35 Burst results for "Tunisia"
The Charlie Kirk Show
The Never-Ending Speaker Saga
"Right now there are speeches in favor of Kevin McCarthy that are happening right now in the House vote. So basically where it goes right now is there are 20 people, 20 Republicans that are withholding any support whatsoever for Kevin McCarthy. Several of them are going to join our program. We have Mike Gallagher again from Wisconsin, who is giving a speech in favor of Kevin McCarthy. This is a great way to get me not in favor of your cause as Gallagher gave a speech yesterday. He said, look, there's a lot that we disagree with. We want to be energy and depend on all this, but we can all agree with the Democrats that we need to fight our enemies abroad. And I was like, oh man, this is just another virtue signaling towards Ukraine. It drives me nuts. So I would have this guy to stop talking. I would not have him as the lead act, not exactly helpful. But especially for those of us that I don't know, want our own border secure while we fund border security of Tunisia, Lebanon, Syria and Pakistan. All right, so there are 20 Republicans that are saying I am not going to give any support whatsoever to Kevin McCarthy. It seems as if though, the McCarthy team gave a very generous deal last evening. A deal that would include representation on the rules committee, a deal that would include a prohibition from engaging in primaries. I'm going to talk about that and what that actually concretely can mean. If these deals are going to be followed through upon if they are built on actual trust, if they're not just being said for the sake of trying to get a deal done so that one could become Speaker of the House. These are all very, very big ifs, one, two, three, four, 5 gifts. There are also negotiations on House floor votes on the Texas border plan on getting a house floor vote on term limits. If I were advising the McCarthy team, I would say just give those away. Those mean nothing. I mean, you should have, you should have house floor votes on term limits anyway.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Newt Gingrich Tears Into Republicans Over Speaker Vote
"Gingrich has some wisdom to share. That has made some headlines. Let's play cut 26, please. You know, Lincoln in his first inaugural warned that the problem of secession is once you establish that principle, then everybody can secede from everybody. These 5 people need to take a deep breath tonight and ask themselves, are they really want to send a signal that every 5 people in the conference can screw up everything for whatever reason? They were three of them one end and presented Kevin McCarthy with 30 some different demands. Most of them involving personal advancement and in a free society, you can not just as you can't give into terrorists and you can't give in to hostage takers. You can't allow them to take the conference hostage and win. You know, I don't think newt meant that literally because the left calls us literal terrorists and uses the national security apparatus to come after us. But let me continue to build out an argument that I floated the base has been looking for a pressure release valve ever since the midterms. We had our hopes up for Carrie Lake. We had our hopes up to win seats in the Senate. We had hopes up for Herschel Walker and for Blake masters. And so we had a very disappointing showing in the midterms. We had a disappointing showing in the Georgia runoff. And then how does Mitch McConnell the turtle thank us? How does D.C. act after a disappointing midterms? We get an inexcusable, 1.7 trillion dollar bill that is now law that sent money to every LGBTQ fantasy camp that sent money to go secure the border of Tunisia Oman, Pakistan, and Lebanon, while disallowing any money, to be spent on our own southern border.
AP News Radio
The latest in sports
"AP sports, I'm Ben Thomas, on a big day in college football and the big game had Ohio State hosting Michigan. Then in cap on how it played out. CFP number three Michigan stuns number two Ohio State 45 23 JJ McCarthy threw for 263 yards and three touchdowns and ran in another to help Michigan outscore Ohio State 28 three in the second half and approved a 12 clinching a spot in the Big Ten championship game. Job's not finished. We got so much more to do. CJ Stroud sauce for 349 yards and two touchdowns, but it was too late interceptions that sealed the buckeyes fate, Ohio State drops to 11 and one. Number one, Georgia overcame a slow start to beat Georgia Tech 37 14 and finish another undefeated regular season one number four TCU crushed Iowa state 62 14. But Michigan's decisive victory over Ohio State does offer some hope for playoff aspirants. Correspondent Mark Myers reports in USC took a giant step closer with a 38 27 win over Notre-Dame. Quarterback Caleb Williams encountered for four touchdowns, one passing in three running for the now 11 in one Trojans. Williams is now considered the leading candidate to capture the Heisman Trophy. But LSU tripped up falling to Texas a and M 38 23 head coach Brian Kelly. We just, for some reason, we're off today. In Clemson lost by a point to South Carolina, Alabama took the iron bowl 49 27 over auburn, coach Nick Saban says, despite two losses, the crimson tide merit playoff consideration. This team didn't give up on themselves. They didn't give up on each other. They kept fighting and won some tough games. Tennessee thrashed Vanderbilt 56 to nothing while Oregon state stunned Oregon 38 34. In the NBA, the raptures Lakers rockets and sons all winners, the NHL, oilers, hurricanes, blues, Maple Leafs, Devils, islanders, avalanche and Canucks at the World Cup Argentina over Mexico, France towns, Denmark, Australia beat Tunisia and Poland topped Saudi Arabia. Ben Thomas AP sports.
The Charlie Kirk Show
What Is the Driving Force of the Global Red Wave?
"Idea that the everyday man has power against the great reset is popular in Sweden. It's popular in France. It's popular in Italy. What is the driving force of this though? Well, you see Europe even more so than America. Europe has been a Petri dish. It has been a mass open air experiment of neoliberalism of open borders of social liberalism and the intentional deterioration of language, borders, and culture. Europe has been for the last decade at really two decades. A nonstop. Living example of what happens when you allow unfettered Middle Eastern mass migration, the punishment of small business and the consolidation of decisions in the Brussels, the destruction of traditional family values, such as going to church and raising children properly, know all of that has been put on the chopping block. And now there is a reaction to it. And Europe is not just feeling the excesses of what happens when you say there's no such thing as a man or a woman or what happens when you bring in tens of millions of people from the Middle East when your own citizens can't eat and can't find functioning flourishing jobs. But also inflation proxy war is abroad in Ukraine. The borders continue to be wide open. Italy has been more so than almost any other country, a mass recipient of illegal migration from North Africa, from Tunisia, coming onto the shores of Italy. You see, at the top levels right now, we are seeing a challenging of the international world order. The international world order that is pushing transhumanism, the merging of man and machine, the destruction of western currencies, the fail safe is the people. Is you.
AP News Radio
2 sets down, Djokovic wins 26th consecutive Wimbledon match
"He had to erase a two set deficit to do it but Novak Djokovic prevailed over ten seated Yannick sinner by 7 two 6 6 three 6 two 6 two for his 26th consecutive victory at the all England club Djokovic is pursuing a fourth straight Wimbledon title He'll face Britain's cam nori in the semifinals nori also needed 5 sets to defeat David Goffin reaching his first Grand Slam semifinal On the women's side third seated on stubber and Tatiana Maria also reached their first Grand Slam semifinals jabir from Tunisia is the first Arab woman to reach a Grand Slam semi I'm Ben Thomas
The Economist: The Intelligence
"tunisia" Discussed on The Economist: The Intelligence
"The quality.
Mike Gallagher Podcast
You're Probably Not on the Side of the Good Guys When...
