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Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has left Algeria and gone to Germany for medical treatment after having first been admitted to the Aïn Naadja Military Hospital. Although there is no official statement, it is rumored that President Tebboune has contracted the COVID-19 virus. It is also known that President Tebboune has underlying comorbidities – namely, he is chain-smoker.

US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper will visit Algeria on 1 October 2020. The visit comes as something of a surprise to the analyst community, but more importantly to the Algerians themselves. It is not at all clear what Esper wants and why he is going.

A year and change into his first five-year presidential term and Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani is finally doing what everyone had hoped he would – aggressively address his predecessor’s alleged corruption. Some quarters of Nouakchott (and Nouadhibou) are getting jitterier by the day.

As NARCO told its clients in private last week, there was a very high likelihood that Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani would shuffle his cabinet. Following the release of the Parliamentary Enquiry Committee’s (CEP) report into financial mismanagement and corruption during his predecessor's two administrations, President Ghazouani needed to take decisive action that would clearly show that his administration was different.