Morocco to be first Arab nation at EU summit

Morocco will this weekend become the first Arab country to hold summit-level talks with the European Union when it meets the 27-nation bloc in Spain, which holds the EU presidency, officials said.

The meeting starting Saturday in the southern city of Granada will be a chance for the EU to grill Morocco on its human rights record and lack of development, including high rates of illiteracy, a European diplomat said.

Independence activists for the Western Sahara region, annexed by Morocco in 1975, plan to demonstrate on the sidelines of the meeting.

Algeria to take part in Bahrain conference

Algeria will partake in the 37th session Arab Labour Conference from March 6 to 13 in Manama (Bahrain), said Friday the Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Security in a statement.

The participants will examine the report by General Director of Arab Labor Office on the “Arab Employment Contract” adopted by the Arab Economic Summit in 2009 in Kuwait, the source said.

Tunisia’s presence at Arab-African conference in Cairo

A Tunisian delegation led by Foreign Minister, Mr. Kamel Morjane, recently took part in the 14th Ministerial-level Session of the Permanent Committee for Arab-African Cooperation which was recently held, at the headquarters of the League of Arab States in Cairo.

Arab and African members of this Committee, the League’s Secretariat-General and the African Union (AU) Commission, also participated in the event.

Zambia: Libya’s LAP bid for 75 percent stake in Zamtel

Libya’s LAP Green Networks is one step closer to making its final bid for a 75 percent stake in Zamtel, the Zambian government-owned telecom operator.

The Lybian operator will compete alongside Angola’s Unitel/Angola Cables, Russia’s Altimo Holdings/VimpelCom and Bharat Sanchar Nigam of India, to acquire a majority stake in Zamtel.

Zambia’s mobile penetration is around 33 percent in a population of 12.2 million people. With only 200,000 subscribers, Zamtel has been lagging behind rivals Zain and MTN.

Sudan slams sanctions on Eritrea media

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has criticized the sanctions imposed on Eritrea last December by the United Nations Security Council, Eritrean local media reported on Saturday.

Bashir paid a one-day working visit on the Red Sea state on Friday during which he held talks with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki and attacked the U.N. resolution.

“The people and the government of Sudan reject the unjust sanctions Resolution 1907 against Eritrea,” the state-run Eritrea Profile reported Bashir as saying.

Lebanon: old ordnance kill again

A Syrian construction worker was killed and another injured on Saturday when a bomb likely left over from Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war exploded, an army spokesman told AFP.

The explosion near a construction site on Beirut’s sea front occurred on a rubbish dump named “Normandy” which had been progressively cleared since the end of the civil war, the spokesman said. He said the two workers were handling the bomb when it exploded.

BM

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