"I saw a tweet last night that got my attention. Yesterday we spent some time conservative amount of time, and we won't let this go the reporting from a freedom of information act request that suggests that American taxpayer dollars helped fund research that tortured beagle puppies in Tunisia with perhaps the NIH fingerprints all over that. And this tweet summed up the way many of us are feeling. The tweet says, when you're on the same side as the dude talking about Anthony Fauci, who approved beagle pups be locked in cages so their faces can be eaten alive by giant sand flies with the dogs having had their vocal cords severed, so they can not cry out in pain, you're probably not on the side of the good guys. And that line is sticking with me. You're probably not on the side of the good guys. If you're attacking police officers, who don't want to be ordered to get a vaccine. You're probably not on the side of the good guys who believe that parents have no right to have any say in what their kids curriculum
Mark Levin
White Coat Waste Discovered Fauci’s NIH Division Funded Dog-Killing Experiments
"But this is sickening This is sickening and the fact that the buck never stops with Fauci is unacceptable It's unacceptable from the Wuhan lob You know the excuse always is that he can't be directly connected It doesn't matter Bipartisan legislators demand answers from Fauci on cruel puppy experiments The white coat waste group are investigators show that Fauci's NIH division Fauci's NIH division should part of a $375,800 grant to a lab in Tunisia To drug beetles excuse me To drug beagles lock their heads in mesh cages filled with hungry sand flies so that the insects could eat them alive Now most of the members who sign this letter to Fauci Republicans was a few Democrats so they all look at this it's bipartisan but mostly it's not A bipartisan letter demands answers from the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases That would be Anthony Fauci The white coat waste project the nonprofit group that first pointed out the U.S. taxpayers were being used to fund the controversial Wuhan institute of virology Now that should have got his ass kicked all the way across the country Have now turned its sights on Anthony Fauci and another animal testing related matter infecting dozens of beagles These are puppies With disease causing parasites to test an experimental drug on
The Charlie Kirk Show
Fauci Under Fire for Sick and Twisted Beagle Puppy Experiments
"According to documents obtained by a freedom of information request, white coat waste project and subsequent media coverage, from October 2018 to February 2019, NIA spent $1.86 million of taxpayer funds on drug tests involving 48 beagle puppies. The dogs were all between 6th and 8 months old the commission test involved injecting and force feeding the puppies and experimental drug for several weeks before killing them and dissecting them. Fauci funding experiment again in Tunisia, as we mentioned where they had to have starved, sandflies, beast on them alive. The invoice to the naid for the actual work was four or dect. Known as devocalization involves slitting a dog's vocal cords in order to prevent them from barking, howling or crying. Approximately 30% of all the promising medication have failed in human clinical trials because they are found to be toxic, despite promising preclinical preclinical trials and animal models. But 60% of the candidate drug fails due to lack of efficacy. The people who fund the torture of dogs should not be able to make medical decisions about your children. The people that have time and time again said that we want beagles heads to be eaten alive by sandflies in Tunisia, which again is something out of some sort of James Bond movie. What does that say for the type of leader that we actually have in the federal health bureaucracy? What does that say actually for Fauci and for Francis Collins themselves and now Fauci comes out and he says that he wants to have vaccines available for children than the first week or two in November. Some people are gonna say these two things are unrelated. I won't. Anyone who tortures beagles, I'm gonna stop listening to you about anything. Like you're a sick person. You need
The Charlie Kirk Show
How Dr. Fauci Funded Dog Killers
"Breaking of the weekend was a series of documents that were obtained through a freedom of information request. It was obtained through an effort to try and get to the bottom of the medical experiments or the medical experiments that Fauci has been conducting over the last couple of years. These documents came out and we learned that Fauci, personally directed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a division of the National Institute of health to repeatedly fund research where he placed sedated beagles heads while they were still alive in mesh cages and allowed starved sandflies to feast on them and eat them alive. Beagles they then repeated the test outdoors with the beagles placed in cages in the desert overnight for 9 consecutive nights. In an area of Tunisia where sand flies were abundant. Now before we go any further, this is something like a James Bond villain would do. This is something that in a halfway through the movie of goldfinger where they kind of come in and they zoom in kind of panoramic. All of a sudden the Bond villain is like torturing beagles in Tunisia. Like that's not that's not normal, okay? For the public health official. The guy that's supposed to be in charge of epidemiological spread, like, okay, we're gonna go torture dogs and Tunisia. They repeated the test outdoors with the beagles placed in cages. In the desert overnight for 9 consecutive nights the experiment was just one of countless tests. Done on animals with your taxpayer dollars, but when you go to work and you work hard and you go write that check to the Internal Revenue Service, you are funding dog torture.
Monocle 24: The Globalist
As Tunisia’s President Cements One-Man Rule, Opposition Grows
"Two thousand and eleven revolution in tunisia triggered the arab spring and the country was hailed as a beacon of democracy. But now after the president's qeisi edge gave himself polit rule by decree two months after he sucked. The prime minister suspended parliament and assumed executive authority. Several thousand people have demonstrated against him in the biggest show of public anger since his coup. Well joining me. Eliza volkmann a freelance journalist based in tunis elizabeth. Thanks for coming on. How has tunisia reach this point. Since the heady days of two thousand eleven what happened to the democratic gains the the big problem in tunisia has been a downward spiral intensive While it's been negative economic development unfortunately The there's been a lot of problems within parliament's because the complicated list system has meant that this never been a majority policy. So one of the big problems politically is that you've just had this very kind of rambunctious politics point-scoring within the assembly and not the type of results that would have liked to
BBC Assignment
Nigeria Beat Liberia in World Cup Qualifiers
"News down African qualifying for the 2022 World Cup where the Leicester City striker Colecchia Natural scored twice for Nigeria, who kicked off their Group C campaign with a comfortable two nil victory of a Liberia well, Nigeria will be with that natural and other top players for their next game, however. As Cape Verde drew 11 with the Central African Republic is on the UK government's covid red list. It means that anyone entering such a country would need to quarantine for 10 days upon their return to their English Premier League club. The two time African champions Every coast were held to a goalless draw in Mozambique, sides kicking off their in Group D Cameroon had a decisive two nil win over Malawi. Also on Friday, Tunisia went top of Group B, They beat Equatorial Guinea three nil. Zambia defeated Mauritania and in the group G Open in South Africa were held nail nail in Zimbabwe, Ghana beat Ethiopia one
Monocle 24: The Foreign Desk
"tunisia" Discussed on Monocle 24: The Foreign Desk
"Even if they were happy to see the back of the parliament the question now is kind of where is this going and how with one person having so much power. What is he going to do without power if he's gonna come under different pressure pressure weather. That's because who's he's relying on for money or because he's faced with big problems and into satisfy people's expectations in terms of improving the economy which might mean that he starts to put up marrying protections around him needing to more authoritarian way of governing. Another worry that people have is the high side isolated. So he's he doesn't have a political posse. He doesn't have political allies. He founded ally in the military but since he's weak in that sense i think that is also a worry for people one in a volatile in terms of decisions to make but then also other people are worried that maybe even though who someone else will swoop in and then we'll be sort of coup on the coup. Let's talk about the party who have been abruptly ejected from power. This would be nada. How have they responded of putting together any kind of unified response to their removal from office or of a turning on each other in the grand tradition of recently ousted political parties response to this has seen niba lucien since the twenty fifth july. At first they much more confrontational the leader of the party. Who's also the speaker of parliament's rushed of new she. He went to the parliaments to demand to be latin and he was not allowed in by the army and then he called on supporters. Another piece to stage sit-in in front of the parliament officer during that the next day. The party called on that sports is to go home. And for memphis. Parsons taken a much more conciliatory approach and has called for dialogue. I mean speaking to within the posse is having its own internal problems which is not new in particular. There is opposition opposition to south. some members. feel that he's clinging to power that there's lack of internal democracy within the party and lost week. The posse had a meeting in which members even walked out and said that they weren't going to be bound by the decisions of that meeting and some members of also publicly asked for the party's executive bureau to be dissolved. So it's kind of interesting to see the these divisions which already existed instead. It's kind of being united against a common enemy. If you like. It seems to have really deep in those divisions and exacerbated the crisis luckily for rudy. Thank for joining us. You're.
Monocle 24: The Foreign Desk
"tunisia" Discussed on Monocle 24: The Foreign Desk
"Ten years ago. Tunisia was the one. We still felt hopeful about elsewhere. In the middle east. The revolutionary flourishing of democracy which had become known as the arab spring was beginning to with libya. Egypt and syria would descending into chaos or worse but tunisia where the arab spring had. I bonded seem to have embraced the opportunity. Free elections would just months away. The ceiling thereafter was not always smooth. There was an amount of political turmoil. A good deal of economic turbulence a sequence of hideous terrorist attacks but the democratic settlement seemed to be holding. There were presidential and parliamentary elections in two thousand fourteen and two thousand and nineteen on july twenty fifth year. It all came unstuck. President k is sayid suspended. Parliament and sacked. The prime minister hisham machichi. The proximate cause was widespread protests against the government's handling of the cova nineteen pandemic and against the government's handling of pretty much. Everything else president saieed appeased determined to rule by decree is this. The end of tennessee is democracy a decade after tunis throughout one dictator. Have they acquired another. And what does it tell us that. So many tunisians celebrated his decision. This.
Venture Stories
"tunisia" Discussed on Venture Stories
"And so if it's real estate if it's actually going after engineers more specifically if it's kind of these other vertical labor pools like it just seems like there's a rig up is a great example like there's there's so much opportunity to create a type of network and that type of marketplace so that's an area that i continue to be excited to speak to entrepreneurs about have you looked at labor marketplaces. Or what's what's what's your take on what's going to work in you know in labor markets for this tunisia or not. I think there's a reason we're seeing a trend towards labor marketplaces in service marketplaces. And i think it is this arc of getting into closer and closer to the the transactions and closer and closer to the meat of what's happening at the end of the day it is about a human going and doing a thing and instead of saying connecting companies to like a restaurant to that in consumer eventually gets down to the actual labor itself. So i think it's an interesting category. We've invested in a company. Actually with benchmark called insta- work which is looking at labor market place in the hospitality industry. Feel very positive about but i'd say broader struggle with the where the exciting places thing because there are there are a lot of most vc's prognosticate quite a bit and are rarely three driven in some of them. You can read those pieces on their website. And so on. And i'm not saying that's the wrong or right for those firms. It seems to be the right thing. For at spark part of the ethos led to lead to a lot of new market creation. Companies is that we actually try to keep a beginner's mind about these kinds of things..
