Month: April 2022

A new class of convicted extremists in Morocco completed their three month de-radicalisation program on Thursday – the ninth of its kind since the government program began.

At a closing ceremony organised by the state, fifteen neatly-dressed inmates stood solemnly for Morocco’s national anthem and waited to receive their certificates.

Journalists were asked by officials not to show the inmates’ faces or use their full names in reports, for privacy reasons.

The initiative, called “Moussalaha,” meaning “reconciliation” in Arabic, was created in 2017 by Morocco’s prison administration, commonly known by its French acronym DGAPR.

The effort is aimed at convicted extremists who demonstrate a readiness to disown their extremist convictions.

One inmate, Mohammed, told The Associated Press that the program had altered his religious views.

“This program helped me to form a new view of religion, as religion is not a religion of closed-mindedness or fanaticism, but rather a religion of tolerance with the other,” he said.

To cope with the return of those combatants, Moroccan authorities developed the “Moussalaha” program as part of the country’s policy for countering different kinds of extremism, says DGAPR Delegate General Mohamed Saleh Al-Tamek.

Al-Tamek says that in total, 222 people have benefited from the program since its inception. 156 of them have been released, with 116 receiving royal pardons and 15 others having their sentences reduced.

According to Al-Tamek, in 2019 the program was expanded to include women detained under the Anti-Terrorism Act. Ten women have since gone through the program and all have now been released; eight through royal pardon and two inmates by the end of their sentence.

“It enables the prisoners to complete their conviction and awareness of the gravity of their mistakes, as well as the seriousness of the actions committed by them, and thus work to change their behaviour and improve their life path,” said Moulay Idriss Akelmam, Director of Social and Cultural Work at the Prisons Delegate for the benefit of prisoners.

Morocco has experienced its fair share of terror attacks throughout the years – most notably the Al Qaeda-linked assaults in Casablanca in 2003, which killed 33 people.

In 2011, an explosion destroyed a cafe in Dejmaa el-Fna Square, a prominent tourist area in Marrakech, killing 17 people, the majority of whom were foreign visitors.

The North African kingdom has also seen an increase in Moroccans joining extremist groups in Syria and Iraq, including the Islamic State.

Libya is losing tens of millions of dollars a day from the shutdown of its oil facilities, while global prices are at their highest in years, the country’s oil minister told Africanewsguru.

Oil is the lifeblood of the North African country trying to move past a decade of conflict since the fall of dictator Moamer Kadhafi in a 2011 NATO-backed uprising. But since mid-April Libya’s two major export terminals and several oil fields have been held hostage to the country’s latest political schism.

“Production has fallen by about 600,000 barrels a day,” half of the prior level, Minister of Oil and Gas Mohammed Aoun said in an interview with Africanewsguru at his office in Tripoli.

“Calculating the sale price at $100 a barrel, losses are at least $60 million daily,” he said.

Since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in February, triggering Western sanctions, global crude prices have reached levels unseen since 2014. On Friday the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude traded above $106 per barrel. The price of Brent crude exceeded $109 a barrel.

The Libyan closures follow the selection in February of a new prime minister, Fathi Bashagha, by Libya’s eastern-based parliament in a direct challenge to Tripoli-based interim Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah.

Analysts say eastern Libyan forces who back Bashagha have forced the closure of the oil facilities in a bid to press Dbeibah to step down, but the incumbent insists he will only hand power to an elected successor.

The political bloc supporting Bashagha is aligned with Libya’s eastern-based strongman Khalifa Haftar, who in 2019-20 led a failed offensive against Tripoli, accompanied by his forces blockading oilfields.

On the political dimensions of the shutdown, Aoun limited himself to saying: “Apparently, those calling for the closure say they have claims for development of their regions.”

President Joe Biden asked Congress on Thursday for an additional $33 billion to help Ukraine fend off Russia’s invasion, a signal that the U.S. is prepared to mount a robust, long-term campaign to bolster Kyiv and weaken Moscow as the bloody war enters its third month with no sign of abating.

Biden’s latest proposal – which the White House said was expected to support Ukraine’s needs for five months – has more than $20 billion in military assistance for Kyiv and for shoring up defenses in nearby countries. There is also $8.5 billion in economic aid to help keep Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government functioning and $3 billion for food and humanitarian programs to help civilians, including the more than five million refugees created by the war.

The assistance package, which now heads to Congress for consideration, would be more than twice as large as an initial $13.6 billion of defense and economic aid for Ukraine and Western allies that Congress enacted last month and is now almost exhausted. It was meant to signify that the U.S. is not tiring of helping to stave off Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to expand his nation’s control of its neighbor, and perhaps beyond.

“The cost of this fight is not cheap, but caving to aggression is going to be more costly,” Biden said. “It’s critical this funding gets approved and as quickly as possible.”

The request comes with the fighting, now in its ninth week, sharpening in eastern and southern parts of the country and international tensions growing as Russia cuts off gas supplies to two NATO allies, Poland and Bulgaria.

There is wide, bipartisan support in Congress for giving Ukraine all the assistance it needs to fight the Russians, and its eventual approval seems certain. But Biden and congressional Democrats also want lawmakers to approve billions more to battle the pandemic, and that along with a Republican push to entangle the measure with an extension of some Trump-era immigration restrictions leaves the proposal’s pathway to enactment unclear.

The White House has proposed giving the government greater power to seize and sell the assets of Russian oligarchs, and transfer their proceeds to Ukraine. The legislative proposal will be presented to Congress for consideration.

It follows similar legislation recently passed in the US House of Representatives. But the new White House plans go further, focusing on collaboration between Justice, Treasury, State and Commerce departments. The measures would make it easier for the US to seize and sell oligarchs’ assets, and use the funds “to remediate harms of Russian aggression”, the White House said in a statement.

Equatorial Guinea has said it will prosecute the owner of an oil tanker “fraudulently” flying the flag of the central African nation that ran aground on April 16 off Tunisia.

Vice president Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue in a statement on Thursday said the country has also requested, “international collaboration to detect vessels illegally flying the Equatorial Guinea’s flag.

“From now on, all vessels that fraudulently fly our flag must be boarded,” said Rufino Ovono Ondo, Minister of Transport, on Thursday on TVGE, the state television. The vice-president also announced in a tweet that an Equatorial Guinean commission would be sent to Tunisia on Friday to “participate in the investigation”.

The Xelo, which left the port of Damietta in Egypt and was, heading for Malta, sank in Tunisian waters where it had taken refuge the day before due to bad weather conditions.

The cause of the oil tanker’s sinking has not been determined. Tunisian navy forces evacuated the seven-crew members before the ship sank and the country’s judiciary has opened an investigation to determine the causes of this accident. It says it also wants to determine the nature of the activity of the tanker and its journey in recent weeks.

The crew – four Turks, a Georgian captain and two Azerbaijanis – were placed under arrest on April 22. Tunis then announced that the ship was empty, ruling out any risk of pollution, after having initially assured that it was carrying 750 tons of diesel.