Maghreb

Mauritania’s age-old practice of Leblouh, the tradition of force-feeding girls for the sake of beauty and marriage, continues to deprive its women of some of their most basic human rights.

Using music and art, one association in Casablanca is trying to bridge the divide between Morocco and its African neighbors.

Colonialism was able to spread not only through military power but also the creation and dissemination of biased images of the colonized. French colonial photography in Morocco worked along with military power to subdue the nation and legitimize French power.

Nearly 200 candidates have been nominated in the Algerian presidential elections to be held on April 18. Ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s decision to run for another five-year term has sparked significant opposition and disrupted Algeria’s fragile political stability.

Seeking Russian support and vowing to “terminate turmoil and division in Libya,” Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of former dictator Muammar Gaddafi, plans to run in the presidential elections expected to be held in 2019. What does this say about the Libyan Revolution eight years after it resulted in the ousting of the elder Gaddafi and the popular yearning for freedom from dictatorship?

Tunisia has consistently pushed to adopt progressive legal and institutional frameworks to expand renewable energy usage and energy efficiency programs. The North African nation must develop a clear plan to further reduce its dependence on oil and gas to stay on track to generate its targeted amount of renewable electricity.

Algerian author Boualem Sansal explores the perils of Islamic totalitarianism in his dystopian novel “2084,” which was published in France in 2015. For the authoritarian leaders Sansal portrays, religion is not the motivation for maintaining power, but rather a tool to that end.

As Amazigh people celebrate the beginning of their new year today, the Amazigh movement in Morocco is seeking to preserve the Amazigh cultural and historical heritage.

In a first for what some call “world music,” a new album featuring Moroccan Sufi music, reflecting a spiritual dimension of Islam, is being released this month.

Since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Arab World has known endless cycles of death and destruction. It has also suffered sickening terror in the hands of Islamic extremists.