The Daily
"tunisia" Discussed on The Daily
"Do gone he quoted charles de gaulle. And it wasn't for a while that i had a chance to break in and ask him some questions. And how did that go. Not so well. I tried to break in and say well. Can you explain what happened to us. The other day in terms of having our reporting interfered with. Can you explain what your vision is for the country and you explain how dissolving parliament and firing your prime minister. How does that fit into your view of the constitution. And are you sure that what you're doing isn't authoritarian. And he just wouldn't answer. He and his advisors kept telling me no. This is not an interview. this was just a meeting. If you'd like to arrange an interview we can do that later. On you can apply for that but this meeting is over. Wow so this meeting. In which the president summons you to insist that. He's not becoming authoritarian and that he celebrates democracy and yet he never lets you ask a single question ends up in a way reinforcing. The idea that actually he is tilting into authoritarianism. Well it's not totally for me to judge but as a friend said to me later on there's nothing like a monologue on free speech where the person you're talking to doesn't get to ask a single question. I think it definitely reinforced the idea that this president wants to do things his way and not be held accountable for what he was doing. As you said it may not be for you to judge as a journalist but it is of course for the people of tunisia. And i'm curious after all this time you spend in the country. What your sense is that. They have to say about the president's actions and whether they are democratic or democratic enough. So what do you think of president translated. I found that pretty much. Every tunisian i talked to we had to get the day to was pretty happy with what the president was doing waiting for. Defer these days you know people said great. Somebody needed to step up and come up with a plan. Nothing such an easy and somebody needed to bring these corrupt politicians to justice.
The Daily
"tunisia" Discussed on The Daily
"This episode is supported by the lead. A podcast from wondering in the athletic that dives into the biggest sports updates of the day as told by one of the athletics reporters. The lead also goes beyond last night's scores to bring you the most interesting stories that take place at the intersection of sports and culture. All in about fifteen minutes for the next few weeks. The lead is turning his attention to the race for gold. in japan. follow the lead on amazon music. Spotify or apple podcasts. If you find yourself bewildered by this moment where there's so much reason for despair and so much recent to hope all at the same time. Let me say i hear you. I'm ezra klein. From new york times opinion host of the zircon show and for me the best way to beat back. The wilder feeling is to talk it out with the people who have ideas and frameworks for making sense of it from a days at the washington. Post to my time is editor in chief at vox and now as an opinion columnist the new york times. I've tried to ask the questions that matter to the people at the heart of those matters like how do we address climate change. The political system fails to act has the logic of markets infiltrated too many aspects of our lives. What do psychedelics teach us about consciousness. And what a sifi understand about our present that we miss. This is as ripon show. And there's going to be plenty to talk about. You can find new episodes every tuesday and friday. Wherever you get your podcasts. So vivian what exactly happened to you. What are these firsthand experiences. Well there were a couple of things and one led into the other. But i'll start with the first on wednesday. We were reporting in a pretty poor area of tunis talking to people about how their lives were going and how difficult it was for them to make ends meet. And i was sitting in a cafe doing an interview when the photographer i was working with taps my shoulder and said the police are on their way and pretty soon. These plainclothes cops showed up and asked if we were journalists and we said yes and they said that they would have to take us back to the local police station to make sure we were who we said we were and it didn't feel exactly threatening but i did know that before. I had even gotten to tunis. The local office of aljazeera. Which is the pan. Arabic tv channel had gotten shut down by the authorities. So we go down to the police station and we got a very strong sense that they were checking to see that we were journalists and not spies. You're being harassed. Basically it didn't feel menacing or scary in the moment in some ways it felt like a normal document check and they were nice to us by. They told us that we couldn't report in that neighborhood anymore. So they kept us from doing journalism right. And if you're evaluating evidence that tunisia maybe tilting towards authoritarianism. This is not a very good sign. It wasn't great. No but all the same. I didn't think too much of it and i wanted to. Just keep reporting but a few hours later i start noticing all these notifications from social media and people reaching out to ask me if i had been arrested and i think that's why i got the call that i got friday morning which was what so i got this call from the mysterious number and i picked up and a voice on the other end of the line. Said this is the chief of protocol for president k assayed. We would like you to please be at the presidential palace in an hour. Please dress formerly. The president would like to meet you. You being summoned by the president of tunisia. Yeah i was summoned by the president of tunisia and i wasn't appropriately dressed. What do you mean well. Let's just say it's very hot in tunis right now. And when i packed i was not expecting to meet the president i was expecting to cover protests so i get into a taxi and rush over to the presidential palace and luckily i had brought a button down with me that i could throw over my tank tops and after waiting a bit we meet the chief of protocol for the president. Who tells us this is how you will enter. This is where you'll will stand. This is where you'll sit. Please don't sit until you're told to. And then he looks down at my shoes which are practical sandals and i see this look across. His face of this is unacceptable and so before we go in. He brings out a pair of high heels for me to wear which are two sizes too big. What are you thinking at this point. What do you imagine. Your head is happening here. Well we had been asking for an interview and hadn't gotten anywhere. And so of course. I wanted to steer it into an interview and ask a few questions. But that's not what it turned out to be at all. What did it turn out to be. Well so i- clumped in and my two big heels and it's this very formal audience room where all the chairs are edged in gold and their chandeliers and it looks like a stage set and as it turned out. That's kind of what it was. Yeah there was a camera crew there and this meeting was hosted as a video on his official facebook. Page out of the cupboard mark and it turned out to be a lecture a lecture on the us constitution of all things dominate so. We sat down and the president starts talking and he doesn't stop these food. She's sitting very straight and or rating in this very resonant formal arabic student and he had this chief of papers to the right of him and one of them was this copy of the. Us constitution visit as for me and he even read some of it to me and french. Who sees the ferry lapeer and basically his point was. I'm not going to be a dictator. I respect the constitution. In fact. I taught the us constitution for more than three decades. I understand freedom of speech. I understand freedom of the press. And therefore i respect it in the tunisian constitution as well and the only reason i'm doing this now is because tunisia is in a desperate state mall about one hundred and just as abraham lincoln had to take extraordinary measures to save the united states of america so i have to take extraordinary measures to save tunisia during this moment of crisis. So almost compares. What he's doing to the civil war era in the united states exactly and at some point he quoted tocqueville alexis de tocqueville.
The Daily
"tunisia" Discussed on The Daily
"In the sofia tunisia usually the herbal beta. I talked to women who who said that they saw neighbors. Eating from the trash told us my shit is gone or his garbage virtually gone because people eat independently and a lot of less dramatic examples of people who just said i need to leave. It's.
The Lawfare Podcast
"tunisia" Discussed on The Lawfare Podcast
"He was detained. You know things like that that to me are not a good sign that he is heading towards a return to democracy again. It's still very early. So you know i think again. The west is probably waiting things out a little bit. I mean there are various things they could do. You have a lot of leverage from europe in particular where they can try to pressure a to stay the path of democracy to maybe allow parliament to operate while he's undertakings emergency measures. That would be a good start or to announce his roadmap tomorrow to appoint a prime minister. Tomorrow you know things that would be clear indications that he is planning to return tunisia to democracy gone. I think that would be very much in the interest of of tunisians and would help tunisia to keep moving forward and to address the challenges that it has right now in your view as an expert in this issue set. Somebody's worked for the united states government. What approach should the biden administration. Be taking to this challenge. Wait and see might might work for now. But what are the warning signs it needs to be looking for and what should its objectives be in managing its relationship tunisia through the course of this crisis. Is it necessary to end this action restrict this action. The focus need to be on preventing accesses by saieed like crackdown on the media or or major steps back in regards the civil liberties which the priority be. And how do you balance the different interests that are at stake here. So i certainly think that the us government is and should be paying really close attention to some of the warning signs of other red flags. The approach the media that i mentioned before the potential for the military to become politicized. That's another big one You know we've seen a lot of statements by human rights organizations on that you know this is just none of these are good signs that the path the signals that were seen so far do not point towards democracy or frankly to stability and i think this is a really important point that you know a lot of the people who are supporting sayyed believe that by taking on these extraordinary measures these anti-democratic measures that this is going to be what's best for governance in tunisia but the fact of the matter is that good governance comes about from good governance. It doesn't come about from hijacking. The political in from adopting anti-democratic measures cracking down against opposition. You know so. I think from the united states perspectives. They are certainly paying attention to. What are these measures. That site is taking you know and then practically when you look it against. The leverage of the united states has one of the biggest things right now is the millennium challenge corporation compact that was just signed into just about a five hundred million dollars compact that helps with development assistance to help improve the economy. Now that the morning challenge the whole premise of this is reward kind of the more for more principle that if you meet certain criteria including economic criteria but also political democratic criteria. You become eligible to receive one of these very large compacts. Now if you look at the language of the criteria that tunisia and every other country has to meet in order to receive this that includes very clear rule of law characteristics including an independent judiciary which if the president saying he is the public prosecutor. that doesn't exist. There's other factors that go into that. That would make tunisia ineligible to receive this money. So it's not just about punitive action. It's about legal action of what could actually happen if if president site doesn't return tunisia to democracy after this thirty day period. And the other piece of this. That i think is important to mention his idea. The term coup which you know is getting hotly debated. I don't think we should expect the united states to determine at this coup. This does not fall under the definition of us legislation regarding whether or not a coup occurred that that legislation really refers to a military coup. Which clearly this is. Not so i think the discussions about is this aku isn't as a coup. It's important to look at the law into the tunisian lawn to see you know if he's taking extra legal action..
