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Defense Secretary Mark Esper met with Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune today in the first visit of a Pentagon chief to the North African country since 2006. It was also the highest-level US diplomatic meeting with the new Algerian president since longtime ruler Abdelaziz Bouteflika was ousted amid popular protests last year. The meeting came a day after Esper signed a 10-year road map for defense cooperation agreement with Tunisia's defense minister and one day before an expected stop in Morocco. The trip is the latest sign that the United States sees strategic opportunity in bolstering its partnerships in North Africa...

In the annals of the 40-year sting to end the Deep State, Robert Trump was the FBI informant at the heart of foiling the BCCI money laundering bank plot to smuggle weapons to Iraq by Hillary Clinton in a dodgy deal via Italian bank BNL. “Bank of Crooks and Criminals International” was the seventh largest private bank in the world, with assets of $20 billion in the late 1980s, whose spectacular demise in 1991 left the Deep State as exposed to public scrutiny as it is about to become today with the unraveling of the FISA court crimes. But lost...

In the wake of the normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, there are rumors that several other states could be next to sign an agreement with Israel. While there are hurdles to normalizing relations with some states in the Middle East, there are others who view the UAE decision as a trial balloon and will react positively based on how the next weeks and months play out between Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi. What follows is a list of some countries that reports suggest may be in line to normalize relations. Bahrain Bahrain was long thought to...

In this Friday, Oct. 26, 2018 file photo, released by Oman News Agency, Oman's Sultan Qaboos, left, receives Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Muscat, Oman. (Oman News Agency via AP, File) The “last decade,” notes James Sinkinson in a perceptive article, has seen a “sea change” in Israel’s ties with “key Arab states.” And that last decade is also the one in which Benjamin Netanyahu (again, after a stint in the 1990s) has been Israel’s prime minister — specifically since March 2009.True, conditions for enhanced Arab-Israeli ties have been propitious — particularly the behavior of regional bully Iran, a...

Remnants of a Roman statue in North Africa could be the "first-ever depiction of tartan", according to a BBC Scotland documentary. A piece of a bronze statue of the Emperor Caracalla contains the small figure of a Caledonian warrior wearing what appears to be tartan trews. The third century Roman emperor Caracalla styled himself as the conqueror of the Caledonians. A statue marking his achievements stood in the Moroccan city of Volubilis. It stood above a great archway in the ancient city, which lay in the south west of the Roman empire, 1,500 miles from Caledonia -- modern day Scotland....

MADRID - The FBI and the Spanish police arrested a “lone wolf” radical Islamist suspect on Friday who was believed to be planning to carry out terrorist attacks in Barcelona. The Moroccan man, who was not named, was detained in the Mediterranean city in a dawn raid by armed police after a surveillance operation. The Spanish Civil Guard, who also worked on the operation with Moroccan intelligence officers, said the man had become a “profoundly radicalized” Islamic State follower who was looking for targets during Spain's strict coronavirus lockdown.

Thousands of British holidaymakers fear being stranded in Morocco after the country imposed a travel ban to try to stem the spread of the coronavirus. The Moroccan tourist board said it had authorised 100 “rescue” flights, but Britons told of chaos at Marrakech and Agadir airports caused by a lack of information from airlines and the Foreign Office struggling to cope with the scale of repatriation. The British ambassador in Rabat, Thomas Reilly, has been scrambling to try to help those stranded, and some described his efforts as “nothing short of incredible”, but others said the support on offer was...

I booked this trip to Marakech 6 months ago, since it would fulfill my bucket list of visiting every populated continent. There is no way I am going to Antartica.

The replica of a wooden Phoenician ship, which visited Lyme Regis last year, has completed its 6,000 mile voyage across the Atlantic. The Phoenicia visited Lyme Regis last July before setting out on its voyage from the old port of Carthage, Tunisia, in September. It called in at Cadiz (Spain), Essaouira (Morocco), Tenerife (Canary Islands) and Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) before arriving in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at the Coral Ridge Yacht Club on Thursday, February 4... The ship's trans-Atlantic voyage was part of the Phoenicians Before Columbus Expedition, designed, with the help of the US-based Phoenician International Research Center, to...

The CIA has tapes of 9/11 plotter Ramzi Binalshibh being interrogated in a secret overseas prison. Discovered under a desk, the recordings could provide an unparalleled look at how foreign governments aided the U.S. in holding and questioning suspected terrorists. The two videotapes and one audiotape are believed to be the only remaining recordings made within the clandestine prison system. The tapes depict Binalshibh’s interrogation sessions at a Moroccan-run facility the CIA used near Rabat in 2002, several current and former U.S. officials told The Associated Press. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the recordings remain a closely...

