ALGERIA SWITCHES ITS WEEKEND

Algeria is changing its weekend, a transition that has caused confusion and given public sector workers a three-day break. The country has had a Thursday-Friday weekend since 1976, but is now aligning itself with other states in the region that have a Friday-Saturday weekend. Algeria established the Thursday-Friday weekend in 1976 in what was seen as an assertion of Algeria's post-colonial identity as it tried to distinguish itself from the West. Business people who deal with international markets or companies have long complained that the country has lost hundreds of millions of dollars each year because of the practice. Often restricted to just three normal working days a week, they had campaigned for the Friday-Saturday weekend that is observed in many other Arab countries.