The Lawfare Podcast
"tunisia" Discussed on The Lawfare Podcast
"In the other part because it's led by a party at reflects political islam in corporate in. It's kind of party. Ideology how they reacted to this. How has this been played into the debate. Between those two sides and to what extent have they been involved in any of these developments to the extent were aware of certainly seen some allegations that the u. e. in other states were somehow involved with president. Besides move is there any evidence of that or reason to believe that might be the case. The role of the other arab states is really important in what's happening now and what may happen in the future in tunisia up until maybe a year ago to actually was pretty much exempt from most of the interference that we've seen by various gulf states by turkey and egypt as well. We've seen this obviously play a lot of other places including next door. Libya to the extreme but to for the most part had been able to largely avoid that sort of interference. Although certainly eric states were interested in either the successor failure of tunisia's democratic experiment. But what we're seeing now. I mean there's all sorts of rumors as you alluded to that. Perhaps the side against political islam that uae egypt saudi potentially were in consultation with present site. I mean he's there's certainly question he's been engaged with those countries and has close relationships with those countries. The question is did they. Did he consult with them about his potential moves are not. We don't know that's all at this point. We don't have any sort of real data on the other side you know not. Surprisingly the strongest voice against sites moves globally has been turkey who has really has called his aku and said that its anti-democratic and that was sides. Actions are are unlawful. So we're certainly seeing rhetorically the to this kind of proxy battle play out over the role political islam in tunisia but again it's the started a little bit before this conflict. I think the big question is going to be depending on which sarah ford which path side takes is he providing an opening for more influence by the saudi arabia and egypt in tunisia to the detriment of tunisia's democratic transition. Or is he going to be able to kind of keep those interests at bay one of the things. One of the allegations of corruption that he's really forward is foreign influence in foreign funding of political parties. What this means is is qatar funding nasa among other allegations. So he's clearly going to be very careful about any appearance of influence by these other countries. And i don't think he's sitting there waiting for pots of money at this point from you or saudi arabia but should things go south and and he being desperate situation. I wouldn't be surprised if we did start to see an influx of cash from the gulf. Of course the goal states the other states in the region aren't the only ones that have a vested interest in tunisia and the direction it goes politically. The united states has provided a substantial amount of foreign assistance to geneva over. The years has provided at least rhetorical support and beyond rhetorical support as well for tunisian democracy at various stages as have european allies and a brother states how they responded to this latest action and what sort of policy responses seem to be much like they might be headed down the pike. Now there are few days in so far. The west united states in europe have largely been pretty benign in their response to this. I think it's fair to say that the west is in a kind of wait and see mode they wanna see where site is going We've heard from the us for example that they don't wanna alienate their relationship with president side which is understandable..
The Lawfare Podcast
"tunisia" Discussed on The Lawfare Podcast
"Of the military as you one of the things that's that's enabling him to keep going forward but so far i think they've relatively maintain their position as a political although again that's kind of the canary in the coalmine. If if the military turns of either direction. I think that'll be a really important signal to watch out for. I wanna come back to one of the other groups involved in this political debate that you've already mentioned but that plays a pretty prominent role in recent tunisian history and tunisian political scene. And that's not a party. That has kind of. I think it's fair to say been at the gram in of tunisian political discourse dialect for a lot of the post revolution period in particular russia ghannouchi. Who is the head of the party speaker of the parliament as you mentioned but as i understand it is also a leading. Kind of political theorist and islamic thinker. That has kind of tried to reconcile in not does islamic beliefs religious beliefs with a model of popular democracy In a way that is both palpable dinner national audiences that reinforces democratic norms and values and has done so by by many cops with some success. But this seems like a pretty major rebuke of nada and the role that they've played in the post revolution period. Not just in perhaps a nucci himself. How do they fit into this picture. How are they responding. And what does this mean for their. They're sort of legacy. Is clearly the main opposition forced to what site is. Do we think in part. Because they truly believe that what he's doing is is anti-democratic but also because they've become the main target of of the popular dissatisfaction being Has been a major part of all of the post revolutionary governments and in this past government in as i mentioned before they only hold about twenty five percent of the seats in parliament. But they're still the largest party in so the speaker of the parliament is honey. She from nasa. They are the most visible party when it comes to the current government and they've been at odds with president side from the beginning. There's been a lot of clashes over a variety of issues so here has a tremendous amount to lose and not frankly a lot to gain what we've seen it's been. i think. A little bit surprising is kind of the level of public vitriol. Against autho once all of this started to play out now. Certainly a lot of the in public wasn't really happy with before but it's as if sites moog's made it publicly acceptable for people to just go after enough to have primarily on social media. There's been a lot of just really angry. People who you know before may have felt that they weren't happy with them but didn't have the maybe the confidence to go out and express unin such a public and angry and kind of ugly manner. I would say so for nas. The big question is yeah. What's a teacher. What does the next government look like. Well enough to be a part of it at all. And i do think it's an important moment for a master to step back and say what did we do wrong. How can we make ourselves more appealing to the tunisian public each subsequent election. They lost a pretty dramatic number of seats. They came in the first election. Twenty eleven. with definitely the plurality of seats in and really by far the largest number so the question is you know. Do they change their tactics. There's been calls to remove from the head of the you know. He's in his eighties. People think he should retire. Let some younger folks take charge. And i don't know how that's going to play out. I mean they are certainly right now trying to figure out their next steps but the question goes back to you. Know will they be blamed for all of this for all the trouble for the ineffectiveness of the government. When again they were just one small party. In government certainly. They are to blame for some things. But it's not just an fault. There's a lot all the other political parties that were in there weren't able to accomplish anything either. And no tunisian government has been able to root out corruption has been able to tackle the economic crisis challenges that country faced since the revolution..
The Lawfare Podcast
"tunisia" Discussed on The Lawfare Podcast
"Tunisia has suffered from endemic corruption under the bonaly era but that corruption really has not been addressed in the decade since the revolution. And so you know the one thing that we really knew about him when he came to power that he wanted to tackle corruption and that was his main campaign issue. That's obviously not easy to do. He has not so far had a lot of success. But what we've seen as we've seen the situation unfold engineer. This is one of the pinnacles of what he's trying to do. He has said he wants to personally presided over. The trials of many members of parliament who believes are corrupt. He wants to really kind of move forward in prosecuting. Some of the business community who thinks her corrupt into the corruption is the main thing that we know about him. What we also know about him is that he is very much against the current division of power and so again when he decided to consolidate power into his own hands was not really a surprise. He's kind of been forecasting this for some time that he believes that. The parliamentary system doesn't work for tunisia. He wants to use to return to a presidential system. He's floated the idea of returning to the original nineteen fifty-six constitution and so we've seen that he has you know he approaches politics differently than tunisia's previous presidents describe for us a little bit. What is exactly he has done to precipitate this most recent crisis and i'm curious particularly and particularly because this these sorts of issues tend to be of interest to law audience. What his legal argument is because he's got an argument about why what he's doing is consistent with tunisia constitution. Isn't that correct. Yes so what he has done is he has said under article eighty of the constitution. Which is one of the constitutional articles that he has the power as the president to an act of emergency measures and the article is actually quite vague. Mean it does say that the president in exceptional circumstances under imminent threat to the country can take any necessary measures so that leaves it pretty wide open of what he is allowed to do. However when you look at the full text of the article there's a couple of things that he is required to do as part of that first of all before issue before invoking article eighty. He is supposed to consult with the prime minister and the speaker of parliament. Now they are saying that he has not done that. He says he did. Before he made his declaration they say he has not the other piece of this is really important is that he is supposed to then at when he makes us declaration parliament is considered to be a continuous session. And the idea here. Is you know balance of power. Division of power that while the president is undertaking Emergency measures the parliament is acting in a still able to be a check on power. What presidents i did was the opposite where he decided to freeze parliament for thirty days in said that while these emergency measures are in place. Parliament is not going to operate and this was directly tested when after he announced this speaker of parliament. Russia ghanouchi is well. Some other members of parliament tried to enter the parliament building to kind of test whether or not this was actually happening and they were held back by the military who refused to let them enter the parliament building. So i think it's pretty clear that while saieed is saying that he is. His actions are backed up by law at the very least idea to. Parliament is in a continuous session. That's not happening now. The big kicker to all of this is that the body that determines whether any of this is constitutional would be the constitutional court. It's kind of the equivalent of the united states supreme court who decides whether or not actions that are taken our constitutional. That body doesn't exist in tunisia. There's been over the years since the constitution was written in two thousand fourteen all sorts of political infighting. That's prevented the constitutional court from being formed prevented parliament from green on the nominees. That they wanna put forward for the court and in the end just a few months ago. Parliament did finally come to agreement on their nominees and present site..
