Algeria-Ashley+Christensen

= Algeria- Ashley Christensen  = ====Algeria is about 4 times the size of Texas and borders Morroco and western Sahara and the east of Tunisia and Libya. The mediterranean sea is to the north, and to the south are Niger, Mali and Mauritania.====

====**People** Nationality: Algerians Population 36.3. Annual growth rate (2010 est.): 1.177%. Birth rate-16.71 births/1,000 population; death rate 4.66 deaths/1,000 population. Ethnic groups: Arab-Berber 99%, European less than 1%. Religions: Sunni Muslim (state religion) 99%, Christian and Jewish 1%. Languages: Arabic (official), Berber (national language), French. total population 69.9%; female 60.1%; male 79.6%. Health:Infant mortality rate-26.75 deaths/1,000 live births. //Life expectancy// at birth-total population 75.26 years; male 72.57 years; female 76.04 years. Work force: 9.464 million. Unemployment rate: 30%; Algerian Government estimate 10% in February 2011.====

====**Government** Type: Republic. Independence: July 5, 1962 (from France). Constitution: September 8, 1963; revised November 19, 1976, November 3, 1988, February 23, 1989, November 28, 1996, April 10, 2002, and November 12, 2008. Legal system: Based on French and Islamic law; judicial review of legislative acts in //ad hoc// Constitutional Council composed of various public officials, including several Supreme Court justices; Algeria has not accepted compulsory International Court of Justice (ICJ) jurisdiction. Administrative divisions: 48 provinces (wilayat; singular, wilaya). Suffrage: 18 years of age; universal. National holiday: Independence Day, July 5, 1962; Revolution Day, November 1, 1954. Major parties represented in parliament: National Liberation Front (FLN), National Democratic Rally (RND), Movement of Society for Peace (MSP), Workers' Party (PT), Algerian National Front (FNA), Movement for National Reform (MRN), Islamic Renaissance Movement (MNI), Party of Algerian Renewal (PRA), Movement of National Understanding (MEN). Under the 1976 Constitution (as modified 1979 and amended in 1988, 1989, 1996, and 2008), Algeria is a multi-party state. The Ministry of the Interior must approve all political parties. According to the Constitution, no political association may be formed "based on differences in religion, language, race, gender or region." Algeria has universal suffrage at the age of 18. **Economy** GDP (2010): $159.7 billion. GDP growth rate: 4.1%. Per capita GDP: $4,470. Agriculture: Products--wheat, barley, oats, grapes, olives, citrus, fruits; sheep, cattle. Industry: Types-petroleum, natural gas, light industries, mining, electrical, petrochemical, food processing, pharmaceuticals, cement, seawater desalination. Sector information as % GDP: Agriculture 8.3%, services 30.2%, industry 61.5%. Monetary unit: Algerian dinar. Inflation: 5.7%. Trade: //Exports// (2010)--$56.7 billion: petroleum, natural gas, and petroleum products 97.58%. Partners//-//U.S. 22.67%, Italy 13.78%, Spain 10.80%, France 8.83%, Netherlands 5.67%, Canada 5.07%. Imports-$40.2 billion: capital goods, food and beverages, consumer goods. Partners-France 16.57%, China 11.83%, Italy 9.06%, Germany 6.47%, Spain 5.88%, U.S. 5.88%. Budget : //Revenues//--$41.56 billion, expenditures-$47.69 billion. Debt (external, January 1, 2010): $ 486 million. U.S. economic assistance (2010 est.): $2.61 million (Development Assistance (DA); International Military Education and Training (IMET); Nonproliferation, Anti-Terrorism, Demining and Related Programs (NADR).====

**People**
====Ninety-one percent of the Algerian population lives along the Mediterranean coast on 12% of the country's total land mass. Forty-five percent of the population is urban, and urbanization continues, despite government efforts to discourage migration to the cities. About 1.5 million nomads and semi-settled Bedouin still live in the Saharan area.Nearly all Algerians are Muslim, of Arab, Berber, or mixed Arab-Berber stock. Official data on the number of non-Muslim residents is not available; however, practitioners report it to be less than 5,000. Most of the non-Muslim community is comprised of Methodist, Roman Catholic and Evangelical faiths; the Jewish community is virtually non-existent. There are about 1,100 American citizens in the country, the majority of whom live and work in the oil/gas fields in the south. Algeria's educational system has grown dramatically since the country gained its independence. In the last 12 years, attendance has doubled to more than 5 million students. Education is free and compulsory to age 16. Despite government allocation of substantial educational resources, population pressures and a serious shortage of teachers have severely strained the system. Modest numbers of Algerian students study abroad, primarily in Europe and Canada. In 2000, the government launched a major review of the country's educational system and in 2004 efforts to reform the educational system began.Housing and medicine continue to be pressing problems in Algeria. Failing infrastructure and the continued influx of people from rural to urban areas have overtaxed both systems. According to the United Nations Development Program, Algeria has one of the world's highest per housing unit occupancy rates, and government officials have publicly stated that the country has an immediate shortfall of 1.5 million housing units.==== ====**Principal Government Officials** President and Minister of National Defense--Abdelaziz Bouteflika Prime Minister--Ahmed Ouyahia Vice Prime Minister--Nourredine Yazid Zerhouni Minister of State and Personal Representative of the Head of State--Abdelaziz Belkhadem Minister of State, Minister of the Interior and Local Communities--Dahou Ould Kablia Minister Delegate in Charge of National Defense--Abdelmalek Guenaizia====

**Political conditions**
====Terrorist violence in Algeria resulted in more than 150,000 deaths during the 1990s. Although the security situation in the country has improved, addressing the underlying issues that brought about the political turmoil of the 1990s remains the government's major task. President Bouteflika implemented the Charter on Peace and National Reconciliation on March 1, 2006, as one way to bring closure. Thus far, it has successfully gained the surrender of a number of moderate Islamists but, paradoxically, has emboldened the more hard-core elements, in particular the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which merged with al-Qaida in September 2006, and changed its name in January 2007 to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).==== ====**Problems**-The Algerian authorities have generally depicted these events as a Kabylian problem. Residents of Kabylia are descended from the Berbers, North Africa's original inhabitants. The Kabyles have for decades been pressing for official recognition of their language on a par with Arabic but successive governments have found the issue too sensitive to deal with and tended to dodge it.==== ====**Solutions**- I would say to solve this problem i would Keep the Arabic if thats what most people want. It seems to be a huge problem in Algeria, and i think they just need to let all religions be expressed and all who want to be Arabic be arabic and all kabyles be kabyles, they should be able to pick.====