World

Voting under way in Algeria’s presidential election

Published

2 years ago

September 7, 2024

Voting under way in Algeria’s presidential election

No major changes expected with President Abdelmadjid Tebboune expected to win despite concerns about low turnout.

Algerians are voting in a presidential election in which incumbent Abdelmadjid Tebboune is expected to easily win a second term.

Polling stations opened at 8am (07:00 GMT) on Saturday in the North African country which has more than 24 million registered voters. More than 800,000 Algerians abroad, many in France, began voting on September 2.

Tebboune, 78, whose government is accused of using new laws to stifle dissent, is heavily favoured to defeat his two challengers – Abdelaali Hassani Cherif, 57 and Youcef Aouchiche, 41.

While 15 candidates tried to enter the race, only Hassani Cherif and Aouchiche gathered enough signatures to qualify. Neither seriously opposes the military establishment widely seen as having called the shots since the 1960s.

Campaign rallies for the election, which Tebboune’s office moved up from its originally planned date in December, have struggled to generate enthusiasm, partly due to the summer heat.

Political commentator Mohamed Hennad said the election’s outcome is a foregone conclusion due to the campaign’s restrictive conditions.

It “is nothing more than a farce”, he wrote in a post on X.

Eyeing turnout

Tebboune’s main challenge is to boost turnout, which was less than 40 percent when he won his first term in 2019.

Turnout was even lower in the country’s 2021 legislative elections, at about 30 percent.

“The president is keen to have a significant turnout,” said Hasni Abidi, an analyst at the Geneva-based CERMAM study centre. “It’s his main issue,” he told the AFP news agency.

The low turnout figures in 2019 and 2021 came amid the Hirak pro-democracy protests that toppled Tebboune’s predecessor, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, before they were quashed with ramped-up policing and the jailing of hundreds.

What are the issues?

With young people making up more than half of Algeria’s population of 45 million, all candidates are targeting their vote with promises to improve living standards and reduce dependence on hydrocarbons.

Tebboune has touted his economic successes from his first term, including more jobs and higher wages in the country, Africa’s largest exporter of natural gas.

With a second term, Tebboune is expected to keep policies aimed at strengthening the country’s energy exports and enacting limited pro-business reforms while upholding lavish subsidies and keeping a tight rein on internal dissent.

“Previously investors had no confidence to invest in Algeria, but that’s beginning to change as our laws are amended and our image changes,” economist Boubaker Sellami told Al Jazeera.

Tebboune’s two challengers have promised to grant Algerians more freedoms.

Aouchiche says he is committed “to release prisoners of conscience through an amnesty and to review unjust laws”, including on media and terrorism.

Hassani Cherif has advocated for “freedoms that have been reduced to nothing in recent years”.

Preliminary results could be made public as early as Saturday night, with the electoral authority, ANIE, set to announce the official results on Sunday at the latest.

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World

Video: What Tunnel Entrances Reveal About a Key Iranian Nuclear Site

Published

7 hours ago

March 20, 2026

Press Room

Video: What Tunnel Entrances Reveal About a Key Iranian Nuclear Site

new video loaded: What Tunnel Entrances Reveal About a Key Iranian Nuclear Site

transcript

What Tunnel Entrances Reveal About a Key Iranian Nuclear Site

Satellite images show how Iran has tried to bolster its defenses at parts of the Isfahan nuclear facility.

: What you’re seeing here are buried tunnel entrances at a nuclear facility in Iran. It’s one of the most important sites in the country for U.S. and Israeli forces. U.N. inspectors think that roughly half of Iran’s highly enriched uranium is buried here. And these three entrances are the only known ways to access it. If you think about nuclear sites in Iran, three main sites come to mind. They’re pretty well known: Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan. Natanz and Fordo, They were largely taken out in U.S. strikes last year. So I’ve been focusing on Isfahan. The uranium here is still relatively accessible. It’s actually a pretty large complex. This area here was very important for uranium processing, but it was heavily hit by the U.S. and Israel last June. If you go a little bit further north, that is underground and that requires tunnels to enter. In a terrain view, it gets quite interesting. There are three roads that lead to these tunnel entrances, and these tunnel entrances have become very important, both last year, but also right now. They lead to the underground facility where U.N. inspectors say uranium is stored and a new enrichment site could be located. If this falls into the wrong hands, that would be a problem in the long term. Here’s a great example of how very recent satellite imagery gives us new insights. This is from late January of this year, and what you see here is a line of trucks. And they’re filled with soil, and they’re lining up to go to some of these tunnel entrances. If you look a little bit closer here, you see another one of these trucks that’s just unloading some of the soil and some earthmoving equipment. Iran in preparation for any possible attacks at that point. They try to protect this facility a little bit more. So this is Jan. 29. And if you just look a few days later, we go to Feb. 2. This is the completely buried tunnel entrance, completely covered in soil to protect from any attack. And this is how it still looks in mid-March. The U.S. and Israel have basically two options here: The first one is to heavily bombard the entrances to this underground complex that would block any access, at least in the near future. They haven’t done that yet. So that’s very, very interesting — a little bit surprising. And it might point towards a second option: That would be to go in with ground forces and to extract the uranium. But that would require a really large amount of troops to secure the vast area, bringing in earthmoving equipment to clear the tunnels and a lot of time in hostile territory.
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Satellite images show how Iran has tried to bolster its defenses at parts of the Isfahan nuclear facility.

