Algeria Latest: At Least 3 Dead in Friday's Protests

1755 GMT: Protests took place today in the Kabylie region east of Algiers on Saturday, including in the cities of Tizi Ouzou and Bejaia.

The Government continues to combine denunciation and reassurance. Abdelaziz Belkhadem, a representative of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, condemned protesters. He said oil revenues were improving living standards for Algeria's 35 million people, but improvements would take time as there had been no investment during fighting between the government and Islamist groups in the 1990s.

Minister of Trade Mustapha Benbada said urgent measures would be taken and promised, "From the start of next week, the situation will get better." Possible measures included fixed profit margins on goods such as cooking oil and sugar.

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in his third term, has not made any public comment on the protests.

1410 GMT: Minister of Interior Daho Ould Kablia has issued his first statement on this week's protests.

Ould Kablia said there had been two deaths, one in Msila and one in Bou Smail. (Reports indicate there were three deaths, two of them in Msila.) He claimed that there were 320 police and security forces had been injured but less than 100 demonstrators.>

The minister said the death in Msila was that of "a young man who was shot dead when he tried to break into a police station".  He deplored the "criminal acts", guided by "vengeful instincts", of the protestors, and he insisted that the actions had "nothing to do with economic problems".

1045 GMT: Yesterday we reported that an 18-year-old, named initially as Lebza Azzedine by activists and later corrected to Azzedine Labz, had been killed by police fire in clashes in Msila in northern Algeria.

Now news of two more deaths emerges. Agence France Presse reports that a 32-year-old died Friday during a demonstration in Bou Smail, a small town 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Algiers. He was apparently killed after a tear gas grenade exploded in his face.

A second protester died today from gunshot wounds sustained yesterday in Msila.