Blida, Algeria News

Rabah Saadane is an approachable father figure in Algerian football who is enjoying a fifth stint as coach of the 'Desert Foxes' and was at the helm for their last outing at the finals in 1986.

Three Algerian towns- Algiers, Tipsa and Blida -have r esonated to African rhythms and dances at the ongoing Second African Culture Fes t ival , the Algerian News Agency has reported.

A two-day workshop on African cinema and another on thea tre opened Friday in Algiers as part of the second Pan-African Festival h olding in the Algerian capital 5-20 July.

The Head of the department of Cinema in Algeria, Moura d Ait Oumeziane, announced here on Tuesday that the Algiers International Festiv a l of Cinema, which coincides this year with the second edition of the Panafrican Festival of Culture , will now be organized annually.

"I WANT the truth," President Nicolas Sarkozy said yesterday, promising to release classified documents about the kidnapping and beheading of seven Trappist monks in Algeria 13 years ago.

Algeria is hosting the Second Pan-African Cultural Festival at the request of the African Union, 40 years after the north African country staged the first such event, when several nations were still struggling for independence.

More than 8,000 artists and writers from all over Africa, as well as Brazil and the United States, are descending on Algeria for a huge cultural festival that kicks off this weekend until July 20.