By Christoph Koettl and Alexander Cardia

March 20, 2026

World

Iranian man, 2nd person arrested after allegedly trying to enter UK nuclear missile base: report

Published

8 hours ago

March 20, 2026

Press Room

Iranian man, 2nd person arrested after allegedly trying to enter UK nuclear missile base: report

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

Two people were arrested after allegedly unsuccessfully attempting to enter HM Naval Base Clyde in Scotland on Thursday, authorities confirmed to Fox News Digital.

One suspect was an Iranian man, while the other was a woman of unknown nationality, The Telegraph reported.

“Around 5pm on Thursday, 19 March, 2026, we were made aware of two people attempting to enter HM Naval Base Clyde,” Police Scotland said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “A 34-year-old man and 31-year-old woman have been arrested in connection and enquiries are ongoing.”

The Telegraph reported that the man was Iranian, while the woman’s nationality was not immediately known. Citing the Times, the Telegraph said the suspects were turned away from the base because they lacked the correct passes and were later arrested nearby for allegedly “acting suspiciously in the vicinity.”

IRAN’S NEW SUPREME LEADER LINKED TO PROPERTIES WITH ‘LINE OF SIGHT’ INTO ISRAELI UK EMBASSY

HMS Artful, an Astute-class nuclear-powered fleet submarine, is shown at His Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde on March 4, 2025, in Faslane, Scotland. (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

A Royal Navy spokesperson said in a statement to Fox News Digital, “Police Scotland have arrested two people who unsuccessfully attempted to enter HM Naval Base Clyde on Thursday 19 March. As the matter is subject to an ongoing investigation, we will not comment further.”

HM Naval Base Clyde — commonly known as Faslane — is considered the primary base for the United Kingdom’s missile fleet.

PENCE BACKS TRUMP’S IRAN STRIKES, SAYS PRESIDENT ‘IGNORED’ GOP ISOLATIONISTS

A general view of His Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde on March 4, 2025, in Faslane, Scotland. (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

The Royal Navy says the base is home “to the core of the Submarine Service, including the nation’s nuclear deterrent, and the new generation of hunter-killer submarines.”

The U.K. Parliament says the Royal Navy currently operates a fleet of nine submarines, with the entire fleet based at HM Naval Base Clyde.

His Majesty’s Naval Base (HMNB) Clyde, also known as Faslane, hosts the U.K.’s nuclear submarines, which are armed with Trident missiles and serve as the U.K.’s nuclear deterrent. (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

“Five of those are conventionally-armed nuclear-powered attack submarines of the Astute class. A further four are ballistic missiles submarines (SSBN) of the Vanguard class that comprise the UK’s submarine-based nuclear deterrent,” it added.

Greg Norman is a reporter at Fox News Digital.

World

Iran’s Khamenei says enemy ‘defeated’ in written Nowruz message

Published

9 hours ago

March 20, 2026

Press Room

Iran’s Khamenei says enemy ‘defeated’ in written Nowruz message

Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen in public since he replaced his slain father as Iran’s supreme leader.

Published On 20 Mar 2026

Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has said Iran’s enemies were being “defeated” in a written message for the Persian New Year, as the US and Israel continue to pound the country with attacks.

In a statement read on Iranian television on Friday, Khamenei praised the steadfastness of the Iranian people marking Nowruz, which he said ushered in ‌the year of a “resistance economy under national unity and national security”.

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“At the moment, due to the particular unity that has been created between you, our compatriots – despite all the differences in religious, intellectual, cultural and political origins – the enemy has been defeated,” he said.

Khamenei has not been seen in public since he became supreme leader, following the assassination of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at the start of the war on February 28.

Iran’s supreme leader said that while the US and Israel believed that after one or two days of attacks, the Iranian people would overthrow the government, but this was a “gross miscalculation”.

The war was launched under “the delusion that if the pinnacle of the regime and certain influential military figures were to attain martyrdom, it would instil fear and despair in our dear people … and through this means, the dream of dominating Iran and subsequently dismembering it would be realised”, he said.

Instead, “a fracture has emerged in the enemy,” he added.

Analysts have observed that the Iranian constitution itself was drafted with the spectre of a power vacuum in mind, a “survival protocol” designed to give the system the capacity to continue even at a moment of maximum shock.

Khamenei also denied that Iran or its ‌allied forces were responsible for attacks ⁠against Turkiye and ⁠Oman.

Those were “false flag” incidents used by Iran’s enemy to “sow discord among neighbours, and it may occur in other countries as well”, he claimed.

The Turkish Ministry of National Defence last week said NATO air defences intercepted a ballistic missile launched from Iran. Two people were killed in Oman after drones came down in the Sohar province.

The supreme leader also called on Afghanistan and Pakistan to end their fighting and said he stood ready to assist.

“We consider our eastern neighbours to be very close to us”, the supreme leader said. “I appeal to our two brotherly countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan, to establish better relations with each other … and I myself am ready to take the necessary actions.”

The neighbouring countries agreed to a temporary “pause” in hostilities during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr this week, after weeks of deadly violence.