code.” About 40 members of his grouping held a vigil outside parliament.
The new bill includes 132 articles, and is devoted particularly to the opening up of television to the private sector.

The controversy arises over clauses that “call for a panoply of ideological allegiances, like respect for national sovereignty (and) economic interests, expressions that are so vague that they hoist an intolerable sword of Damocles over the freedom of the press and expression,” according to parliamentarian Ali Brahimi.

Algeria currently has five television channels, five national radios and 47 local radios, all owned by the state.

Said Bouhadja, a member of parliament for the National Liberation Front (FLN), backed the new bill, telling AFP that “this proposal places Algeria in a modern position and is an opening up” of the airwaves.

The media bill is among reforms promised by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika on April 15, in response to a wave of popular protest that was part of the Arab Spring. The law should be voted on by the end of January, which will mark the end of this parliamentary session, the last before elections in 2012.

Mohammed Kamel Amr, Medelci both announced that suspending the membership of Syria is temporary and can be lifted before November 16th, as an Arab League meeting is scheduled to be held on the same date in Rabat.

In turn, Medelci said that Algeria rejected the draft resolution, adding that Algeria was going to withdraw from the Arab Ministerial Committee if the draft was adopted.

He pointed out that there was a heated debate before reaching the resolution which expresses the viewpoint of the Committee, not the viewpoint of Egypt or Algeria.

“More than ever before, the time being requires reinforcing relations with the Syrian government to put into effect the Arab League’s work plan,” the foreign minister added.

For his part, Egyptian Foreign Minister, Mohammed Kamel Amr, stressed that the main goal of the Arab League’s initiative is averting foreign intervention in Syria, pointing out that Algeria and Egypt are seeking to ward off foreign intervention in Syria under any pretext.

Arab foreign ministers will meet again on Wednesday, the day of the start of the suspension, to discuss Syria’s situation. There are no detailed sanctions yet on Syria from the AL. All these moves, a serious blow more symbolically than substantially for the time being, pushed Syrian government to respond quickly.

Italian woman Rossella Urru, Spanish woman Ainhoa Fernandez Rincon and Spanish man Enrico Gonyans were abducted on 23 October from the Rabuni camp, primarily inhabited by refugees from Western Sahara, in western Algeria.

The suspects were arrested on Sunday in the western province of Bechar and the southern Temeneresset province, according to a Monday report in state-run Algerian newspaper el-Khabar.

Eight people were arrested on suspicion of terrorist activities, of whom half are suspected of taking part in the kidnapping, the report said.

The victims were abducted by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb under the authority of Moktar Bel Moktar alias Belewar, the Algerian leader of an AQIM branch], Al-Jazeera reported.

The European aid workers, two Spaniards and an Italian, were abducted from the Rabuni camp housing mainly Sahrawi refugees from Western Sahara. The native countries of the kidnapped aid workers have confirmed their abductions.

The two abducted Spanish aid workers were identified as Ainhoa Fernandez Rincon and Enrico Gonyans and the Italian as Rosella Urru. Both Spain and Italy have said that they were making coordinated efforts to secure the release of the abducted aid workers.

The camp from where they were abducted late Saturday is being run by the Polisario Front, which is seeking independence for western Sahara from Morocco. The group blamed a faction of al-Qaeda’s north Africa wing based in Mali for the kidnappings.

The Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is believed to have established itself in the Sahara Desert between Algeria, Mali and Niger. The group emerged in 2007 as an offshoot of an Algerian militant group before aligning itself with the international terror network founded by Osama bin Laden.

Although the Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb often carries out kidnappings and attacks on security installations in the region, it is not known to target camps for Western Sahara refugees in the past.

Morocco has been ruling over Western Sahara ever since it occupied the territory after Mauritania pulled out in 1979. The Algeria-backed Polisario Front has been campaigning for the region’s independence since then.

Although the Polisario Front had taken up arms against the Moroccan government in the late 1970′s in its quest for securing independence for Western Sahara, that armed conflict was halted by a U.N.-brokered ceasefire in 1991.

Currently, the UN is holding peace negotiations involving the Polisario Front as well as the governments of Algeria and Morocco as part of international efforts aimed at finding a peaceful solution to the issue.

The Polisario Front has however rejected a Moroccan government offer to grant wide-ranging autonomy for Western Sahara, and is demanding a referendum for the people of the disputed territory to decide whether they want complete independence or autonomy as proposed by Morocco.

“The total sum of electricity production development between 2011 and 2021 is nearly 2,600 billion dinars (25.9 billion euros, $35.4 billion), 1,500 billion of which (15 billion euros) will be dedicated to renewable energy,” Nordine Bouterfa, the head of Sonelgaz, told a press conference.

“By 2030 some 40 percent of electricity production for national consumption will come from renewable” energy, he said.

Algeria currently produces nearly all of its electricity from natural gas.

In July Algeria inaugurated a hybrid power plant that produces electricity using both solar panels and natural gas. The plant is Algeria’s first solar plant, has a capacity of 150 megawatts and is located in the Saharian region of Hassi R’mel, some 500 kilometres south of the capital Algiers.

A rescue worker is also missing in flooding in southern Algeria, it added.

A number of bridges collapsed, several roads are blocked and schools have been closed.

Algeria’s meteorological service had warned about strong thunderstorms across the country from Saturday into Sunday.