Month: February 2017

Visiting Tunisia and Sardinia on a Mediterranean cruise

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This is the second part of Janet Landfried’s series on a winter cruise in the southern Mediterranean aboard the Viking Sea. The Viking Sea was one of the first cruise ships to return to Tunis since the massacre of 22 tourists at the Bardo Museum in March 2015. A few months later there was another attack on a beach near the city that resulted in 38 deaths. Both were the result of terrorists in Tunisia, a Muslim country, and the attacks specifically targeted tourists. The Bardo Museum is one of…

Seven times the English language drove the French mad

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As French language fanatics kick up a storm about the new English slogan for the Paris 2024 Olympic bid, we take a look at other times the French have lost their cool when it comes to the English language. When Chirac stormed out of an EU summit President Jacques Chirac left a 2006 EU summit meeting in a huff after a French business leader addressed the room in English. Despite English being the official language of the session, no one seemed to have informed Chirac, who interrupted the speaker to…

Int’l Women’s Film Festival opens in Aswan

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 Women and women’s issues are the focus of a new film festival in Aswan starting on February 20, which this year has gender violence as its theme. The International Women’s Film Festival will present 32 films from Egypt, Italy, Greece, Spain, Croatia, Morocco, Tunisia, France, Algeria, Iraq, Germany, Russia, China, Romania and Azerbaijan. The event, organised by independent artists with support from the Egyptian culture ministry and Aswan governorate, takes an all-round approach to women’s issues through an associated programme of meetings, conferences and workshops. There will be two competition…

Chokri Chérif, this brilliant researcher who sends to Germans the image of true Tunisia

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If the terrorist Anis Amri had tarnished the image of the Tunisian youth in Germany, fortunately eminent researcher Chokri Cherif, gave a much better and very brilliant image that honours all Tunisians. At the head of a team of 205 people, he was granted the prestigious Technological Innovation Award for the future. The President of the German Republic awarded him the prize personally last November 30 at a ceremony attended by several hundred of the most renowned researchers. This high-ranking distinction, which has been widely acclaimed by research laboratories, has…

Logis launches taking Tunisian real estate online

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Online real estate portal Logis has launched in Tunisia, aiming to simplify the process of buying, renting or selling a property, and empowering consumers with real estate data. Logis launched last month (January), claiming to be the first unified portal in Tunisia to offer listings from real estate agents, landlords, and property developers all in one place. The startups aims to provide an all-in-one real estate site that gives consumers the local scoop about homes for sale, apartments for rent, local real estate agents, real estate market prices and trends,…

Canada Needs To Recognize The Reality Of Islamism

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What you said in the wake of the Quebec City mosque attack on the Tout le monde en parle talk show on Feb. 5, 2017 about your former comrades is true. Indeed, as everywhere in the West, people from the Maghreb and the Mashreq have gradually become ”Muslim” in the eyes of the Canadian population. When my grandfather spoke to me of Tunisia where he had lived a few years with my mother, he was never referring to a ”Muslim” country, but rather to an ”Arab” one. At that time,…

Meeting between Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia on Libyan crisis moved forward

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A tripartite meeting between Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria to discuss resolving the Libyan crisis will be held on Sunday instead of 1 March, the Tunisian foreign ministry announced on Friday. In an official statement, the Tunisian ministry said that upon consultation with the Egyptian and Algerian foreign ministers, it was decided that the meeting, hosted by Tunisia, be brought forward. On Thursday, Foreign Minister Khamis Alaghinawa announced Tunisia is set to host on 1 March a much-anticipated tripartite summit on the Libyan crisis. The meeting will tackle the results of…

Tunisian army kills two militants in mountain clashes

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Tunisian troops killed two Islamist militants during clashes in the remote mountanous region near the Algerian border on Friday, the defence ministry said Friday. Weapons were also seized and another militant was reportedly arrested in the raid. The ministry said that the operation took place in the Sammama mountains, where security forces have since 2015 been battling al-Qaeda-linked militants who are based there. In 2015, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for three major attacks on Tunisian soil, which killed 72 people. The most deadly of these attacks were committed…

Hackathon student makes a difference with data for native Tunisia

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University’s annual hackathon, 36-hour marathon of data-crunching and problem-solving, runs this Friday through Sunday. Anis Kallel ’17 received a Renaissance & Global Scholarship from the University four years ago. The full-tuition, four-year scholarship is offered annually to about 20 students who are academic all-stars and have unique backgrounds that add to the diversity of the student body. Kallel was shocked and thrilled. But mostly, he was grateful. “I was given something most people wouldn’t dream of receiving,” the computer science and business dual major from Tunisia says. “That comes with…

Caïd Essebsi receives telephone call from Donald Trump

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President Béji Caïd Essebsi received a telephone call from U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday afternoon. During the telephone call, both sides reviewed the main steps marking the historical relations between Tunisia and the United States which date back to over two centuries and the constant evolution that they are experiencing. According to a statement of the Presidency of the Republic, the two presidents commended the level of bilateral cooperation, affirming their commitment to further promote it in all fields, “given the role Tunisia plays as a key partner of…