Algeria Passes Law To Protect Media Freedom. Others Used To Imprison Journalists Remain On the ooks

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

An activist demonstrates outside the Algerian Embassy to France to demand the release of Algerian journalist Ihsane El Kadi, Thursday, March 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)

ALGIERS, ALGERIA (AP) — Algeria’s National Council passed a new media law that officials hailed as a major victory for the country’s journalists as concerns about press freedoms have plagued President Abdelmajid Tebboune’s first term in office.

The new law repeals the country’s “press offense” law and enshrines new protections for journalists to ensure they will not face arrest or imprisonment for doing their jobs. However, two prominent journalists remain behind bars and the laws that authorities have used to prosecute journalists — including one banning foreign funding for media outlets — remain on the books.

Still, the law’s author, Algerian Minister of Communications Mohamed Laagab, called it “the best law in the history of independent Algeria regarding the journalism industry.” He said it was a directive that came from President Tebboune.

Many journalists hailed the law passed Tuesday as major progress. Some responded with more caution.

Retired journalist and veteran political activist Ahmed Khezzana said he welcomed the law but wondered why Tebboune’s administration had decided to champion it now, after years of imprisoning journalists including Khaled Drareni and Ihsane El Kadi.





“I don’t think it’s a conviction on the part of those in power, who don’t fundamentally believe in press freedom. It’s just that the prospect of the presidential election is approaching, so they need to look after their image,” Khezzana said.

The overture to Algeria’s once vibrant, now fledgling journalism sector comes a year before Tebboune campaigns for reelection.

The two cases Khezzana referenced garnered Algeria international condemnation.

Drareni, a former editor of Casbah Tribune and correspondent for France’s TV5 Monde, was arrested and sentenced to prison in 2020 for inciting protests and attacking national unity. He was later pardoned and now works for Reporters Without Borders (RSF) as its North Africa representative. El Kadi, the owner of a media company that oversaw the now-shuttered news site Maghreb Emergent and radio station Radio M, remains behind bars on similar charges related to threatening state security and taking foreign funds for his outlets.

El Kadi’s lawyer, Fetta Sadat, told The Associated Press, that he thought the new law was unlikely to affect his client’s seven year sentence handed down in April.

Throughout Tebboune’s tenure, in addition to journalists facing prison sentences, the country’s largest French language newspaper Liberte, shuttered. Several news sites also have gone offline while others remain inaccessible throughout the country without VPN.

Repealing Algeria’s “press offense” law has been under discussion in parliament for more than a decade. It was first enshrined into national law in 2011 but put on hold as the country continued to use it to prosecute journalists who wrote critically of the government, particuLarly during the 2019 Hirak protests that led to former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s ouster.

The law has served as a pretext to imprison several journalists, including El Kadi and Mustapha Bendjama, the editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Le Provencal.

The new law will take effect when it’s published in the country’s official bulletin, at which time courts will no longer arbitrate what journalists can write. Afterward, the country’s professional journalism organizations — the Council of Ethics and Conduct, the Print Media Regulatory Authority and the Audiovisual Regulatory Authority — will regulate the profession.

Algeria Expands English-Language Learning As France’s Influence Ebbs

Schoolchildren attend a class in the Ben Omar district of Algiers, Algeria, on Sept. 19, 2023. (AP Photo, File)

ALGIERS, ALGERIA (AP) — More than a year after Algeria launched a pilot program to teach English in elementary schools, the country is hailing it as a success and expanding it in a move that reflects a widening linguistic shift underway in former French colonies throughout Africa.

Students returning to third and fourth grade classrooms this fall will participate in two 45-minute English classes each week as the country creates new teacher training programs at universities and eyes more transformational changes in the years ahead. Additionally, the country is strengthening enforcement of a preexisting law against private schools who operate primarily in French.

“Teaching English is a strategic choice in the country’s new education policy,” Education Minister Abdelkrim Belabed said last week, lauding the move as an immense success.

English is the world’s most widely spoken language, accounts for the majority of content on the internet and remains a lingua franca in business and science. And as France’s economic and political influence wanes throughout Africa, Algeria is among a longer list of countries gradually transitioning toward English as their main foreign language.

This year, neighboring Mali changed its constitution to remove French from its list of official languages and Morocco made English classes compulsory in high schools.

Algeria has more French speakers than all but two nations — France itself and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Nearly 15 million out of the country’s 44 million people speak it, according to the International Organization of the French Language. Its officials frame English classes as a practical rather than political shift, noting the language’s importance in scientific and technical fields.

But questions about French’s position in Algerian society have long been polarizing, as teachers and former education policy officials acknowledge.

Retired high school principal Mohamed Arezki Ferdi believes Algeria should have begun the shift to English decades ago. The current initiative was launched by Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who came to power in 2019. Previous leaders also tried to expand English but failed to overcome the French-educated elites who have long wielded power in the country.

“We lost a lot of time,” Ferdi said. “We should have introduced the English in primary schools when President (Abdelaziz) Bouteflika laid out his reform after coming to power in 1991. But at that time, French-speaking factions in Algeria had a lot of decision-making power in institutions.”

The expansion of English language learning comes as tensions increasingly flare between France and Algeria. The two share security interests over the political upheavals shaping contemporary West Africa. However, in recent years they have sparred repeatedly over immigration, extradition and how each country memorializes colonialism and the brutal war that resulted in Algeria’s independence in 1962.

Algeria plans to expand its current program to fifth grade next year. It will continue to instruct students in French for three hours each week in elementary schools.

When English-language learning was introduced last year, Algerian officials reaffirmed their commitment to French and said it would continue to be taught widely. But in remarks this week at the beginning of the school year, Kamal Bedari, Algeria’s minister of Higher Education, said expanding the program was to enable elementary school students to take technical courses later on in English — not French.

Though few dispute that English is important, some worry about how Algeria is implementing such a shift and caution against declaring victory too soon. Ahmed Tessa, a former adviser to Algeria’s Ministry of Education, believes getting students to master English can only happen gradually and will likely require more than simply adding classes.

“We need to get back to basics,” he said. “This is no small task.”

Regardless of how quickly schools transition to English, elsewhere signs of a pushback against French are clear.

Authorities have slowly replaced French with English in the official titles of various government ministries. And on his trip last year to Algiers, the country had French President Emmanuel Macron provide remarks from a lectern noting his title and the date in English and Arabic, one of Algeria’s two official languages along with indigenous Tamazight.

Noted Thinkers, Writers And Filmmakers Call On Algeria To Free Jailed Journalist Seen As Independent

Algerian Journalist Ihsane El Kadi

PARIS (AP) — Ten noted thinkers, writers and filmmakers, including director Ken Loach and Nobel literature laureate Annie Ernaux, signed an open letter published Tuesday, calling on the president of Algeria to free a jailed journalist they said was punished for refusing to bow to the government line.

In the letter to President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, published in the French daily Le Monde, the luminaries said that prominent journalist Ihsane El Kadi was in prison “because he refuses to submit to the pressures of those who govern the country and wanted to make him a counterfeit journalist.”

