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"The crisis caused by the new coronavirus increases the tension between the United States and China, engaged in a struggle for influence which could polarize the world", according to La Croix, who worries about seeing this rivalry paralyze the international institutions like during the Cold War. "As in the time of the East-West confrontation, the tensions between Washington and Beijing continue to grow, but the balance of power is no longer as obvious as in the past", according to L'Opinion, where Kak's drawing shows US President Donald Trump on the top step of the world podium, while Chinese President Xi Jinping is busy building his own.

Also in the press are the charges against Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, Robert Mugabe's successor, accused of persecuting his critics using the same methods as the former dictator. According to local press, picked up by Courrier International, three young women members of the opposition said they were beaten and raped after being arrested by police. According to The Zimbabwe Independent, "the alleged kidnapping and torture of opposition members by the security forces indicates the return to brutal rule of Robert Mugabe". "Many celebrated (his) fall by believing to see the beginning of a new era (...). Yes, it was the Waterloo of Mugabe, but not the end of a repressive system".

Repressed also, the militants of the Algerian protest movement, the Hirak, are prevented from demonstrating because of the sanitary measures against the Covid-19, and face "a resurgence of arbitrary arrests". Liberation tells how the protest is trying to reinvent itself on social networks, as attacks on press freedom are increasing, too - as evidenced by the blocking of several independent news media and the arrests of journalists, notably Khaled Drareni , whose release was refused by the justice yesterday.

The Algerian government, it, decided, yesterday also, to recall "immediately" its ambassador in Paris for "consultations", according to Liberté-Algérie, which reports that this decision follows the diffusion, Tuesday, by public channels French, reports on Hirak, including a documentary, "Algérie mon amour", which provoked heated debates on social networks in the country. Reports presented by Algiers as being "apparently spontaneous and under the pretext of freedom of expression". But constitute, according to the government, attacks "against the Algerian people and their institutions".

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