Several hundred keep up protest pressure in Morocco Several hundred teachers marched through Rabat on Monday for better pay a day after one of Morocco's largest anti-government protests in recent decades against corruption and demanding government change. Monday's protest, which briefly and noisily disrupted traffic in central Rabat, proceeded peacefully, as did wider nationwide protests on Sunday in the North African kingdom. “This is an open sit-in: we will protest every day until we get our rights,” said Aziz Benjloud, who was among a group teachers seeking better pay and benefits. “We are about 5,000 teachers in all Morocco. Today we are about 1,500 people protesting in Rabat and tomorrow other teachers will arrive from other regions.” The Interior Ministry estimated that 35,000 people from all sectors of life marched on Sunday in the capital Rabat, in the country's largest city Casablanca, and elsewhere. Algeria: trade surplus of 3.93 billion dollars in January-February Algeria has achieved a trade surplus of 3.93 billion dollars (2.77 billion euros) in January and February, up 36.09% over the same period in 2010, announced Monday Algerian Customs, quoted by the press. Exports, mainly oil (98%) totaled 10.47 billion dollars (7.3 billion euros) during the first two months of the year, according to the Customs' National Center of Informatics and Statistics (CNIS). Last year at the same time they had reached 9.28 billion dollars (56.55 billion euros), an increase of 12.75%. As for imports, they amounted to 6.54 billion dollars (4.62 billion euros) against 6.4 billion (4.5 billion euros) for the same periods, up 2.22%, said the CNIS. UN secretary general to meet with Tunisia's leaders United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon was due to continue his North African trip in Tunisia on Tuesday, where he is to meet the country's post-revolutionary leadership and youth representatives, the local UN office said. Ban will meet with interim President Foued Mebazaa, interim Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi and Foreign Minister Mouldi Kefi, the UN said Monday. He will also take part in a round-table discussion with young people. Libya: no-fly zone to be extended soon As the American-led air attack pounded Libya for a third day and Moammar Gadafi's embattled forces retreated south from the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, the Pentagon said the no-fly zone soon would be extended, paving the way for the United States to eventually hand off command of the mission to its allies. Gadafi's forces near Benghazi “now possess little will or capability to resume offensive operations,” said Gen. Carter Ham, the officer in charge of the operation, briefing Pentagon reporters via video from his headquarters in Germany. The United States already has begun taking a smaller role in the mission, he added. Fewer than half the air missions flown Monday were piloted by Americans. The no-fly zone will soon be expanded across the coastal north to Tripoli, Port Brega and Misurata. It is unclear to whom the U.S. will hand over the operation, though. At the North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters in Brussels, defense ministers remain divided between countries such as Britain and France that favor military action and Turkey and Germany, which are more hesitant. Sudanese police fire teargas at protesters Sudanese police crushed two small anti-government protests on Monday with teargas when youths began a second attempt to emulate popular uprisings in neighbouring Libya and Egypt. Hit by an economic crisis with rising inflation and political uncertainty as the oil-producing south voted to secede ending decades of civil war, Khartoum is vulnerable. But the protest movement seemed to have lost momentum earlier in the year when police arrested or beat back thousands of youths. On Monday, heavily armed police surrounded universities in north Sudan and deployed throughout the capital Khartoum. Two witnesses told Reuters dozens of youths shouting “freedom, freedom” were beaten back by baton-wielding police using teargas near Khartoum's main bus station. BM
