Month: February 2017

Tunisian entrepreneurs get powerful ally in D.C. startup

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Using technology to overcome political and geographic obstacles is more important now than ever. That’s the idea fueling Shahed Amanullah, a serial entrepreneur and a Muslim American who has been vocal about Trump’s immigration policies. When President Trump issued the refugee and travel ban last month, Amanullah and his cofounders at Affinis Labs felt a new sense of urgency to scale Minbar. Minbar is a platform aimed at helping entrepreneurs in underserved markets with everything from formulating startup ideas to raising capital. Affinis Labs, based in Washington, D.C., launched Minbar…

Tunisia to accelerate reforms as IMF freezes loan: minister

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Tunisia is likely to sell stakes in three state-owned banks this year and cut up to 10,000 public sector jobs as part of reforms demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which has postponed the payment of the second tranche of a loan, the finance minister said. Six years after its 2011 pro-democracy uprising, Tunisia is struggling to make economic progress. Last June, the IMF released the first tranche of a loan worth $320 million. Finance Minister Lamia Zribi told Reuters in an interview a second payment had not been…

Trilateral Initiative and Haftar’s intransigence

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Despite the different Libyan struggles and the discrepancies between the internal and external stakeholders of the Libyan conflict, the general picture depicts that the controversy is limited to the commander of the army of the House of Representatives (HoR), General Khalifa Haftar, who refuses talks, signaling the military solution, there is where observers are trying to include him within foreign interferences in Libya, bargains for that party or another. According to a report by Al-Araby Al-Jadeed website (translated here by LIBYAPROSPECT), Haftar’s ambitions are no longer about the army command…

Morocco looks to new markets to boost stagnant tourism

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Morocco’s key tourism sector barely grew last year amid security challenges, but operators are hoping Chinese and Russian visitors will boost their fortunes in the coming years. While political turmoil and jihadist attacks have battered the sector in Egypt and Tunisia, Morocco registered 10 million visitors last year, according to the Moroccan Tourism Observatory. That was a barely perceptible rise of 1.5 percent from 2015, it said. But hoteliers in the narrow streets of the capital Rabat’s old city were cautiously positive. “Last year was better than 2015. And the…

Kasserine Pass: America’s Most Humiliating Defeat of World War II

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Beware a Desert Fox when he’s cornered. It was North Africa, in the winter of 1943, and American soldiers were feeling cocky as they prepared for their first ground battle against the Germans in World War II. So far, it hadn’t been a bad war for the U.S. Army. The GIs were well fed, well paid and well equipped, especially compared to their threadbare and envious British allies. Even better, their baptism by fire had been to splash ashore in Algeria and Morocco in November 1942, where the defenders had…

Italy deports two over suspected contact with Berlin attacker Europe

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Italy has deported two Tunisian asylum seekers who have been classed as a danger to national security, the Interior Ministry in Rome said on Saturday. One of the two is thought to have been in contact with Anis Amri, the Tunisian national who carried out a terrorist attack on a Berlin Christmas market in December. The 44-year-old is thought to have met the prospective attacker in June 2015 while staying with another man from Tunisia. That man has since landed in jail in Italy. Amri deliberately ploughed a hijacked truck…

Top Wheat Buyers Grow More of Their Own to Swell Global Glut

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North Africa farms recover from drought to boost output by 25% While still dependent on imports, region will be buying less As if the global wheat surplus couldn’t get much worse, some of the biggest buyers may not need as much. That could swell stockpiles already expected to be the biggest ever. Countries in North Africa like Egypt and Algeria — all dependent on foreign wheat to help keep their populations fed — probably will harvest 25 percent more on their own farms this year if the weather is as…

Belgium partly lifts travel restrictions for Tunisia

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Belgium has decided to partly lift travel restrictions for Tunisia. “Belgians can travel to Tunisia on the Mahdia-Monastir-Sousse-Hammamet-Nabeul-Tunis-Bizerte coastal route, but caution is recommended,” according to the latest travel advice posted Thursday on the website of the Belgian Foreign Ministry. Non-essential trips are not recommended in the rest of the Tunisian territory, while trips are formally discouraged in the border zones with Algeria west of the Tabarka – Jendouba – Kef – Kasserine – Gafsa – Tozeur axis, and in border areas with Libya south of the Tozeur-Kebili – Matmata…

Angela Merkel set to visit Egypt and Tunisia

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German government spokesperson Steffen Seibert announced today at a press conference in Berlin that German chancellor Angela Merkel is set to arrive in Egypt on 2 March for her official visit to the country, where she will meet with Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi. The German chancellor is also expected to meet with Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, Al-Azhar Grand Imam Ahmed El-Tayyeb, and Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II, before heading to Tunisia on Friday, 3 March to meet the Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebssi and Prime Minister Youssef Chahed who…

Tunisia to ban supermarket plastic bags starting in March

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Non-biodegradable plastic bags will be banned from Tunisia’s large-chain supermarkets beginning March 1, following on a similar decision in Morocco, said Tunisian Environmental Minister Riadh Mouakher, after reaching an agreement with representatives of large shopping centres. About a billion plastic bags are used each year in Tunisia, and supermarkets alone distribute 315 million of them, generating 10,000 tonnes of waste that take over 400 years to decompose. A law will be enacted by the end of 2017 banning the production, importation and distribution of disposable plastic bags, and their use…