An Algiers court sentenced the 64-year-old El Kadi on April 2 to five years in prison with two years suspended after his conviction on charges of receiving foreign funding for his two media outlets, Radio M and the online news site Maghreb Emergent.

The outspoken El Kadi is widely considered a rare independent voice within the press, and his outlets the lone spaces to defy a tightening noose around press freedom in Algeria. His media outlets were ordered shut down.

El Kadi was initially detained at his home in December and has remained jailed since then.

The signatories of the exceptionally bold letter appealed for El Kadi’s freedom by referring to the North African country’s brutal war with France for independence, won in 1962 and today the near-sacred basis on which Algeria is built.

“More than a country, Algeria is an idea. A stubborn idea of liberation ... It is the proof that victory over injustice is possible,” the letter said.

“Today, this great country is closing like a redoubtable trap on political opponents and citizens who dare dream of a veritable state of law.”

Among others signing the letter were Noam Chomsky and Indian writer Arundhati Roy.

An earlier appeal by Reporters Without Borders, made during a ceremony on International Press Day, failed. Tebboune simply reminded a representative who gave him a letter that “El Kadi Ihasane is not jailed as a journalist, but as the head of a press group financed with foreign funds.”

Algerian Court Sentences Prominent Journalist To 5 Years

Activists demonstrate outside the Algerian embassy to France to demand the release of release of Algerian journalist Ihsane El Kadi, Thursday, March 30, 2023 in Paris. Ihsane El Kadi has for years been the target of Algerian authorities and was taken to custody on Dec. 24 2022. The verdict in his trial for "illegal fund raising" and "endangering state security", is expected Sunday April 2, 2023. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

ALGIERS, ALGERIA (AP) — A court in Algiers on Sunday sentenced a prominent journalist in the North African country to five years in prison with two years suspended and ordered his website and a radio station shut down based on the accusation that they threaten state security.

Ihsane El-Kadi was detained Dec. 23 at his home in the capital, Algiers. He was accused of receiving foreign funding for his outlets. He has remained in custody since his arrest and appeared in court on Sunday for the verdict, along with a collective of lawyers, defending him, journalists and family members.

The court also ordered El-Kadi to pay a fine of 700,000 Algerian dinars ($5,200). The media company which owns El-Kadi’s website and radio station was ordered dissolved, its assets seized, and a fine of one million Algerian dinars ($7,390) was slapped on its owners.

El-Kadi, who was active in Algeria’s Hirak pro-democracy protest movement in 2019, appears to be the latest target of an encroaching crackdown on dissenting voices in the North African country.


His outlets were seen by many as outposts of free debate in Algerian media that provided journalists and opposition politicians a platform to point out contradictions or shortfalls in the government’s policies.

The case against him is linked to the crowdfunding used to finance his media outlets, Maghreb Emergent and Webradio. The website and radio station operated in Algeria for years but did not have government recognition as official media organizations.

El-Kadi was accused of violating an article in the criminal code targeting anyone who receives funds aimed at “inciting acts susceptible to threaten state security,” stability or Algeria’s fundamental interests, his lawyers said before the verdict.

Algerian Journalist Jailed And His Media Offices Shut Down

Ihsane El Kadi. Image via Twitter

ALGIERS, ALGERIA (AP) — A prominent Algerian journalist is behind bars and the offices of his website and radio station were shut down based on accusations that they threaten state security, according to a defense lawyer.

Ihsane El-Kadi was detained Dec. 23 at his home and held in a police facility until Thursday, when he appeared in an Algiers court. An investigating judge ordered him kept in custody, according to Zoubida Assoul, a lawyer who is part of a collective that is defending the journalist.

El-Kadi, who was active in Algeria’s Hirak pro-democracy protest movement in 2019, appears to be the latest target of an encroaching crackdown on dissenting voices in the North African country.

The case against him is linked to the crowdfunding used to finance his media outlets, Maghreb Emergent and Webradio, Assoul said. The website and radio station operated in Algeria for years but did not have government recognition as official media organizations.

El-Kadi is accused of violating an article in the criminal code targeting anyone who receives funds aimed at “inciting acts susceptible to threaten state security,” stability or Algeria’s fundamental interests, the lawyer said. If convicted, he could face five to seven years in prison.

His supporters view El-Kadi’s arrest as punishment for articles that angered Algerian authorities.


His outlets were seen by many as outposts of free debate in Algerian media that provided journalists and opposition politicians a platform to point out contradictions or shortfalls in the government’s policies.

Police questioned El-Kadi in the past then released him. the past then released. His family and friends expected that to happen again Thursday, but instead were disappointed and indignant at the decision to hold him.

“Algeria is sliding dangerously into an Orwellian universe,” Madjid Madhi, who is also a journalist, said.

Algerians expressed dismay online, including some who said they disagreed with El-Kadi’s views.

‘I Lost everything’: Algeria Reels From Deadly Wildfire

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Residents walk past a charred truck in El Kala, in the El Tarf region, near the northern Algerian-Tunisian border, Thursday, Aug.18, 2022. Wildfires raging in the forests of eastern Algeria have killed at least 26 people, according to a "provisional report" by the north African country's interior minister. (AP Photo/Mohamed Ali)

Firefighters in Algeria have extinguished all but one of over 50 wildfires that ravaged the country this week, leaving at least 37 people dead and consuming farms, crops and cork forests, authorities said Friday.

Visibly anguished, farmer Ali Gharsi walked past dead animals through a fire-devastated area in the El Tarf region near Algeria’s Mediterranean Sea coast and the Tunisian border.

“My livestock is lost as is the food for it,” he said. “I lost everything, really I have nothing left.”

Four people have been arrested on suspicion of setting fire to crops in El Tarf, the epicenter of the latest wildfires, according to the official news agency APS.

Algerian Prime Minister Aimene Benabderrahmane, visiting the scene Thursday, said the larger problem was the exceptional heat and winds fanning the flames across the North African region. Similar fires and extreme weather linked to climate change have hit countries around Europe this month.

“Today, around 4:00 a.m., we managed to put an end to all the outbreaks of fires across the country,” except for one in Skikda that is contained but not fully out, Farouk Achour, the communications director at Algeria’s civil protection service, said Friday on national radio. He listed more than 50 scattered fires.

In El Tarf, residents still in shock took stock of the damage.

“People died and nobody came,” said Hakim Bouachiha, a security worker at the Berabtia Zoo, describing a three-hour wait for emergency crews.

The death toll included a family of five found in their home, tourists visiting the coast and eight people on a public bus that was surprised by flames in a mountainous region.

El Tarf resident Mohamed Gefaifia described seeing a woman next to the bus “who had protected her children by covering them with her body, but she ended up dying, poor thing.”

Forensic experts are working to identify the dead and combing fire-afflicted areas to check if there are any more victims, civil protection officials said.

Friday’s weather was cooler but special end-of-summer concerts and cultural activities have been canceled because of the fires.

Algerians from elsewhere sent trucks loaded with food, medicines, blankets and clothes to El Tarf, and world leaders called Algeria’s president to offer their support.

The Justice Ministry has set up a commission to investigate the source of the fires.

Follow all AP stories on climate change at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment.

What Was Cuba Seeking In Africa?