The Lawfare Podcast
"tunisia" Discussed on The Lawfare Podcast
"Your keys on tunisia's democracy in crisis sir. Tunisia is a unique historical case. In a lot of ways it is really the one st that emerged from the arab spring of early in the last decade into what has thus far looked to be a fairly functional democracy with competitive politics political parties. Things along those lines but nonetheless it has faced more than its fair share of challenges and particularly in recent years. Give us a sense of the state of the tunisian body politic in the months and weeks leading up to this most recent crisis sure. Well i think this is a really important question because the idea that this political crisis started with president sides moves is just not accurate. You know the the political challenges the issues that brought about this the need according to the president to take emergency measures have been boiling four pretty much since the twenty nineteen elections that brought in this government in the first place and so what we saw was these elections brought in the most fractured parliament. In just history. Where the largest party. Which is the party at. Nasa only held about a quarter of the seats in the parliament and the rest of the seats were split up between a variety of parties including the introduction for the first time of two kind of extremist parties on either end on the one hand. You have the kerama coalition. Who is a salafist party. Who is to the right of nafta and then on the other side you have. The party led by nbc. Which is the free distortion party. That's calling for the return of the lira. Making argument that democracy is not worked for teasha. So you start off right away in two thousand. Nineteen when parliament takes it seat with this really polarized environment. Then you throw on top of that. The president present side who himself was an outsider. He was elected without a political party without any sort of real political experience in came in as a disruptor he kind of came in. Tunisia came to the populist wave that swept the globe a little bit late but he really represented what we've seen across the globe including you know. President trump united states and others in europe as someone that the people want they want change. They wanted an outsider. He was elected with overwhelming support. And then finally you add in the prime minister prime minister machichi who's actually handpicked by the president to kind of be his lackey. In a way us also technocrat was not supposed to be politically affiliated but right from the start when he was brought in in september. Twenty twenty machichi in present side just clashed even actively undermining each other left. And right really making it very difficult for anything to get accomplished. So this is just kind of this scene setter of what the situation was like as we came on to the situation. That's our on. Fold over the weekend. The person really at the center of this crisis is the president case. Sade who you mentioned before is it is a pretty unique political figure. Coming in to the scene as president without a political background without clear political support yet winning and overwhelming i think in the seventy percentile. Some are electoral win in two thousand nineteen elections tells about him. Who is he. Where did he come from. How does he fit into this political picture. Yes arizona's side was a political outsider. He was not someone for which a lot was known about because he is not a traditionally from the political system. He's a constitutional law professor. His nickname robocop. So what this means that. He is someone who was seen as a very stiff. He has this very kind of strict manner of when he speaks arabic. He comes off not as warm and fuzzy but was really respected by the people who elected him as someone who was going to tackle corruption. Tunisia has suffered from endemic corruption under the bonaly era but that corruption really has not been addressed in the decade since the revolution. And so you.
Worldly
"tunisia" Discussed on Worldly
"To that by saying you know we want democracy to flourish in tunisia and we support it but like not really kind of coming down or condemning either side and you see this sort of almost frozen position from the rest of the world to be like We don't really know what to do and like fingers crossed. Hope everything works out. Yeah and i think you know. Honestly admit some ways. I think that is a good response. If the hesitance is about hoping that tunisia has to work this out for itself and that these are the kinds of growing pains that you need to go through in order to build democracy a having you know foreign powers like the us or france you know change the former colonial power france the obviously the other big player here in terms of weighing in or taking action having them like commend enforced. Something or you know. Try to force democracy like. That's not a good way. I think we've seen historically to get people to buy into democracy or to get democracy to hold together right like you need the people themselves. The parties play. You know the ones with power to be themselves bought in. You can't impose democracy from the outside again as we've seen historically and so i think in some ways it's it's responsible for foreign powers to maybe kind of take a back seat and go like let's just see what happens. There have been calls for. You know more forceful statements from the us. But again you know for me. I think one like i said it's it's too early to even know what's really going to happen. And the initial statement saying we support democratic principles. We hope that tunisia holds to those. There could potentially be a role if things started. Turn poorly of like helping maybe foster dialogues. I think there there are some ways. I don't think for an intervention or interferences always like horrible negative. There are ways that that foreign groups from countries or or international organizations that are not tied to foreign countries ngos to play a positive role here. But i think like civil society in tunisia needs to be the one to take action here. And i think it's probably a good thing that the us in france aren't trying to impose some kind of really strict ultimatum. We do this xyz policy or else it seems like allowing another country to handle some business seems like a positive development. So far we'll see. I think it's worth dividing the possible international responses and this picks up on on some of the things you just said jan but i wanna systematize it. A little mets. Do i liked the three three three different buckets right like the first one is some kind of coercion aimed at changing the politics on the ground by forcing one side in this case it would be the president to give powers through sanctions or something some kind of course mechanism and then that's it has a pretty poor track record rate in part because what you're doing not just dislike forcible regime change alah iraq but you're trying to use something short of military force to convince the government to give up on something that's like a fundamental objective to their survival and their willingness to stay in power or like you've the us has been spectacularly unsuccessful at trying to sanction iran into giving up on being an islamic republic rate. It's like it's not going to work. Like incentives bright the incentives though that appeared to at times be the aims of us sanctions. Policy it's debatable. Whether that's what the goal was but that wasn't part the thing right and so so cursing like a real major shifts when the stakes are so is seems unlikely to me. But then there's sort of a sort of second way to think about coercion and something like sanctions or statements of frustration or anger short of sanctions shows. That the west is real mad at you. Right and part of that is that can be used for more limited objectives. Really like you want to release somebody from prison or stop a specific act of repression and that seems more doable. And so does using those as a as a signalling mechanism. Right if saying we don't like this behavior. We do not tolerate it. We do not condone it and other people in other countries should take note that this will meet with some kind of punishment Those have there's value to using course of tools along those lines whether or not they're called for yet in tunisia. I think is not clear. Like i'm not willing to say we need to do x. Policy to prevent side from doing why thing. Because i'm not clear exactly what the weifeng could be like what he's going to do next. We've talked about this at life to jump in quickly before we get to the c. bucket. Yes see buckets. Just to kind of put a little finer point on it when i was talking earlier about you. Want the person in power to be willing to potentially give up power rather than choosing to amass said power and the potential financial windfall. That comes from being in power. And i think that's where threats of not sanctions withdrawing. Us financial support and western financial support. Which has been significant in part to encourage democracy like okay. We're gonna help you that like. Yeah this is great Let's hear some you know financial assistance to try to make sure that this thing happens threatening to pull that could actually just raise the stakes like personally for of pursuing that path. So i think there are very specific ways that you're right that that that could be effective down the line anyway. See bucket you know. The last thing i wanted to talk about is a point that you made about the less coercive and more constructive role that international actress can play which is in fostering dialogue for and. It's not just getting people to chat. It's helping overcome the problem. That i was talking about at the beginning of this segment of lack of trust between different groups or the reason that we do international relations rate sponsored negotiations like you have the us. Brokering talks between israelis and palestinians for example or un held lead summits or five-party talks in various different circumstances. Is that the two principal actors who you're trying to get to come to an agreement. Don't trust each other enough to negotiate on their own and if they do talks will fail right. They will air irreconcilable grievances go down rabbit holes that be to know constructive solution. Try to litigated. Five hundred years of history or whatever depending on circumstance where it's you need some kind of international broker who both sides trust to help overcome the deficit in trust between the two sides and that rules harder to play when you're also trying to coerce one side into doing something so it makes sense to me that some foreign powers are keeping sort of wait and see stance because it may be valuable for them to be able to broker these talks if that's necessary between different domestic factions inside tunisia to get them to be like look you all can coexist inside a democratic framework. You can talk about this. I'm not saying we're close to a a situation where a conflict that requires. International mediation is happening. Just that i imagine that. This is the kind of thing that people in paris and washington are thinking about right now and are taking very seriously as a potential area in which they can assist in preserving and protecting tunisian democracy and i think it's a as both of you said i mean. Tunisia has a pretty strong civil society. It got to this point because of its civil society so we don't necessarily need the united states which i don't know how it's civil society is doing these days but i don't think it's still better. Yeah we've seen better days to intercede and say this is how it's done and i think the wait-and-see mode can be frustrating because it does not really sit quite right in sort of the larger biden foreign policy pro democracy agenda because you know president firing people taking power. It's it's a little uncomfortable. But at the same time. Ed you think there is the value in sort of trying to maybe. What sounds like a little bit of Say platitudes because obviously we do want to support political dialogue and those are values but not coming out. The side can feel a little bit uncomfortable in this context. But i think if we look at tunisia specifically makes sense a little bit of why. There's been some hesitancy on the part of some foreign powers to to get involved so we're going to leave it there. I want to thank our producers so if he longed for all of hard work as usual and you know go rate subscribe.
