Foster parents deported from Morocco

For 10 years, foreign Christians ran an orphanage called Village of Hope on the slopes of Morocco’s Middle Atlas Mountains, taking in abandoned Moroccan children and raising them in their homes.

But it took just a few hours Monday evening for Moroccan authorities to dissolve those foster families. Police gathered the 16 foreign volunteers and their biological children in a conference room and told them they had to leave the country immediately. Across the parking lot, 33 Moroccan children learned they would stay behind.

Algerian, Libyan charged in plot to kill artist

Irish police have charged two men from Algeria and Libya with minor offenses following a weeklong investigation into Muslim extremists allegedly involved in efforts to kill a Swedish artist.

Ali Charafe Damache, a 49-year-old Algerian, was charged Monday with sending a threatening text message. A Libyan who used the false name Abdul-Salam Mansour Al-Jehani was charged with immigration violations.

Tunisia’s national consumer day

Similar to the rest of the world, Tunisia observed on March 15, the International Consumer Day under the theme “For better financial services”.

In a statement released on Saturday in Tunis, the Organization of consumer protection “ODC” welcomed the progress that has marked the banking and insurance systems in Tunisia.

Libya urges OPEC to maintain crude oil prices

The secretary of the management committee of the Libyan National Oil Company (NOC), Dr Shukri Ghanem, has urged the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which begins its general meeting on Tuesday in Vienna, Austria, to be cautious of production levels of its members and make decisions that would maintain crude oil prices on the market.

Speaking in an interview on Monday in Tripoli with the first Libyan TV station, Al-Jamahiriya, Dr. Ghanem said the expected improvement in the global economy during 2010 would increase the demand for oil to about 900,000 barrels per day.

Darfur rebel row jeopardizes Sudan peace deal

A row between Darfur rebel groups has thrown into doubt a peace deal between the rebels and Sudan’s government.

One rebel group signed a preliminary deal last month, and a final agreement was due to be completed on 15 March.

Lebanon’s Jumblatt makes overtures to Syria

Lebanon’s Druze leader Walid Jumblatt on Saturday called on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to turn the page on the past, admitting that he had in a moment of anger said inappropriate things.

The former virulent critic of the Damascus regime admitted to Al-Jazeera satellite television channel in an interview that he had made “inappropriate and unreasonable remarks about President Assad at a time of internal tensions and extreme division within Lebanon.”

“In order to consolidate Lebanon-Syria relations, between the two peoples and two states and between the Druze of Lebanon and Syria, can we now overlook this moment and open a new page?” he asked rhetorically.

BM

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