Fidel Castro. Image: Elliot Erwitt/Magnum Photos 

BY RAUL ANTONIO CAPOTE

One warm morning of October 1983, a group of young men gather in front of the Military Committee office in the municipality of Plaza de la Revolución, in the city of Havana. The reason for the presence of these young men, most of them still fresh-faced, is to leave for Angola as volunteers.

The aspiring internationalists combatants have been arriving to this place since the early hours of the morning. The waiting hours would pass by among jokes and stories and comments on the episodes of heroism and combats born from their juvenile imagination and their desire to match the deeds of their fathers and grandfathers.

As the opening hours approach, officials and employees start to arrive, amazed by the large crowd. One officer, who is also an official of this Committee, greets those waiting outside and asks them to form a line, to which the boys quickly comply by lining along the sidewalk.

The echoes of the heroic defense of Cangamba have been the spark, even though the details were still unknown, but the stories told about it surpass those of the legend of the 300 Spartans of the Battle of the Thermopylae.

CANGAMBA

From August 2 to August 10, 1983 all the positions defended by Cuban internationalist combatants and the People’s Armed Forces of Liberation of Angola (FAPLA) in the town of Cangamba were surrounded and attacked.

The 32nd Brigade of Light Artillery (BIL) of the FAPLA and a group of Cuban advisors were deployed in this locality of the province of Moxico..

The number of FAPLA forces were 818 soldiers, many of them with very little combat training. Cuban internationalist advisors were 82. Once the attacks started in Cangamba on August 2, 1983, the Cuban headquarters sent reinforcements, which increased the number of Cubans in Cangamba to 184 troops. In total, there were 18 pieces of artillery and small-caliber mortars and 36 GRD-1P installations with little ammunition.

On the South African side, even though there was no artillery deployed in the territory, there were experts on artillery, intelligence and scorers for aviation, which could be estimated to be the size of a contingent. There were also small units of the Buffalo Battalion, which already had experience in joint actions with the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), which had over 3,000 troops.

The Cuban troops suffered 18 casualties and 27 wounded. FAPLA, on their part, had 60 casualties and 177 wounded. Shelters suffered damages or destruction in 85% of them. A total of 401 tails of grenade mortars were counted scattered all over the territory and around 1,300 fragments of projectile and GRAD-1P rockets. It is estimated that no less than 1,500 artillery projectiles hit the positions defended by the Cubans.

A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY
While the aspiring internationalists wait, they talk about Kifangondo and the bravery shown by Cubans and Angolans, the dramatic withdrawal of the enemy troops who, days before, described this venture as a piece of cake with the phrase “breakfast in Caxito, lunch in Cacuaco and dinner in Luanda,” but they only bit the dust of defeat instead.

Kifangondo, Cangamba and Cuito Cuanavale would go down in history as “unforgettable instances of Cubans’ patriotic sensitivity,” the success of Cuito Cuanavale, which would be a turning point in the history of Africa because it marks the end of the oprobious Apartheid regime, is still a few years away. These three combats fought by Cuban internationalists, volunteer soldiers from the country of Martí and Fidel, fill with pride the new generations that hope to contribute to “repay the debt with Africa.”

Teachers, medical doctors, builders, engineers and hundreds of thousands of Cubans have worked as internationalists in Africa. On May 23, 1963, a plane of Cubana de Aviación Airlines with 29 doctors, four dentists, 14 nurses and seven health technicians departed for Algeria.

This was the beginning of Cuba’s internationalist missions in Africa in the history of the Cuban Revolution, a collaboration that has never ceased over the years and that have contributed to save thousands of lives, to teach how to write and read, to build, to plant, to defend with their own blood the independence of the continent. In turn, over 34,000 Africans have graduated from middle-level technician and higher education in the last few decades and other thousands of young African people are currently studying in Cuba. 1

INTERNATIONALIST MILITARY MISSIONS
A Cuban military contingent integrated by 865 troops and their equipment, arrived in the African nation between October 21 and October 29, 1963 to help the budding People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, following the arrival of health professionals.

Cuba sent 746 troops to meet the request of the Syrian government in the wake of the failure of the offensive launched by Egypt and Syria on October 6, 1973; an attempt to recover the territories occupied by Israel during the Six Day War in June 1967. The Cuban troops composed the Tank Battalion, which later integrated the 47 Cuba-Syria Tank Brigade.

In Angola, Carlota Operation spanned from August 1975 to May 1991, when the last group of combatants left Angola. It was the response of the Cuban government to the request for assistance made by the historical leader of the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) Agostinho Neto in the wake of the aggression of the South African Apartheid Regime and its internal and external allies to prevent Angola from earning its independence, overthrow MPLA and occupy the country.

In total, 337,033 military troops and around 50,000 civil collaborators took part in the mission in Angola. A Cuban military contingent was deployed in the territory of Pointe-Noire, Republic of Congo, with the mission of supporting the Cuban troops defending Cabinda, Angola, if necessary.

“”The peoples of Cuba and Angola are brothers in all senses and for that reason we will always be by each other’s side (…) In the good times, in the bad times, and forever. We will carry with us the indestructible friendship of this great people and the remains of our fallen ones!”2.

Known under the code name of Operación Baraguá, it started in January 1978 with the internationalist military mission in Ethiopia, where the first military troops arrived to fight against the armed forces from Somalia, who first attacked on June 1977. The mission lasted until September 1989 and 41,730 military men took part in it.

In all these missions, 385,908 Cuban combatants took part, of which 2,398 lost their life in the fulfillment of their internationalist duties.

Cubans took nothing from Africa, which had been plundered over and over by the colonial powers. Cubans went to Africa at the request of their peoples to fulfill what we considered a sacred duty. The thousands of combatants who fought in Africa were not looking for personal gain or glory, they were moved by the desire to be useful, to fulfill their duty with the Revolution, to live up to the time they lived in.

THE GLORY OF WHAT WE HAVE LIVED
It may be hard to understand now, after all these years and in the light of the current times, that young men in the prime of their youth and vitality were willing to give their all, including their lives, for people living thousands of kilometers away from them, to abandon the safety of their houses to face homesickness, diseases, fatigue and death.

What made possible such acts of selflessness? Those young men, who have now become gray-haired were not present in the Sierra Maestra, in Playa Girón nor were they born during the days of the Missile Crises nor the Literacy Campaign. Those young men standing in line in front of the Military Committee office in Plaza de la Revolución and all over the country in 1983 and in the following years, are not fanatics or lambs following a doctrine, they are boys and girls born under the Revolution, moved by the deepest conviction that this is a duty; proud of those fighting and giving their lives in African lands and they just want to do as much. They do not want to be left behind.

This journalist is there too and he witnesses their tears, and he cries too, when they are rejected because they do not make it through the admission process. Logically, not all them can make the cut and there is not consolation for those left out, not even the promise of other missions, nor the call to fulfill their daily duty with the country. We all want to go meet history.