Worldly
"tunisia" Discussed on Worldly
"Clean them often. So it's that's the in the middle so anyway that's actually helpful given the amount of times that have had a fog out my glasses and the concerns that you probably have to pronounce arabic words on this show so no that's true that's helpful tip from your from your local arabic speaker so got you know like i said there's this announcement just recently in the last couple of days that there was going to be a investigation or there was an investigation under under under way into corruption against By the end and another party in parliament and so there was kind of just thought. Like oh is this. You know this. Crackdown on corruption. That was talking about and then judiciary which you know. The constitutional court like we said is not fully kind of constituted but the judiciary general is thought to be fairly independent in tunisia generally speaking and so they actually came out and said no. This was going on for a while you know. We started a few days ago before all of this happened. And their allegations unproven. I don't know the details yet. They're looking into it but allegations that an end the other party maybe be took foreign donations during the most recent election. So i think when when you studied has this point about corruption and about popular anger like john sadly there were massive protests on the streets calling for the prime minister to step down and calling on the president to get rid of them so when case they did this with the thought at least that he had a popular mandate and then and not a and its supporters at another opposition can have come out and sent their supporters into the street to counter protest to their kind of credit. I guess in the has since could have pulled back and said we want to have dialogue. Call for calm. I do think so far. It seems that everyone is really trying to like hope that you know democracy goes forward and really try to figure out a way through this crisis. But i think what's really interesting. Janai buffy to talk more about this because this is something that came up in your interview that people in tunisia many people especially the supporters of the president are maybe not super one hundred percent sold on democracy as the end all be all answer. The thing worth fighting for egner maybe more interested in you know understandably like having a government that's functional and that provides economic opportunity in healthcare deals with cove. Ed you're gonna talk more about that. Yeah and i think this kind of combines What you are saying. And what zach was saying about these underlying tensions between islamists islamists and the secular side of government and sort of tunisia's attempt to sort of figure out it's democracy on its own terms so to sort of like fast forward to how we kinda got here of course we know. The arab spring started in tunisia with fruit-seller setting himself on fire protesting corruption in sort of spread but in tunisia itself. The jasmine revolution created this sort of opening to democracy by basically taking down the authoritarian leader at the time president ben ali and so as i had said tunisia had really prided itself despite maybe having a authoritarian government on sort of the secular type of government that even though people in tunisia identified as muslim it was in part of the government and in the kind of transition to democracy that change with the and not the party and others sort of taking a role in government that they necessarily have before so this tension is very much still existing. So that's sort of one there and so with that tension you've had increased polarization between those who've really wanna see a secular government and all the kinds of scales on that and those who wanna see a more role for the islamic government so Is that said in hot. Is more of a moderate party. But then you also have more extreme groups kind of coming on the other side who wanna see an even greater role for political azzam and on the other side the more secular side. Of course you have. The president cited who is an independent. He was an outsider. Bit of a populous. You also have these parties. Who are kind of in parliament. An openly trying to call for the return of some sort of authoritarian rule. Basically saying like. Yeah we don't want democracy anymore because it's not working out for us. It hasn't delivered on the economic promise. The promise of bertie. And it's sort of you know kind of arguing that democracy is failing the the system of government in places failing and that is sort of the underpinnings of some of these protests. In why you've seen people who are cheering the president because they want someone to act and take control and there is a sense of we've been having national dialogues and we've been having parties change power. Nobody has really figured it out. So maybe there's somebody who can make it. So that i can afford my food and who i can go back to work and so i can get a corona virus vaccine and so that tension which again plays out on sort of not perfectly but sort of islamist and secular section is also paying out in tour of the vision of the government that tunisia might want to. We want more of strongman type government. That at least will purportedly or at least say they're gonna take our concerns into consideration deliver or do we want to go through this kind of messy divided government process. That seems to sort of be stuck in a stalemate. Yeah and i think for for americans who we live in a very offensively stable consolidated democracy right like we have had democracy for a couple of hundred and i think i as an american can relate to the frustration of divided government of congress not being able to act on like all sorts of things. Could you just please lake. Can you guys fix immigration and healthcare. Care all these other issues and even you know fighting about infrastructure and there's that frustration that like this divided government yes we we love democracy and yes we want people to have a say in their own government but at the same time i get it right like it's frustrating when the government doesn't do anything because they're just they're so much infighting so many sides have power that you can't nobody can move right and so i get that i think americans can kind of understand that it kind of visceral level and at the same time you know. It's just fault right but there. Democracy is very new and so it's not like it has that kind of built in. you know. This is the one thing that you need to fight for. Always this is like the founding of our country right like it's very new there because they had an authoritarian leader for very long time and it's understandable to have that frustration..
