Category: opinion

The government of President Béji Caïd Essebsi is working with the IMF and investors to turn around the economy within the next three years. Tunisia’s government considers the country’s post-2011 political transition a big success, but the economy has been sputtering. The ratings agency Fitch downgraded the country’s credit rating in late January, at a time when the government was in the market to raise $2.8bn in order to meet its national budget deficit. Fitch cited government uncertainty, a weak tourism sector and a lack of investment as causes for…

A controversial ban on carry-on laptops and tablets on flights from the Middle East to the United States and Britain went into effect Saturday — with less fanfare and frustration than expected. From Dubai to Doha, passengers on dozens of flights checked in their electronic devices, many shrugging off the measure as yet another inconvenience of global travel. “It’s a rule. I follow the rules,” said Rakan Mohamed, a Qatari national who flies from Doha to the US two to three times a year. “The bigger problem for my family…

One in five youths in several North African countries and Lebanon would like to emigrate in search of better prospects, including those with university degrees, according to a survey conducted for the European Commission. The survey of 10,000 people in Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia found a deep sense of “frustration and social exclusion”, according to Elena Sanchez-Montijano at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB), who coordinated the study. In Tunisia, 53 percent of youths said they wanted to emigrate, according to the report released on Thursday, six…

As I talk to him, Ahmed pulls his chair into his store to escape the hot Tunisian sun. He is a retired teacher – the years of screaming children can be counted in the rings framing his eyes. Behind him is his merchandise. To make up for a small pension, Ahmed is selling kitchenware in a market near the Libyan border, over four hundred tiny concrete garages surround him, goods piled high: clothes, bags, microwaves. It looks like any other market, but note an invisible detail: everything sold here is…

More Muslims join Isis from the north African country than anywhere else. Michael Binyon visits a project orientating them in their community. Even political Islamists agree that only jobs, education, better living conditions and more social justice can counter the lure of Islamic State. Tunisia, the only country to emerge relatively unscathed from the Arab Spring, has seen more young men join Isis fighters in Syria and Iraq than any other Arab country — with at least 5,000 joining the militants in Mosul and Raqqa. Yet Tunisia is fairly prosperous,…

In her paper “Where Have All the Revolutionaries gone?,” Sarah Yerkes asks why young, non-Islamist Tunisians have abstained from participating in formal politics since the Tunisian revolution, and assesses the effect of this trend on the health of Tunisia’s democracy. Yerkes begins by analyzing the low level of non-Islamist youth participation in formal politics. She describes what formal political participation looks like and explains why youth participation matters in the context of post-revolution Tunisia. Yerkes then examines the discrepancies between the expected rate of participation and the actual rate of…

One year after launching a deadly attack in the eastern town of Ben Guerdane, the threat of Daesh militant group seems to have receded in Tunisia. Last year, Daesh militants staged deadly attacks on military and security posts in the town near Libyan border, killing 12 soldiers and seven civilians. Dozens of militants were also killed in ensuing clashes with government troops in the town. Security experts said the attackers had come from the western Libyan city of Sabratha after a U.S. drone struck their training site there. Prior to…

Within the domestic political climate full of hate, gossip and lies…, Tunisian people begin to lose faith in politicians and politics .This is  very dangerous for a Nation  set to build its volatile democratic transition with enthusiasm. The escalation and tensions on TV channels  which constantly occurred between some well known politicians as well as the leaks of fake or  correct news about their attitudes or behaviours , such as the last leak of a video of an inner meeting led by Hafedh Caid Essebssi. These samples do not give…

More than 1 in 4 deaths of children under 5 years of age are attributable to unhealthy environments. Every year, environmental risks – such as indoor and outdoor air pollution, second-hand smoke, unsafe water, lack of sanitation, and inadequate hygiene – take the lives of 1.7 million children under 5 years, say two new WHO reports. The first report, Inheriting a Sustainable World: Atlas on Children’s Health and the Environment reveals that a large portion of the most common causes of death among children aged 1 month to 5 years…