N’DJAMENA (Al Jazeera) – Crucial national talks have started on the future of Chad that the ruling military says will pave the way for elections, but the forum has been overshadowed by delays and boycotts. More than 1,400 delegates from the military, civil society, opposition parties, trade unions and rebel groups gathered on Saturday in the capital, N’Djamena, for the opening of a “national dialogue” that is expected to last three weeks. The talks are the initiative of army general Mahamat Idriss Deby. Deby took power in April 2021 at the age of just 37 after his father, who ruled for 30 years, was killed during a military operation against rebels. Deby has said the forum should open the way to “free and democratic” elections after 18 months of rule by his military – a deadline that France, the African Union (AU) and others have urged him to uphold. But the “dialogue”, which should have begun in February, has been marred by delays as Chad’s myriad rebel groups, meeting in Qatar, squabbled over whether to attend. In the end, about 40 groups on August 8 signed up to a deal entailing a ceasefire and guarantee of safe passage on return to Chad. On the agenda for talks are lasting peace, reforming state institutions, and a new constitution that will be put to a referendum. Deby signed a decree on Wednesday saying that the decisions taken at the forum will be “legally binding”.

 

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ALGIERS (AFP) – French President Emmanuel Macron will visit Algeria next week in a bid to improve strained ties between Paris and Algiers, the French presidency said in a statement Saturday. “This trip will contribute to deepening the bilateral relationship looking to the future... to reinforce Franco-Algerian cooperation in the face of regional challenges and to continue the work of addressing the past,” the presidency said after a call between Macron and his opposite number Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. Macron is to be in Algeria from Thursday to Saturday next week. French-Algerian ties hit a low late last year after Macron reportedly questioned whether Algeria had existed as a nation before the French invasion and accused its “political-military system” of rewriting history and fomenting “hatred toward France.” Algeria withdrew its ambassador in response. The North African country won its independence from France following a grueling eight-year war, which ended with the signing in March 1962 of the Evian Accords. On July 5 of the same year, days after 99.72 percent voted for independence in a referendum, Algeria finally broke free from colonial rule — but memories of the 132-year occupation continue to haunt its ties with France.

 

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WASHINGTON (The Daily Mail/The Hill) – The raid by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on former President Donald Trump’s home has damaged the agency’s standing with Republican and independent voters, according to a new poll, which found that a majority agree with the idea that it has become “Biden’s Gestapo”. The search of Mar-a-Lago has emboldened Trump supporters and generated a wave of donations to the former president’s political organizations. And close allies including Steve Bannon have used the public platforms to compare the FBI with Hitler’s Gestapo or East Germany’s brutal secret police force, the Stasi.  In a new survey, Rasmussen Reports asked 1000 likely voters whether they agreed with Trump loyalist Roger Stone, who last year said the FBI had become President Joe Biden’s “personal Gestapo.”  At the time he said it, some 46 percent of voters agreed with that assessment. Now, some 53 percent of voters agree - including 34 percent, who strongly agree.  Meanwhile, Trump says he will soon take legal action over the “illegal break-in.” Trump said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social on Friday that a “major motion” would soon be filed.

 

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WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – A U.S. federal judge has sentenced a former British citizen and member of the Daesh terrorist group to eight concurrent life sentences. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis found El Shafee Elsheikh, 34, guilty of four counts of hostage-taking and four counts of conspiracy and sentenced him to life without parole at the end of a two-week trial on Friday. Elsheikh was accused of conspiring to kill four American hostages, namely James Foley, Steven Sotloff, Peter Kassig, and Kayla Mueller. Foley and Sotloff, who were journalists, and Kassig, who was an aid worker, were killed in videotaped beheadings, and their deaths were confirmed in 2014. Mueller’s death was confirmed in early 2015. Elsheikh, who held British citizenship until 2018, was a member of a notorious Daesh cell known as “The Beatles” — named that way for their British accents. The charges against Elsheikh carried a potential death sentence, but U.S. prosecutors had previously informed British officials that they would not seek the death penalty.  Another member of “The Beatles,” Alexanda Kotey, was sentenced to life in prison by a U.S. judge earlier this year. He had pleaded guilty last September to the murders of Foley, Sotloff, Kassig, and Mueller.

 

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WASHINGTON (Xinhua) – More than 9,560 people died on roads in the United States from January through March, the highest number since 2002, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing estimates from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Traffic deaths have soared in the past several years because of more drivers speeding, driving under the influence or not wearing seat belts during the COVID-19 pandemic, said the NHTSA, the country’s auto-safety regulator. In 2021, U.S. traffic fatalities reached a 16-year high of nearly 43,000 deaths, it added. With normal life coming to a halt in March 2020, “risky behaviors skyrocketed, and traffic fatalities spiked,” NHTSA administrator Steven Cliff was quoted as saying on Wednesday. “We’d hoped these trends were limited to 2020, but sadly, they aren’t,” Cliff said. 

 

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ALGIERS (Middle East Eye) – Wildfires that left dozens of people dead across northeastern Algeria may also have destroyed as much as 10 percent of a UNESCO-listed biosphere, an expert said on Saturday. The figure cited by Rafik Baba Ahmed, former director of the El Kala Biosphere Reserve, means that the burnt area of the park alone is almost double what the civil defense service said has been destroyed throughout Africa’s largest country since June. Algeria’s northeast has been particularly hard-hit since Wednesday in blazes exacerbated by climate change, but the fire service on Saturday said most of the fires there had been put out. At least 38 people have reportedly been killed.