SOURCE: GRANMA

Algerians March Anew As Anger Mounts At Army, Interim Leader

People chant slogans and wave flags during a demonstration in Algiers, Algeria, Wednesday, April 10, 2019. The Algerian senator Abdelkader Bensalah named to temporarily fill the office vacated by former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika said he would act quickly to arrange an "honest and transparent" election to usher in an "Algeria of the future." (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

BY AOMAR OUALI, NADINE ACHOUI-LESAGE

ALGIERS, ALGERIA (AP) — Riot police pulled back from positions in Algeria’s capital Friday as protesters massed in an iconic square, demanding the departure of the country’s interim leadership.

A larger-than-usual police deployment met protesters who converged on Algiers, lining boulevards and checking all vehicles entering the city. Skirmishes broke out at the outset of the protest near the central post office, symbol of the pro-democracy movement.

Apparently wanting to avoid an escalation of violence, rows of riot police then suddenly started pulling back from the area, lowering their face shields and truncheons. The crowd broke out in applause as police vans drove away, shouting “The police with the people!”

Protest organizers encouraged Algerians to come out in Algiers and other cities to show that the departure last week of longtime President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is not enough, that they want wholesale political change.

Anger is also mounting at military chief, Gen. Ahmed Gaid Salah, who was instrumental in Bouteflika’s departure but then threw his support behind the interim president, Abdelkader Bensalah, who is seen as part of the old regime.

Bensalah was named interim leader this week and announced elections for July 4.

“Bensalah, get out!” the protesters shouted, as a river of people adorned in green-white-red Algerian flags wove through the city.

Algeria’s protest movement has been overwhelmingly peaceful and driven by young people frustrated with corruption and unemployment and who want a new generation of leaders to replace people like Bouteflika, ailing and hobbled since a 2013 stroke.

“Mentalities have to change. It’s not just about going out and shouting, which is good and important, but taking action is important too,” Imad Touji, a 22-year-old, geology at Bab Ezzouar University, told The Associated Press.

“We really need to change things in a concrete way.”

Mosa’ab Elshamy in Algiers contributed.

With The President Gone, Algerian Officials Plot Next Steps

People take the street to celebrate after ailing Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika quit Tuesday April 2, 2019 in Algiers. Bouteflika quit in a statement read on national television after the country's Defense Ministry aggressively called for Bouteflika to "immediately" vacate the office he held for two decades. (AP Photo/Anis Belghoul)

BY AOMAR AUALI

ALGIERS, ALGERIA (AP) — Algeria’s Constitutional Council met Wednesday to confirm President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s resignation, as rattled international partners watch closely to see what’s next for this gas-rich country and key player in the global fight against terrorism.

Algerians woke to a new and uncertain era, after the departure of a man who had ruled Algeria for 20 years and had been a fixture in the Arab world’s political landscape for decades.

A discreet, 77-year-old Bouteflika ally — the upper house of parliament’s president, Abdelkader Bensalah — is expected to take over as interim leader while Algeria plans presidential elections. But that might further anger the protesters who drove Bouteflika from power, and who want to overhaul a political elite seen as secretive and corrupt.

“Our session today is related to establishing the vacancy of the post of president of the republic, following the resignation of Mr. Abdelaziz Bouteflika yesterday,” said Constitutional Council president Tayeb Belaiz as he opened Wednesday’s meeting of the 12-member body.

A much-diminished Bouteflika, 82, appeared on images shown on national television Tuesday night handing his resignation letter to Constitutional Council president Tayeb Belaiz. Bouteflika, who hasn’t spoken publicly to the nation since a 2013 stroke, appeared pale and weak and wore a traditional robe instead of his habitual suits.

Algerian protesters who drove Bouteflika out celebrated his departure with songs and flag-waving in the capital Tuesday night — but it might not be enough to satisfy their demands for an overhaul of the political elite, seen as corrupt and secretive.

Algeria’s Constitution says that when a president dies or resigns, the Constitutional Council confirms the leader’s absence and both houses of parliament convene. The president of the upper house is named as interim leader for 90 days while a presidential election is organized.

The upper house has been led for the past 17 years by Bensalah, a one-time journalist and former ambassador who has held senior political positions for the past 25 years but has kept a low profile, rarely giving interviews or appearing at public events.

He’s known as a politician who works behind the scenes to strike compromises and solve problems, and who avoids controversial debates — and is very much part of the political elite.

Demonstrators worry that those who would play a role in the political transition are too close to the distrusted power structure, including Prime Minister Noureddine Bedoui, accused of contributing to fraud in the last presidential election in 2014 and cracking down on past protests.

New protests are already planned for Friday, after six straight Fridays of mass, peaceful gatherings that surprised the entrenched leadership by their strength and persistence.

However, the protest movement doesn’t have a single, unifying alternative to the current political system.

Another question is what the influential military and Bouteflika’s entourage will do next. Military chief of staff Ahmed Gaid Salah appeared to trigger Bouteflika’s departure by pushing to get him declared unfit for office.

Countries around the world are watching Algeria’s political crisis, wondering whether a transfer of power could impact gas and oil deliveries to Europe, Cuba and around Africa — or crucial security cooperation with Europe and the U.S.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned against foreign interference in Algerian politics and said Wednesday that “we hope the internal processes in that country ... will by no means affect the friendly nature of our relations.” Algeria’s foreign minister recently visited Russia, and the countries have been economic and geopolitical allies since the Soviet era.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian expressed hope that Algerians would “pursue this democratic transition in the same spirit of calm and responsibility” that has marked the protests that drove Bouteflika from office. France, Algeria’s former colonial ruler and a key trading partner, had come under fire for seeming to support Bouteflika earlier in the movement.

The U.S. State Department, which has expressed support for the peaceful protests, said it’s now up to Algerians to decide the next steps. Since fighting an Islamist insurgency in the 1990s, Algeria has cooperated closely with the U.S. and Europe against terrorism.

In Sudan, organizers behind months of anti-government demonstrations expressed hope that Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir would follow Bouteflika’s footsteps.

Sarah Abdel-Jaleel, a spokeswoman for the Sudanese Professionals Association, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Bouteflika’s resignation shows the “success of peaceful resistance within Africa.” She says it “definitely gives us all hope and reassurance that we must continue.”

Angela Charlton in Paris, and Samy Magdy in Cairo, contributed to this report.

The Latest: Algerians Celebrate News That Bouteflika Quits

Algerian students march during a protest in Algiers, Algeria, Tuesday, April 2, 2019. Algerian protesters and political leaders are expressing concerns that ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's departure will leave the country's secretive, distrusted power structure in place. Placard, center, reads, "when the system fails we have to make justice by ourselves". (AP Photo/Anis Belghoul)

ALGIERS, ALGERIA (AP) — The Latest on political upheaval in Algeria (all times local):

9:40 p.m.

A crowd of Algerians is celebrating President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s resignation after 20 years in power and weeks of mass protests.

Several hundred people gathered in front of the central post office in downtown Algiers, the capital, on Tuesday night after his announcement.

The crowd was peaceful, singing songs and waving Algerian flags while drivers passing by honked horns in celebration.

An official in Bouteflika’s office told The Associated Press that the leader resigned, a few weeks before the end of his fourth term. The move came after six weeks of mass protests and soon after the army chief urged him to step down immediately.

