Morocco teachers say beaten by police during rally Moroccan police clashed with teachers demonstrating for better benefits on Thursday, seriously injuring several people in the capital Rabat, participants said. Various groups have stepped up protests in recent weeks, emboldened by successful uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. Tens of thousands gathered in cities across the kingdom on Sunday in one of the largest anti-government protests in decades. “For the last three days we protested peacefully near the Education Ministry, and today we wanted to protest peacefully in front of the prime minister's office,” said Mohamed Talbi, a protest organizer in Rabat. Although many of the protests in the Arab world are focused on removing their rulers, most demonstrators in Morocco are not seeking to topple the king, who this month promised constitutional reform. Instead, they are seeking political rights, and end to corruption and various social benefits. Algeria: Protesters Clash With Riot Police Hundreds of people clashed with riot police in a poor neighborhood of the Algerian capital on Wednesday, in an eruption of violence that speaks to the growing social unrest across the North African country. The clashes broke out at dawn when city authorities ordered bulldozers to destroy a group of houses built on a public garden on the grounds that they had been illegally constructed. Estimates of the number of people injured differed: Witnesses said about 40 wounded people were evacuated by ambulances. Local police said 20 people, mainly police officers, had been hurt in the clashes. Wednesday's clashes came amid escalating social tensions in Algeria, where youths, civil servants, and unemployed people in the capital as well as in provincial cities are asking for better living and work conditions in protests that appear to be a growing challenge to the authority of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Italy to aid Tunisia over economy, immigration Italy is to give Tunisia a line of credit of 150 million euros to help it relaunch its economy, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said in Tunis Friday. It is also to give Tunisia 80 million euros ($113 million) to fight against clandestine immigration. The line of credit should “help priority areas in Tunisia”, Frattini told reporters. He said cooperation could take the form of training young Tunisians, combatting marine pollution, improving fisheries and encouraging tourism. “Every year 60,000 Italians visit Tunisia and we must encourage these potential tourists to come back to the country this year,” he said. A publicity campaign promoting Tunisia will be launched in Italy next month, he added. Tunisian Trade and Tourism Minister Medhi Houas said that 2011 would be “catastrophic” for tourism and if the country got half the visitors it got last year “that would already be a step forward”. Libya: Allies ponder arming rebels The United States and its allies are considering whether to supply weapons to the Libyan opposition as coalition airstrikes fail to dislodge government forces from around key contested towns, according to U.S. and European officials. France actively supports training and arming the rebels, and the Obama administration believes the United Nations resolution that authorized international intervention in Libya has the “flexibility” to allow such assistance, “if we thought that were the right way to go,” Obama spokesman Jay Carney said. It was a “possibility,” he said. Gene Cretz, the recently withdrawn U.S. ambassador to Libya, said administration officials were having “the full gamut” of discussions on “potential assistance we might offer, both on the non-lethal and the lethal side,” but that no decisions had been made. Sudan Government Welcomes Egyptian Prime Minster Visit The coalition has stepped up its outreach to the opposition, inviting one of its senior leaders to a high-level international conference in London on Tuesday, called to determine future political strategy in Libya. Sudan government welcomed the high level visit to be paid by Egyptian Prime Minister (PM), Dr. Esam Sharaf, next Sunday which is the first official visit to be paid by the new Egyptian prime minister outside his country after outbreak of the Egyptian revelation. The PM will be accompanied by eight ministers and a number of high-ranking officials in the Egyptian government. Spokesperson of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Khalid Musa, said that the visit is a historical one because it expresses the trends of the Egyptian leadership after the revaluation took place towards enhancing the strategic relations between the two countries, the necessity of promoting them in order to achieve the common interests of the two sisterly peoples. BM
