2008 in Algeria - November

November

• November 1: Mourad Medelchi of Algeria is one of forty-four foreign ministers meeting in France during a Union por la Mediterrannee (Union for Mediterranean) assembly. The gathering seeks a common plan to end the trust crisis between members who are disputing the Union's positions and structures.

• November 2: A Travelex delegation is expected in Algeria on November 16, 2008. The officials are considering issuing an international payment card, permitting Algerian citizens with foreign currency accounts to obtain money in their own country.

• November 3: The general prosecutor in Oran denied receiving complaints about the use of prison labor in private workshops. Algerian law permits the practice. Prosecutor Saad Allah said that his judicial pole is composed of nine courts. He said that his courts have not received requests from state-owned companies for the use of cheap labor.

• November 4: Car sales in the Algerian auto market decreased by 70% in the last four months. Many of those hoping to purchase a new car are waiting until 2009.

• November 4: Eleven months after thirty-seven people died and one hundred seventy-seven were wounded following twin terrorist attack bombings of the Constitutional Court and the United Nations building in Algiers, a judicial investigation continues. The Court of Algiers has twenty-eight cases to treat in the session which opened on November 3. The primary one, that involving Al Queda in North Africa leader, Abdelmalek Droukdal, will be tried in absentia, by December 2.

• November 4: Algeria announced that it will cut 71,000 daily barrels of its oil exports among the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries OPEC. Following a recent meeting the oil cartel agreed to reduce its exports by a collective 1.5 billion barrels (240,000,000 m3) a day, beginning on November 1.

• November 4: Austria has denied paying a ransom to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb for the release of two hostages, Wolfgang Ebner and Andrea Kloiber. Their release was credited to the efforts of the governments of Algeria and Mali. The victims were held in Mali.

• November 10: Algeria is one of seventeen African nations suffering from severe water shortages. The United Nations Development Program and the World Bank released a report indicating that the distribution of water in Algeria is inefficient. 30% of the water is being wasted because of numerous leaking points.

• November 10: Yazid Zerhouni, Home Affairs Minister of Algeria, visited family members of Fateh Chabaane, former mayor of Timzrit, who was assassinated by terrorists the previous week. Chabaane's death followed the earlier political murders of the head of the municipal people's assembly of Boumerdes and the Wilayat People's Assembly of Tizi Ouzou.

• November 10: Five medical companies monopolize the Algerian medical import business, which amounts to $2 billion annually. The statistic was cited by Minister of Solidarity, Family, and Immigration, Djamel Ould Abes, at a seminar held at the University of Medea.

• November 10: King Abdullah II of Jordan arrived for a visit in Algeria along with a large delegation. He was greeted at the airport by President Bouteflika. Private talks began in Zaralda, the state residence west of Algiers, regarding issues of Arab countries and other common interests.

• November 11: The United States government released two Algerian prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, reducing the total number of Algerian prisoners remaining there to twenty-six.

• November 12: The French language daily El Watan reported that Algeria has taken a step backwards in joining the few Arab states which have consented to lifetime presidencies in their constitutions. The Berber opposition denounced the parliamentary vote as a hold up. Le Soir d'Algérie said "Bouteflika treats himself to a third mandate".

• November 16: Argentina President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is in Algeria for an economic state visit. The countries are seeking agreements related to the food industry, medicine, and auto and agricultural engines. Increased cooperation in chemicals, iron, steel, construction materials, mining, biotechnology, oil, and gas, are anticipated. The two nations have been joined in a nuclear agreement since 1985.

• November 20: A United States federal judge ordered the release of five Algerians being held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Judge Richard J. Leon found the evidence against the prisoners insufficient to link them to Al Qaeda, because it came from a single source.

• November 20: The Algerian Defense Ministry has ordered 21 fast patrol boats from the French company Ocea. The boats will be used by the Algerian Navy for security missions in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean.

• November 23: Eric Zemmour, a French journalist for Le Figaro, is being accused of promoting ethnic separatism. Zemmour, born in Paris, France, is from an ethnic Berber family in Algeria, who left Algeria following the Algerian Revolution. His main point seems to be there are different races distinguishable by color.

• November 30: The accounts of four members of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb have been frozen by the United States Treasury Department. Thus far in 2008, 138 cases of money laundering and terror financing have been reported to the Financial Information Treatment Cell (CTRF).

• November 30: The Chairman of the National Office of Drugs Fighting, Abdelamlek Sayeh, said that 18 tons of cannabis and 900 hallucinogenic tablets have been seized in 2008. He added that drug trafficking networks are smuggling drugs to Europe on Algerian boats.