The Constitutional Council is expected to meet Wednesday to confirm the resignation and declare the president of the upper house of parliament as interim leader for 90 days until presidential elections are held.

8:10 p.m.

Algeria’s state news agency APS is reporting that embattled President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has quit, informing the country’s constitutional council of his decision to stand down.

The news came shortly after the Algerian Defense Ministry aggressively called Tuesday for Bouteflika to quit “immediately.” The ministry, which controls the army, had said “there is no more time to waste” after six weeks of nationwide protests against the chief of state and his inner circle.

The 82-year-old Bouteflika has been in office for 20 years. He suffered a stroke in 2013 and has been rarely seen in public since then.

On Monday, he said he would resign by the end of his fourth term on April 28, capitulating to growing calls for his resignation.

___

6:45 p.m.

Algerian Defense Ministry has called for President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to quit “immediately” after two decades in office.

In a statement sent Tuesday, the Defense Ministry said “there is no more time to waste” on the constitutional process to have Bouteflika declared unfit for office and to give Algeria’s people a voice.

The 82-year-old president said Monday that he would resign by the official end of his fourth term, April 28.

Protests calling for Bouteflika to resign have intensified since February. He first was elected in 1999 and planned to seek a fifth term next month.

He postponed the election in response to the protests and said he would not run for re-election.

10:40 a.m.

Algerian protesters and opposition leaders say President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s long-awaited announcement of his departure has fallen flat.

Protesters and opposition figures say it doesn’t go far enough to satisfy demands for dramatic change to the country’s secretive power structure.

Former Prime Minister Ali Benflis and a moderate Islamist movement are among leading voices criticizing the move because it would leave the country’s secretive, distrusted power structure in place.

A standoff is also intensifying between Bouteflika’s entourage and that of the powerful army chief, who turned against the president amid mass protests over Bouteflika’s 20-year rule.

Bouteflika bowed to mounting pressure Monday and announced he will step down by the end of his term April 28, according to his office. Protesters fear it will pave the way for a hand-picked successor instead of a truly democratic change of power.

Algeria's Leader, Ceding To Protests, Will Quit By April 28

Teargas is used to disperse demonstrators during clashes with police in Algiers, Algeria, March 29, 2019. Algerians taking to the streets for their sixth straight Friday of protests aren't just angry at their ailing president, they want to bring down the entire political system that has sustained him. (AP Photo/Fateh Guidoum )
BY AOMAR OUALI, THOMAS ADAMSON

ALGIERS, ALGERIA(AP) — Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika will step down before his fourth term ends on April 28, his office said Monday, as the ailing leader capitulated to growing calls for his resignation after two decades in power.

It’s unclear if the stunning move will appease the masses of protesters whose vociferous calls for Bouteflika and his cadre of loyalists to quit have expanded to demand an overhaul of the entire political system.

Their weekly protests since Feb. 22 have challenged the political status quo in the country long ruled by Bouteflika, 82, a onetime wily political survivor who has rarely been seen in public since he suffered a stroke in 2013.

A short statement from Bouteflika’s office said he would take “important steps to ensure the continuity of the functioning of state institutions” after he leaves the office he assumed in 1999.

The Algerian Constitution calls for the head of the upper house of parliament, Abdelkader Bensalah, to act as interim leader for a maximum of 90 days while an election is organized.

Algerian national television reported Sunday night that Bouteflika and the replacement prime minister he appointed last month, Noureddine Bedoui, had formed a new government after struggling for weeks to find potential Cabinet ministers amid the uncertainty surrounding the president.

The new government must stay in place during the transition period before the next election.

In recent weeks, the president saw key figures withdraw their support from him. Algeria’s powerful army chief proposed launching a procedure to have Bouteflika declared unfit for office, prompting tensions between the army and the president’s inner circle.

The president’s concession came after a court in Algeria said it was investigating corruption and the illegal transfer of funds abroad amid concerns about a flight of capital from the country amid political instability.

The official APS news agency quoted the Algerian prosecutor’s office Monday as saying “certain people” were banned from leaving the country “for the needs of the investigation,” providing no details.

Police detained a powerful industrialist who is thought to be close to Bouteflika, Ali Haddad, near the Algerian-Tunisian border over the weekend.

Algeria is Africa’s biggest country by land mass and a major natural gas producer, but its energy riches have not trickled down to reach the pockets of its people.

The protests have been driven mostly by young Algerians, many of whom struggle to find jobs. Desperation has driven some to attempt to migrate to Europe on rickety boats.


Demonstrators said Bouteflika and the rest of the political establishment were out of touch with their everyday problems. They have called for a rewritten constitution that gives fewer powers to the president in a bid to strengthen democracy in the gas-rich North African country.

Ending his presidency amid the protests was a bold decision for Bouteflika, who in February declared he would seek a fifth term in the presidential election originally scheduled for April 18.

He postponed the election and said he would not be a candidate when it was held, but did not set a new date, angering critics who saw the delay as designed to hold onto power.

Bouteflika had been known as a political survivor ever since he fought during the 1950s and 1960s for Algeria’s independence from France.

He became foreign minister at the age of 25, and stood up to the likes of Henry Kissinger at the height of the Cold War, when Algeria was tethered to the former Soviet Union.

Bouteflika famously negotiated with the Venezuelan terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal to free oil ministers who were taken hostage in a 1975 attack on OPEC headquarters in Vienna and flown to Algiers.

Most crucially, he helped reconcile Algeria’s citizens after a decade of civil war between radical Muslim militants and Algerian security forces left some 200,000 people dead in the 1990s and nearly tore Algeria apart.

During his 20 years in office, age and illness took a toll on the once-charismatic figure. Corruption scandals over infrastructure and hydrocarbon projects have also dogged him for years and tarnished many of his closest associates.

Algeria has been a key partner to the United States and Europe in fighting Islamic extremism. The recent political crisis caused concern among Western allies.

Elaine Ganley and Angela Charlton contributed.

Adamson reported from Paris.

Algerians March Against President, Political System

Demonstrators are blasted with a police water canon during a protest in Algiers, Algeria, March 29, 2019. Algerians taking to the streets for their sixth straight Friday of protests aren't just angry at their ailing president, they want to bring down the entire political system that has sustained him. (AP Photo/Anis Belghoul)

BY AOMAR QUALI

ALGIERS, AALGERIA (AP) — Algerians took to the streets by the millions for the sixth straight Friday of nationwide protests, trying to push their ailing president from power and bring down an entire political system seen as corrupt and out of touch.

Security forces used a water cannon and lobbed tear gas against a crowd that broke through a blockaded street leading to the presidential palace — the only break in what have been massive but peaceful demonstrations.

For the first time, all three state TV channels showed the protests live — a stark difference since the mass marches started on Feb. 22 and news blackouts were ordered. It also reflected the changing balance of power within the ruling class as President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, 82 and ailing after a 2013 stroke, loses key supporters.

Protesters marched in cities across the North African nation.

Tens of thousands massed in the boulevards of Algiers, dominated by young people and their families. Police helicopters circled overhead and riot police vans lined sensitive neighborhoods, but the mood was largely festive.