Worldly
"tunisia" Discussed on Worldly
"Apple podcasts or wherever you're listening to this show right now so if if you've heard one thing about the legacy of the twenty eleven arab spring. It's probably that. Tunisia is the only success story. The only country that had a revolution than that managed sustain a transition to democracy over the course of the past ten years but now in the past week a move by the president to consolidate power in his own hands to fire. The prime minister and dismiss parliament has raised questions about you know. Just how successful transition actually was is to show about to fall back into some kind of autocracy or is it going to make it through. What seems like a real crisis for this relatively young democracy. We're gonna talk about say unworldly. Part of the vox media podcast network. I'm zac beecham here. With the to jen's williams and kirby i almost said williams and wards. So jen's how're you doing this fine morning. Hello hi how are you. I like the you both initially. I don't know if this is gonna make it onto the final record. I like both initially set at the same time the as you coexist on worldly are slowly merging wii to be one master. Jen this is just one jet here so curvy. Why don't you start talking to us a little bit about like literally what happened in the past week or so in tunisia because it's it's the details are actually pretty important understanding situation especially the big question as to whether this is like a coup or something else. Yeah so to kind of set the scene a little bit Tunisia is coming through It's worse wave of the corona virus. Pandemic right now and also dealing with severe economic these are long standing but the krona virus pandemic of course has made them way worse. And so there's been a lot of discontent and dissatisfaction within tunisia about the kind of lack of action by the government to handle these these dual crises and so there have been protests on the street. In recent days and this culminated in tunisia's president kayce saieed in basically what he did. Was he fired. The prime minister and he suspended parliament temporarily for thirty days. Now just a quick side note here for sounds confusing. Tunisia's government is kind of set up so that the president has control of security and foreign affairs type of thing and the prime minister is sort of head of government so in control of the domestic ministries and so say you fired him and he fired a bunch of other ministers and basically said all right. I'm the one in charge and so basically justification for doing this was that you know there wasn't any action on the pandemic and it was an emergency and he had to sort of take control and shake things up and he has said that he's going to reinstate the government but he hasn't really given any sort of specifics but he did say he was justified in doing so in addition to sort of the the major things of firing the prime minister and Suspending parliament he also stripped the members of parliament of their their immunity. He also shuddered some news offices. Specifically al jazeera he since continued to fire some ministers. I believe this week fired. The head of the state run news agency is sort of general claim is there's been some fraud and corruption and he kind of needs to stamp out and so that has sort of left tunisia in this holding pattern of we have this president. Who's saying he's going to. He's taking control. He's going to take action but we don't really know where to go next yet. It's really weird jen. You did a really great piece Speaking with An expert series. Who has been covering and following tunisian democracy you know since the twenty eleven uprising and the transition and she mentioned that case. The president has declared that you know he can do this under this one article article eighty of the tunisian constitution. That says that you know in a state of emergency. Essentially that the president can do something like this and that normally the constitutional court would decide right like if if this is a coup or not if this is legal but the court doesn't have like all of its members because he's been blocking some of them and so like the court isn't even functional right now. Is that right. Yeah that's correct so essentially the constitutional court like what would be the equivalent of the supreme court that would decide whether these actions were legitimate or not isn't in place to actually make that decision. Which is i think a downside of having a new democracy when you don't have all of your institutions in place and that's kind of the big question here is whether What the president did was legitimate and is sort of a roadblock in this democratic rebuilding process or is the slide toward more authoritarianism. Yeah i i think it's important to understand the political divisions that underpin this 'cause it wasn't just the president was mad about covert handling re to my readers that's almost more of a pretext though there was widespread public discontent with the prime minister's handling cove hidden so that that gave the president's more legitimacy to act but rather it's a it's a reflection of deep political divisions inside the country and mistrust between different factions so The leading party in parliament right now is the and hot party. Which is slava faction. And they've been the most popular again. We're talking pluralities not majorities. There are lots of different parties. But they've been the most popular party in tunisia. Since the revolution and this is a pretty typical pattern in post revolution arab states because the Islamist parties tend to be more organized than other ones and have your stronger and easier to appeal to base at least immediately after the transition. They do pretty well. You sell listen to egypt to right. After the revolution in two thousand eleven that ended pretty quickly and the president by contrast is quite skeptical of islamism and is more of a secularist and fits with tunisia's general national self interest. Someone anonymously as a secular contrary rate as one that doesn't have much of a police for love in public life and so while the is very moderate islamist party or and they've shown at least for the past ten years evidence that they've been willing to abide by the rules of democratic politics and noughts used democracy as a means for destroying itself right and turning the state into an islamist authoritarian governments allah iran The president is still suspicious of the islamic presence in parliament. So it's easy to read this at least to me as a kind of hard line. Secularists statement that they've gotten kind of -pired of the presence of islamists in in thisiis government. The only factor. Obviously but i think it's a really important one understanding what's going on. Yes i think that's right and it's also important to note that just recently there's kind of an announcement about this investigation into potential corruption and allegations against an ida and another party. You're just gonna show me up by pronouncing arabic stop and tell you how to do the most like you don't need to do that. That's close the dow tried. I tried hebrew words. I can do spanish for just not language speak. Different languages i into the has sound is just friendly arabic lesson for the day. Imagine you're like fogging up your glasses to like.
Pod Save the World
"tunisia" Discussed on Pod Save the World
"Journalist. He's the founder and editor in chief of michigan which is english arabic language news outlet covering tunisia and he's also a nonresident scholar at the middle east institute he's calling in from tunis today Final thank you so much for doing shop my pleasure so on sunday the tunisian president suspended the legislature fired. The prime minister bunch of other members of of government. Can you give us sort of like the back story here. Why did he do that. What was his reasoning in the reaction. Been so far. Yeah well it depends on how far back you want to go but the that day There had been large photons. People have been calling for the government to step down for parliamentary frozen But there's been a sort of health crisis that the government really has been on top of The death rates in the world per population in recent weeks At a time when the government has hasn't really done much You've seen the prime minister actually a at a luxury hotel two days after the worst death rate and that was leaked by anti corruption watchdog group operation that they like they found him at this luxury hotel after he skipped town Well very unfortunately. The tourism minister are not minister. The transportation minister did share it on his instagram. Yeah so the the this. This group also I watch which is the the local chapter of transparency international They get a lot of blowers as well so they had information. I think in advance and they wanted to make a big deal and You know there's i think there's an democracy is it's good to have accountability for You know officials particularly public officials. Who who really can't afford that. They had this five star hotel that they were out on their salary So i mean that was that was just one buried blatant example but for months we've seen The response to kobe has been very punitive in. It's been locked You know economic activities. Slow down at the same time. He's seen the government raising prices of basic consumer goods as they're in the middle of negotiations with trying to maybe show the imf that they're serious about economic reforms So there's a series of factors that played into this Parliament itself has been extremely unpopular and getting less popular year after year. You've seen less than less people turning out for parliamentary elections A lot of people. Just don't think that. Parliamentary lee is the place where You know democratic politics is happening So this all filtered into christ himself stepping in and saying that You know. I'm going to interpret the constitution as this is an emergency situation And article eighty of the constitution gives me the power to To do these things now. Obviously there's been people disagreed with his interpretation and that sort of being played out now Between different groups of people. But i can tell you The initial response was jubilation for people who felt You know this is long overdue The felt like our government has stopped listening to him. That there was not really Anything being done by the two governments to today care people's basic needs whether that healthcare transportation economically You know you've just seen Case after case over the last few years of being a being the case and and particularly with this last government. So you know my neighborhood. I went out. It was way after curfew and everyone went out ten fifteen minutes. After the president's speech there are thousands of people in in in my neighborhood celebrating with fireworks and You know the shouting freedom. And how their horns. And more than i've ever seen in the in the peak of rush hour so that's just to give you a sense of the immediate reaction. Yeah well it's good to know that Idiot elite politicians who get themselves in trouble. Scrammed is kind of a universal thing at this point so even before this this big decision over the weekend minor standings there were like a whole bunch of series of demonstrations and protests what were those protests about what was it similar like a know sort of economic and covert based grievances or did they have a different flavor. Like how would you describe them I mean we've we've covered all different kinds of protests in the last Couple of years You we've had protests of people who for example are against police repression. There has been police repression Particularly poor neighborhoods. There was a Just a month ago. The there was a little over a month ago. There was a young man in deport neighborhood has died in police custody on and his family said that Police have actually beaten on the head. He bled to death and then they dumped on the side of the road. So and that's something that you we've. It's not the first time that we've seen young men killed by police. There's been Particularly young men from poor neighborhoods or or poor regions of the country That we've we've we've seen quite a few. There's there's even a couple of websites that have like tried to to to list them all out and you were rarely see police facing justice for that So that's you know that's one example of some of the protests but definitely economic issues. I mean the fact that You had these sort of punitive Lockdown measures curfew. You've had curfew in place For months at a time. hasn't really affected The spread the infection rate of kovic so extensively for that but You know the the net effect was particularly. You know cafe owners people who work at cafes. There's sort of a knock on effect on the economy where people are really suffering as a result of particularly as you know. Prices of basic goods are going up. You know we've seen about seven. Eight years of the dean. Are the local cars the devaluing as well so it's so people aren't getting as much as as as they were while at the same time sort of wages are stagnating so those are some of the economic issues. The police issues You know there's there's there's some some neighborhoods feel completely cut off from other areas of tunis because there's no public transportation and that's gotten worse and worse with with increasing up relation but not an increasing investment and public transportation. So that's you know. I could list at several of the mountain view but just sort of a sense of the anger. that's been building over time And i i would also remember. That just reminds maybe listeners. The two thousand eleven they were the revolution You know there wasn't a lot of resolution for the people who were Who had gone out and done the revolution who were injured by security officials. At the time right there was about three hundred people or more who were killed by security officials and and there wasn't really justice for them. There wasn't really state acknowledgement of them. A lot of them The families of these people they called martyrs people who said you know the people free tunisia from a dictatorship Their names were published for example in official that there was no sort of A follow up on healthcare for people who've been injured on that's another series of protests that we've seen as well. Yeah i mean it's interesting to hear you describe the sort of a series of grievances of people in the streets for the economic concerns. They're treated by police like things that are local and specific. Of course the covers in the united states is was is a coup attempt. What does it mean for the future of democracy in tunisia Right which was seen as this. This one's a good story that came out of the arab spring. Do you think those are important questions in are they things that people are also talking about in tunisia or as is the west just like navel-gazing as we always do not as much definitely not as much question about coup or not You know there are people. I would say most of the people i've seen who are upset about What i did and calling it a coup. I would say first and foremost the not the party. The islamist party. That was the biggest party in parliament. They've directly been disenfranchised by this decision. You know you can't actually come into the parliament We're suspending work for a month. They say a month. Obviously some people are skeptical about that. But that's what the.