In recent years, we have seen graphic and disturbing scenes of migrants attempting to cross into Europe as they flee the developing world. Especially poignant are the pictures of young, sub-Saharan African men scaling the barrier fences that surround the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in Morocco: Leaving aside whether Spain should return these enclaves to Morocco, the determination of migrants bound for Europe is striking. They have illegally entered Morocco and, from there, are allowed to enter another country illegally—almost certainly with the tacit approval of the Moroccan authorities. Also striking is the sight of the young men...

State Department Employee Arrested and Charged With Concealing Extensive Contacts With Foreign Agents A federal complaint was unsealed today charging Candace Marie Claiborne, 60, of Washington, D.C., and an employee of the U.S. Department of State, with obstructing an official proceeding and making false statements to the FBI, both felony offenses, for allegedly concealing numerous contacts that she had over a period of years with foreign intelligence agents. The charges were announced by Acting Assistant Attorney General Mary B. McCord for National Security, U.S. Attorney Channing D. Phillips of the District of Columbia and Assistant Director in Charge Andrew W....

Moroccan abortion activists are aborting their unborn babies illegally in protest of laws that protect their children’s lives. On Tuesday, the French newspaper “Le Monde” published a declaration from pro-abortion feminists who promised to keep breaking “unfair and obsolete” abortion laws until the country legalizes abortion, according to the Independent. “We are having sex outside wedlock. We are … being complicit of abortion,” the declaration reads. More than 7,000 people have signed so far, including men, the report states. Morocco prohibits abortions except when the mother’s life is at risk. It also bans sex outside of marriage. But abortion activists...

Belgian teenage volunteers forced to flee Morocco after teacher threatens to cut off their heads for wearing shorts AUGUST 10, 2019 BY BARENAKEDISLAM A group Belgian teenage girls are returning home from volunteer work for a charity in Morocco after a local school teacher allegedly threatened to behead them, for wearing shorts. Images of the girls at a construction site in Morocco appeared on social media and prompted the beheading threat and criticism from a Moroccan politician. What kind of parents would allow their teenage daughters to do volunteer work in a dangerous Muslim country? The incident comes less than...

President Trump on Friday lashed out at Democrats over their ongoing investigations into his administration, suggesting there should instead be probes into former President Obama's book deal and other activities under his predecessor. "They want to investigate, they want to go fishing and I watched Bob Mueller and they have nothing," Trump said of Democrats during an Oval Office gathering to announce an agreement with Guatemala. "It’s a disgrace," he continued. "We want to find out what happened the last Democrat president. Let’s look into Obama the way they’ve looked into me. From day one they’ve looked into everything we’ve...

<p>Moroccan lawmakers have unanimously approved a bill that confirms the Berber language’s official status, eight years after it was preliminarily recognized in a new constitution.</p> <p>The new law is designed to cement use of Berber – alongside Arabic – by government administration, local authorities, public services, schools and in cultural life.</p>

To know how radicals think, a group of researchers scanned the brains of Spanish men of Moroccan origin in Barcelona. The survey concluded that violent extremism may be linked to social exclusion. To know how radicals' brains function, a group of researchers conducted a series of brain tests on a number of men of Moroccan origin in Barcelona, Spain. Conducted by multi-disciplinary research institution Artis International and entitled «The Neuroscience of Terrorism : How we convinced a group of radicals to let us scan their brains», the survey concluded that violent extremism is a «social phenomenon» that is mainly related...

In an unprecedented move last week, India voted in support of Israel at the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) to deny observer status to a Palestinian human rights organisation named ‘Shahed’. This is the first time India has taken a step back from its decades-old position on the two-state theory under which New Delhi sees both Israel and Palestine as separate and independent countries, seeking to bring peace in West Asia.The vote, which took place on 6 June at the UN, saw countries such as US, France, Germany, India, Japan, UK, South Korea and Canada polling in favour of...

The government of French President Emmanuel Macron is appealing the decision to stop the removal of food and water from quadriplegic hospital patient Vincent Lambert..... In Missouri a judge allowing the states last abortion clinic to remain open while a request for a permanent injunction is considered..... 12 are dead and the shooter killed by police in Virginia Beach, Virginia.... Mohamed Hichem M is the name of the suspect in last Friday's parcel bombing in Lyon, France...... In Morocco Abdessamad Ejjoud is one of three men who pledge allegiance to the Islamic State and is one of 24 men accused...

The story of how wild horses were tamed by ancient people has been pieced together by gene hunters. DNA evidence shows modern horses are descended from not one but several wild populations. It suggests horses were domesticated - for meat, milk or to carry loads - in more than one place. As few as 77 wild mares passed on their genes to today's modern horse breeds, from the American mustang to the Shetland pony. "We see traces of original wild populations of horses that have been incorporated into the domestic horses of today," says co-researcher Dr Peter Forster of the...