It’s the first protest since the army chief called earlier this week for the constitutional process to declare Bouteflika unfit for office. Other politicians and parties backed the idea as a solution to the gas-rich country’s political crisis.

The protests have turned the tables on the elite power structure, but it remained unclear what lies ahead.

A billboard above the Place Maurice Audin in Algiers read “Your excellency, The People,” capturing the mood.

Protesters see the army chief’s proposal as a way for the secretive political elite to keep their grip on power and name a hand-picked successor to Bouteflika, who has been largely out of the public eye since his stroke.

Anger at the constitutional process issue was central to Friday’s protest. Many held signs calling for the departure of army chief Ahmed Gaid Salah, or referring to Article 102 of the constitution, which Salah proposed using to pave the way for Bouteflika’s ouster.

One sign accused the political elite of being “Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves.” Another read “Not Moscow, Not Paris, Not Washington - The Choice should be Algerian,” in reference to concerns of foreign interference in the crisis. A former French colony with close ties to France, Algeria was a powerful ally of Moscow in the Soviet era but in recent years has also become a key partner of the U.S. and Europe in fighting terrorism.

Frustration also targeted Bouteflika’s brother, Said. A small group of protesters started shoving journalists from Ennahar Television, considered close to Said Bouteflika, shouting “Shame!,” before other protesters separated them.

When the protests broke out last month, the demonstrators’ anger was more focused on Bouteflika himself, and demands that he abandon his bid for a fifth term after 20 years in power.

Since then, Bouteflika has dropped his election bid, but also canceled the April 18 vote pending electoral reforms, raising fears he would cling to power indefinitely.

Bouteflika is credited with bringing peace to Algeria after the bloody civil war of the 1990s, but some of his most powerful supporters have turned against him this week.

The protesters are notably angry at corruption. An Algerian media executive who was detained Thursday and released hours later said he was arrested because he publicly denounced political corruption.

Algerian Army Chief Evokes Civil War Amid Student Protests

Hundreds of students gather in central Algiers to protest Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's decision to seek fifth term, Tuesday, March 6, 2019. Algerian students are gathering for new protests and are calling for a general strike if he doesn't meet their demands this week. (AP Photo/Fateh Guidoum)

BY AOMAR OUALI

ALGIERS, ALGERIA (AP) — The general who leads Algeria’s army responded Tuesday to protests against the country’s longtime president, darkly evoking the years of bloodshed before the current government took power and the fight against terrorism to portray the demonstrations as dangerous.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ahmed Gaid Salah spoke at a military school outside Algiers as hundreds of students marched in the capital to oppose President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s decision to seek a fifth term.

In his first comments on the protests that started last month, Salah recalled the bleak period in the 1990s when fighting between Islamic insurgents and Algeria’s security forces left 200,000 dead.

“There are parties who wish to bring Algeria back to the years of violence,” Salah, one of Bouteflika’s most loyal supporters, said. “A people that defeated terrorism knows how to preserve the stability and security of its nation.”

He did not mention the president by name during his remarks at the school. The military is widely seen as a silent kingmaker within Algeria’s opaque ruling coterie.

Bouteflika, who has been in power since 1999, is credited with reconciling Algeria. But the 82-year-old president has hardly been seen since a 2013 stroke and is currently hospitalized in Geneva undergoing what has been described as medical exams.

The students protesting Tuesday carried signs with slogans such as “Algeria is not a kingdom.”

They called for a general strike if Bouteflika doesn’t meet their demands this week.

Bouteflika released a statement Sunday that if he wins the April election, he would hold a referendum on a new constitution and call an early election in which he wouldn’t run.

“Too little, too late,” said Yasmine Ferroukh, a marketing student in Algiers. “What we want is him to leave.”

When neighboring Tunisia and Libya overthrew autocratic leaders in 2011, the Algerian government boosted public spending and avoided Arab Spring uprisings.

As Algerian Leader Ails, Would-Be Challengers Eye Election

In this March 29, 2018 file photo, former Algerian Prime Minister Ali Benflis talks to the Associated Press in Algiers. More than 180 people want to run for president of Algeria in the April election, amid growing uncertainty about whether President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, infirm following a stroke, is fit for yet another term after 20 years in charge of this gas-rich North African nation. Among Bouteflika's top challengers is Benflis, the runnerup in 2014 and today's main opposition candidate. (AP Photo/Anis Belghoul, File)

BY AOMAR QUALI

ALGIERS, ALGERIA (AP) — A record number of people want to run for president of Algeria in the country’s April election, amid growing uncertainty about whether incumbent Abdelaziz Bouteflika, infirm since a 2013 stroke, is fit for yet another term after two decades in charge of this gas-rich North African nation.

In the two weeks since the electoral process was launched, 186 people have requested the documents needed to declare their candidacy. That’s more than double the number of potential candidates at this stage in the last presidential election, in 2014.

Most will never get the signatures necessary to formally get on the April 18 ballot. But the range of candidates suggests wide frustration with the status quo.

Bouteflika, 82, is all but certain to announce soon that he plans to seek a fifth five-year term. Yet his fitness for office was already a question in the 2014 election, coming a year after a stroke left him speaking and moving with difficulty and largely in a wheelchair.

He has only been seen in public a few times a year throughout his entire fourth term — yet many Algerians would likely vote for Bouteflika again, for fear of the instability that his departure could unleash.

Algeria’s Western allies also worry about a political earthquake in Africa’s largest country by land mass, home to 42 million people and an al-Qaida affiliate that has targeted foreigners in the past.

Among Bouteflika’s top challengers are former Prime Minister Ali Benflis, the runner-up in 2014 and today’s main opposition candidate; influential retired Gen. Ali Ghediri; and the leader of a moderate Islamist party, Abderazak Makri.

The heads of several small political parties from across the spectrum are also hoping to run — along with many Algerians who don’t have the slightest links to politics.

Would-be candidate Salah Kemmach wants to run because he was born the day that former President Houari Boumediene died in 1978.

“For me, it’s a sign of destiny” he says in a video getting attention on social media. “I decided to take my responsibility to continue (Boumediene’s) project, abandoned by those who succeeded him.”

Another candidate, a former street cleaner from the western city of Oran, says he wants to be president “to eat steak.”

While some dismiss the wannabe presidents as nothing more than carnival jesters, political science professor Mohamed Laggab of Algiers University says the huge number of potential candidates is a sign of degradation in Algerian politics.

“Political practices have fallen very low. When holders of dirty money buy parliament seats with billions, when people implicated in legal scandals find themselves in visible political posts, when people with no intellectual experience and no political conscience want to become president, minister, senator — then you shouldn’t be surprised to see today this type of candidate,” he told The Associated Press.

Corruption has long eaten away at public trust in Algeria, from its opaque energy sector to the highest levels of politics. Dirty money scandals surrounded the 2017 parliamentary election, with the son of the governing party leader suspected of taking bribes in exchange for spots on the party’s candidate list. Other parties said they were approached by people offering to drum up signatures for potential candidates in exchange for cash.

To get on the ballot, candidates must gather 60,000 signatures of citizens or 6,000 signatures of elected officials, spread out over 25 of Algeria’s 48 administrative departments.

