Algeria 2006

World Space Week 2006 Report

The National Salon in Popular Astronomy, which is held yearly to coincide with the World Space Week celebrations, started this year right after the Ramadhan. Since their inception in 2002, these events have become a prized anual rendezvous for the amateur astronomers throughout Algeria.

Prior to the Salon, during the official World Space Week, we held on October 9 a special evening at the Ahmed Saadi Cultural Center in center city with a retrospective on the previous World Space Week celebrations in Algeria and two lectures on the value of space to mankind.

This year has seen a wider participation from associations from abroad. In particular, the AUASS from Jordan and the SAF (Société Astronomique de France) represented by its president and several lecturers, the association Jeunes-Science from Tunis, and others from Libya, Saudi Arabia, Iraq. In addition to the Salon held in the exposition hall of the imposing Palais de la Culture Malek Haddad, there was a series of public lectures and specialized workshops. More details on the programs and the various participants are available at http://www.siriusalgeria.org/salon2006.

To keep in tune with this year's theme; Space for Saving Lives, various segments within the Salon are dealing with the ways space enable us to conduct rescue missions, issue early warnings, and in general help in saving lives. It is indeed befitting for the Algerian public to be cognizant of these new scientific avenues opening up.

As every year, the Expo saw also the participation of the various national agencies working on space and space related activities, like ASAL (L'Agence Spatiale Algérienne), the CNTS (Centre National des Techniques Spatiales) from Arzew, the CRAAG (Bouzaréah), the INCT (L'Institut National de Cartographie et de Télédetection), the ONM (L'Office National de la Météorologie), the ENNA (Entreprise Nationale de la Navigation Aérienne) etc. Furthermore, some 18 astronomy clubs and Associations from all over the country were having an exposition stand, with a larger than usual representation from the South and the East of Algeria.

Our World Space Week celebration fair got excellent media coverage both in the written press and on radio and TV. A great number of national newspapers, both Arabic speaking and French speaking ones, picked up our communiqué and some made extensive coverage of it. El Watan had three articles in the period preceding and during the Salon. Other media covering the event were Le Quotidien d'Oran, La Nouvelle République, El Moudjahid, and El-Khabar. The official Algerian Press Agency had a special bulletin on the Salon, which was picked up by quite few newspapers.

Société Astronomique de France had a half page article in its August 2006 issue of its magazine "Astronomie" on the Constantine Salons with a vibrant call for a wide participation from Europeans amateurs to the fifth Salon. Furthermore, there was a special page on the solar observations carried out during the Salon at their site, la SAF Interactive.

We were also gratified with an extensive coverage by various radio channels: the national radio channel "La Chaine 3" broadcasted a report on the Salon in addition to an interview at its Noon news bulletin on the day of the opening; Cirta FM the local Constantine radio channel, run advertisement spots free of charge starting two weeks prior to the Salon in addition to an on the spot coverage. Médi 1, the Moroccan based international radio channel made an extensive segment on our Salon one week prior to it. The National TV, both the ENTV and Canal Algérie, broadcasted spots on the Salon prior to the event, and made a lengthy coverage in its mid-day news bulletin.