Bouteflika won the 2014 election with 81 percent of the vote despite not even appearing in his own campaign. He is appreciated for helping reconcile the country after a devastating civil war in the 1990s between Islamic insurgents and the military that left around 200,000 people dead.

But the country and its people remain scarred by the years of violence. Algeria also still struggles with sporadic extremism and its struggling economy is heavily dependent on volatile world oil prices.

African Migrants Report Torture, Slavery In Algeria

BY NELLIE PEYTON

An African migrant sits beside tents at a makeshift camp set up under the bridge of a motorway on the outskirts of Algiers, Algeria June 28, 2017. Picture taken June 28, 2017. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

DAKAR, SENEGAL (REUTERS) - Dozens of Africans say they were sold for labour and trapped in slavery in Algeria in what aid agencies fear may be a widening trend of abusing migrants headed for a new life in Europe.

Algerian authorities could not be reached for comment and several experts cast doubt on claims that such abuses are widespread in the north African country.

The tightly governed state has become a popular gateway to the Mediterranean since it became tougher to pass through Libya, where slavery, rape and torture are rife.

Amid a surge in anti-migrant sentiment, Algeria since late last year has sent thousands of migrants back over its southern border into Niger, according to the United Nations Migration Agency (IOM), where many tell stories of exploitation.

The scale of abuse is not known, but an IOM survey of thousands of migrants suggested it could rival Libya.

The Thomson Reuters Foundation heard detailed accounts of forced labour and slavery from an international charity and a local association in Agadez, Niger's main migrant transit hub, and interviewed two of the victims by telephone.

"The first time they sold me for 100,000 CFA francs ($170)," said Ousmane Bah, a 21-year-old from Guinea who said he was sold twice in Algeria by unknown captors and worked in construction.

"They took our passports. They hit us. We didn't eat. We didn't drink," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "I was a slave for six months."

Accounts of abuse are similar, said Abdoulaye Maizoumbou, a project coordinator for global charity Catholic Relief Services. Of about 30 migrants he met who were deported from Algeria, about 20 said they had been enslaved, he said.

In most cases, migrants said they were sold in and around the southern city of Tamanrasset shortly after entering the country, often by smugglers of their own nationality, he said.

Some said they were tortured in order to blackmail their parents into paying the captors, but even when the money arrived they were forced to work for no pay, or sold, said Maizoumbou.

One man told the Thomson Reuters Foundation he slept in a sheep pen and suffered beatings if an animal got sick or dirty.

"They would bring out machetes and I would get on my knees and apologise and they would let it go," said Ogounidje Tange Mazu, from Togo.

The IOM in Algeria has received three reports this year from friends and relatives of African migrants held hostage and forced to work in the country. "It's probably just an indication that it is happening. How big it is we don't know," said its chief of mission Pascal Reyntjens.

TWO SIDES TO THE STORY

Several analysts considered it unlikely that slavery was widespread in Algeria, since the country has a functioning judiciary and strong police force - unlike Libya.

Algerian authorities could not be reached for comment, but a senior official said last week the country is facing a "surge of migration" and needs more help.

In a statement this month, the government rejected reports from a U.N. human rights team that its mass deportations of migrants were inhuman, saying that it is doing what is necessary to ensure the safety of its citizens.

"I would be very surprised that (slavery) would be allowed to happen in Algeria," said Issandr El Amrani, North Africa project director for the International Crisis Group.

"The situation is just not comparable to Libya," he added.

But in the ghettos of Agadez, Niger's main transit hub, some people told a different story.

"What happens in Algeria surpasses what happens in Libya," said Bachir Amma, a Nigerien ex-smuggler who runs a football club and a local association to inform migrants of the risks.

Migrants in Libya are often starved and beaten by armed groups, and there have been reports of "open slave markets" where migrants are put on sale, according to the U.N. human rights office.

Amma said he had spoken with more than 75 migrants back from Algeria, the majority of whom described slave-like conditions.

"NGOs don't know about this because they're too interested in Libya," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

In 2016, the IOM surveyed about 6,300 migrants in Niger, most of whom had returned from Algeria and Libya. Sixty-five percent of those who had lived in Algeria said they had experienced violence and abuse, compared to 61 percent in Libya.

An estimated 75,000 migrants live in Algeria, the IOM said.

($1 = 582.8800 CFA francs) (Reporting by Nellie Peyton, editing by Lyndsay Griffiths; Please credit Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, and climate change. Visit www.trust.org)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Official: Air Algeri Flight 'Probably Crashed'

A man wearing a shirt with a Swiftair logo and carrying a Swiftair folder enters the Spanish airline's office in Madrid, Spain, Thursday, July 24, 2014. An Air Algerie flight carrying 116 people from Burkina Faso to Algeria's capital disappeared from radar early Thursday over northern Mali, officials said. The flight was being operated by Spanish airline Swiftair, the company said in a statement, and the plane belonged to Swiftair. The flight crew was Spanish.

ALGIERS, ALGERIA (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — An Air Algerie flight carrying 116 people from Burkina Faso to Algeria's capital disappeared from radar early Thursday over northern Mali during a rainstorm, officials said. France's foreign minister said no wreckage had been found, but that the plane "probably crashed."

The MD-83 vanished about 50 minutes after takeoff from Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, the official Algerian news agency APS said. "Despite an intensive search, at the moment I speak no trace of the aircraft has been found," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters in Paris. "The plane has probably crashed."

Two French fighter jets are among aircraft scouring the rugged north of Mali for the plane, which was traveling from Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou, to Algiers, the Algerian capital. More than 50 French were onboard the plane along with 27 Burkina Faso nationals and passengers from a dozen other countries. The flight crew was Spanish.

The flight was being operated by Spanish airline Swiftair, which owns the plane. Before vanishing, the pilots sent a final message to ask Niger air control to change its route because of heavy rain in the area, Burkina Faso Transport Minister Jean Bertin Ouedraogo said.

A resident who lives in a village in Mali about 80 kilometers (60 miles) southeast of the town of Gossi said he saw a plane coming down early Thursday, according to Gen. Gilbert Diendere, heading the crisis committee set up in Burkina Faso.

"We think that it is a reliable source because it corresponds to the latest radar images of the plane before it lost contact with air controllers," Diendere said. Radar images show the plane deviated from its route, Diendere said. Gossi is nearly 200 kilometers (175 miles) southwest of Gao. The vast deserts and mountains of northern Mali have been the scene of unrest by both Tuareg separatists and Islamist radicals.

The disappearance of the Air Algerie plane comes after a spate of aviation disasters. Fliers around the globe have been on edge ever since Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared in March on its way to Beijing. Searchers have yet to find a single piece of wreckage from the jet with 239 people on board.

Last week, a Malaysia Airlines flight was shot down by a surface-to-air missile while flying over a war-torn section of Ukraine. The back-to-back disasters involving Boeing 777s flown by the same airline were too much of a coincidence for many fliers.

Then this week, U.S. and European airlines started canceling flights to Tel Aviv after a rocket landed near the city's airport. Finally, on Wednesday, a Taiwanese plane crashed during a storm, killing 48 people.

It's easy to see why fliers are jittery, but air travel is relatively safe. There have been two deaths for every 100 million passengers on commercial flights in the last decade, excluding acts of terrorism. Travelers are much more likely to die driving to the airport than stepping on a plane. There are more than 30,000 motor-vehicle deaths in the U.S. each year, a mortality rate eight times greater than that in planes.

French Transport Minister Frederic Cuvillier said the Air Algerie flight vanished over northern Mali. He spoke Thursday from a crisis center set up in the French Foreign Ministry. Cuvillier didn't specify exactly where the plane disappeared over Mali, or whether it was in an area controlled by rebels.

But Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said on Algerian state television said that 10 minutes before disappearing, it was in contact with air traffic controllers in Gao, a city essentially under the control of the Malian government, though it has seen lingering separatist violence.

The plane had been missing for hours before the news was made public. It wasn't immediately clear why airline or government officials didn't make it public earlier. The flight path of the plane from Ouagadougou to Algiers wasn't immediately clear. Ouagadougou is in a nearly straight line south of Algiers, passing over Mali where unrest continues in the north.

Northern Mali fell under control of ethnic Tuareg separatists and then al-Qaida-linked Islamic extremists following a military coup in 2012. A French-led intervention last year scattered the extremists, but the Tuaregs have pushed back against the authority of the Bamako-based government.

A senior French official said it seems unlikely that fighters in Mali had the kind of weaponry that could shoot down a plane. The official, not authorized to speak publicly, said on condition of anonymity that they primarily have shoulder-fired weapons - not enough to hit a passenger plane flying at cruising altitude.

Swiftair, a private Spanish airline, said the plane was carrying 110 passengers and six crew, and left Burkina Faso for Algiers at 0117 GMT Thursday (9:17 p.m. EDT Wednesday), but had not arrived at the scheduled time of 0510 GMT (1:10 a.m. EDT Thursday).

Swiftair said it has not been possible to make contact with the plane and was trying to ascertain what had happened. It said the crew included two pilots and four cabin staff. Later, Swiftair said the plane was built in 1996 and has two Pratt & Whitney JT8D-219 PW engines. It can carry 165 passengers.

Swiftair took ownership of the plane on Oct. 24, 2012, after it spent nearly 10 months unused in storage, according to Flightglobal's Ascend Online Fleets, which sells and tracks information about aircraft. It has more than 37,800 hours of flight time and has made more than 32,100 takeoffs and landings. The plane has had several owners over the years, including Avianca and Austral Lineas Aereas.

If confirmed as a crash, this would be the fifth one — and the second with fatalities — for Swiftair since its founding in 1986, according to the Flight Safety Foundation. The only other fatal crash for the airline came on July 28, 1998, when the two pilots died on a cargo flight to Barcelona.

Algerian aircraft were overflying the region around Gao to try to locate wreckage, said Houaoui Zoheir, spokesman for the Algerian crisis center. He provided no details on the type or number of aircraft.

"As long as we haven't found the wreckage, we can't talk of a crash," he said. "We talk of loss of contact." The passengers include 51 French, 27 Burkina Faso nationals, eight Lebanese, six Algerians, five Canadians, four Germans, two Luxemburg nationals, one Swiss, one Belgium, one Egyptian, one Ukrainian, one Nigerian, one Cameroonian and one Malian, Ouedraogo said. The six crew members are Spanish, according to the Spanish pilots' union.

The MD-83 is part of a series of jets built since the early 1980s by McDonnell Douglas, a U.S. plane maker now owned by Boeing Co. The MD-80s are single-aisle planes that were a workhorse of the airline industry for short and medium-range flights for nearly two decades. As jet fuel prices spiked in recent years, airlines have rapidly being replacing the jets with newer, fuel-efficient models such as Boeing 737s and Airbus A320s.

There are 496 other MD-80s being flown by airlines around the world, according to Ascend. "We're aware of reports on Air Algerie Flight AH5017," Boeing spokesman Wilson Chow said. "Our team is gathering more information."

Brahima Ouedraogo reported from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. AP journalists Ciaran Giles in Madrid, Spain, and Elaine Ganley, Thomas Adamson and Sylvie Corbet in Paris, contributed to this report.

Algerian Police Break Up Bouteflika Protest

Police officers detain a protester in Algiers, Saturday, March 1, 2014 during a demonstration against President Bouteflika's fourth candidacy in the presidential election. Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, 76, has not appeared in public for two years and is visibly weaker since suffering a stroke last year. Even so, he is expected to win the April 17 presidential election with the backing of the powerful state apparatus.

ALGIERS, ALGERIA (AP) — Police used clubs to break up a small demonstration Saturday by Algerians opposed to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's decision to run for a fourth term in elections next month.

Around a hundred people waving signs reading "No to a fourth term" and "No to the humiliation of Algeria" were prevented from gathering in front of a university in the capital by police, one of the organizers, Hakim Raissi, told The Associated Press.

Bouteflika, 76, has not appeared in public for two years and is visibly weaker since suffering a stroke last year. Even so, he is expected to win the election with the backing of the powerful state apparatus.
Several opposition parties have already called for a boycott of the election, saying its results would be a foregone conclusion.

AFCON: Ivory Coast, Togo In Quarters; Tunisia, Algeria Head Home (Photo News)

Togo booked its spot to the quarter finals for the first time in the Nations Cup on a 1-1 draw with Tunisia at the Mbombela Sports Stadium in Nelspruit, South Africa Tuesday, January 30, 2013. Ivory Coast in encounter with Algeria at the Royal Bokafeng Palace Field, Rusenburg, South Africa, played a 2-2 draw with Algeria in a match  both teams didn't have to show up for Ivory Coast to qualify while Algeria heads home.

Leading the charge: Didier Drogba, the Ivory Coast captain, was back to his best as he inspired a comeback from two down against Algeria. Mail/Getty

Algerian's Sofiane Feghouli (left) and teammates celebrate after opening the scoring in the 64 minute. Image: AP

Fanatic: Ivorian supporters shows where their loyalties lie during the Ivory Coast-Algeria match at the Royal Bokafeng Palace Field Wednesday, January 30, 2013. Image: AP

Dejected Tunisian player Zaihair Dhaouadi looks on as Floyd Ayite of Togo's celebration underway after a tie that sends Togo to the quqrter finals. Image: AP; courtesy of Daily Mail.

 Togo Emmanuel Adebayor celebrates with his Sparrow hawks teammates after a  1-1 draw with Tunisia at the Mbombela Sports Stadium in Nelspruit, South Africa Wednesday, January 30, 2013. Image: AP; courtesy of Daily Mail

With Togo's goalkeeper Kossi Agassa diving the wrong way, Tunisia's Khaled Moulhi saw his penalty cannon back off the post. Image: AP

Tunisia's Khaled Moelhi is distraught as goalkeeper Farouk Ben Mustapha tries to comfort him. Moulhi missed a penalty with 12 minutes left that would have taken them through. Image: AP; courtesy of Daily Mail.

Ivory Coast players celebrate a goal during match with Ethiopia at the Royal Bokafeng Palace Field in Rustenburg, South Africa on January 26, 2013. Image: AFP