AP News Radio
Team USA Beats Tunisia 3-1 in Men's Volleyball
"But the United States woman captured another four medals in the pool on Wednesday Katie Ledecky widely respected as the world's best long distance swimmer earned the gold in the women's fifteen hundred meter freestyle which made its Olympic debut this year the crime might not be my best times but I'm still really really happy to have a gold medal around my neck right now her teammate Erica Sullivan finished just behind her to grab the silver and Americans Alex Wilson Kate Douglas finished two three earned the silver and bronze in the two hundred meter individual medley the men didn't have the same like finishing off the podium and fourth in the four by two hundred freestyle relay Caleb Dressel was not picked to swim on that relay team I'm Danny cap
The Economist: The Intelligence
"tunisia" Discussed on The Economist: The Intelligence
"But i from tunisia. Streets were filled with angry citizens calling for the government's downfall then on sunday their demands were met and the celebrations began. The president kai siad had decided to take matters into his own hands. He dismissed the prime minister and suspended parliament for thirty days. But it's not clear where. Tunisia will go next. World leaders expressed concern. About what many are calling a coup including a white house. Statement by press secretary jen psaki. We are in touch at a senior level from both the white house and the state department with tunisian leaders to learn more about the situation urged calm and support tunisian efforts to move forward in line with democratic principles. The unrest casts doubt on hard one democratic hopes just in tunisia but throughout the region. We often think of geneva as the only success story to come out of the arab spring. Assist the only true democracy really in the arab world roger. Mcshane is the economists middle east editor but ten governments in ten years have failed to kick start the economy or stem corruption or improve services and. This has led many tunisians to lose faith in democracy. But how did we get here specifically. How did we get to a stage. Where the president essentially sacks the prime minister in suspense parliament. I mean it's a crisis that's been brewing for a while. You've had rising public anger over lack of jobs over terrible services over corruption. It's been rising for ten years. Essentially but in two thousand nineteen tunisians elected case sayyed as president and it was really a protest against the political class. This is a man who had no previous political experience. But you've seen as incorruptible someone who clean up tunisia's dirty political system and he was given an enormous mandy winning seventy three percent of the vote in even before this latest move he had been challenging parliament even challenging the political parties which he despises and recently covert added to this tension..
BBC Newsday
Tunisian President Fires Prime Minister After Violent Protests
"To speed with what's happening in Tunisia major unrest over the last few days, the country's president has now announced the suspension of parliament. And the dismissal of the prime minister after violent protests broke out in several cities over the government's handling of the covid pandemic and the ongoing problems with unemployment and the economy. President Chi Saeed said on Sunday he would assume executive authority with the assistance of a new prime minister. However, the Tunisian parliament speaker has accused the president of launching a coup against the Constitution. Well for more. I've been speaking to Huda Was Yodit research in Tunisian affairs from the University of Toronto in Canada. Have to say I wasn't surprised because this has been like an open secret in Tunisia with a lot of people talking about the possibility of what President I say it. Maybe stage in some kind of what they call a constitutional cool, according to some constitutional experts, even though some others who know that would disagree with the label, But I think this is a moment that opportunity that is very critical when a lot of people They seem to be extremely worried and concerned that what side has done might lead to a part of some kind of dictatorship or some kind of could similar to what happened in Egypt. Others are quite you know, happy because especially the ones are very until mother Because of the way that the political class has been dealing with them. How economic situation but also the health places with carpet so in a way, because it's very popular with a lot of them so They felt that he, in some ways, you know, reigned in all the ills that has been generated by by the change in Parliament, in particular how it is run by the Islamist party. Another and this is
TED Talks Daily
A New Approach to Defending the Human Rights of Migrants
"A decade ago after peaceful revolution toppled longtime tunisia dictator bin. Ali i was sitting in an orange grove outside athens. Greece documented migrants. Were hiding there. I came to interview them about human rights abuses suffered while enter europe one of them. Tunisian fellow in a leather jacket explained the people who overthrew ben ali they want democracy and identified life. We across the mediterranean want. Democracy didn't life. What is the difference. The migrant is a kind of revolutionary is idea stuck with me and informed might work as a lawyer and a scholar ever since as middle eastern revolutions turned into civil wars. The refugee crisis unfolded in the measuring. This exacerbated political pressures against asylum-seekers. Initially the european court of human rights took a strong stand against sport or violence in two thousand twelve court decided that the cannot turn asylum seekers back from the mediterranean dangerous libyan territory that first hearing them the human rights community cheer. I was not one of those who cheered in my scholarship. I predicted that this kind of decision could also generate bad results states determined to enforce their own return back asylum seekers even before the entered the supervision of their own courts. I was regretfully correct in recent years. The italians have relied on living to do their dirty work. So eager are some european governments deduction on human rights obligations if an armed libyan militia ignoring the rampant use of torture. This is also why since january. Twenty fourteen more than thirty. Four thousand migrants died by grounding in the mediterranean and since covid nineteen again the militarized border into. Mentoring has come in some ways. Even more extreme but has the militarized quarter caused deaths by drowning.
THE NEWS with Anthony Davis
Three Nations Urge US to Join UN Statement on Gaza
"Un security council nations trying to get the un's most powerful body to take action on the escalating violence between israel and gaza's hamas rulers say they are still trying to get the us to support a statement including a coal to end the fighting china norway. Tunisia tried unsuccessfully at closed meetings on monday and wednesday to get agreement on a council statement diplomats. Say the us argued. Such a statement could interfere with diplomatic efforts to de escalate the situation. Meanwhile israeli airstrikes on gaza city flattened three buildings and killed at least forty two people on sunday palestinian medics said in the deadliest single attack in the latest round of violence
UN News
New Mediterranean Shipwreck Reopens Debate Over Tragic Migrant Journeys
"In the mediterranean sea. That claimed the lives of one hundred and thirty migrants last week. Three ignited the debate about why more companies don't protect these vulnerable. People risked everything with the details about this latest tragedy. Which happened just off the libyan coast his sophomore sailly from the un migration agency. I m speaking to you and uses daniel johnson. Well it is an officer tragedy. That one hundred thirty people died again leading and sending distress goals for two days in international waters in the central mediterranean. Mrc's maritime rescue centers have been informed of the existence of this boat for at least two days. The ngo vessel ocean viking found remains of the boat and dozens of bodies floating nearby the signaling that at least one hundred and seventy people harish last week. This is an utter tragedy that people continue to die. On europe's store step. There were three boats out there last week. When this was an alert from the international organization for migration working you tell us about the other two boats so there were three boats last week in the central mediterranean. One of these boats were in was intercepted and returned to libya by the libyan coast guard board. The boat was a mother and her child who were found dead and one hundred other people who were taken to arbitrary detention at the ngo alarm phone alerted to the existence of two more boats. One carry in roughly one hundred thirty people and the third one carrying forty people. It's very sad that the one carrying one hundred and thirty people was found shipwrecked and the third boat. We hit yesterday From the ngos consummation that the boat arrived in tunisia autonomously we are happy and thankful that people are alive that we continue to reiterate that the situation in the central mediterranean cannot continue as such
Everything Everywhere Daily
The History of Spanish Africa
"I say that there are parts of spain and africa. I'm not trying to be tricky and play with words. I'm not saying that. Spain used to have colonies in africa. Although that's true. I'm also not trying to define the canary islands. Which are part of spain off the coast of africa as being in africa. I mean in the most literal sense possible. That part of spain is in africa. There are two very small spanish cities located on the peninsula which are on the african mainland ordering morocco and malia and their very existence as you probably would expect are due to historical quirks happenstance due to geography. Spain has always had a close relationship with africa finishes based in carthage in. What is today. Tunisia established settlements on the spanish coast. The roman province of hispania was part of a greater empire that included all of north africa. Which bordered the mediterranean after the roman empire fell islamic moors from north africa conquered and controlled spain for over seven hundred years. So there's always been a back and forth between north africa in the peninsula and malia both spanish territories in africa have different yet similar histories despite being about one hundred and thirty miles apart from each other. Sita is located directly across the sea from gibraltar. So if you ever want stump someone asks them. What country lies. Directly south of gibraltar and what country lies. North of gibraltar. answer is the same. Spain is on both ends. Sierra makes the counterpart to gibraltar for the pillars of hercules which the ancient names of the two promontories which guarded the strait of gibraltar. As with most everything in the region it has an ancient history. Carthage martina and numidians all control the area. Before the romans the you me add caliphate controlled it for centuries when the caliphate of cordoba fell in ten thirty one it was then passed between various north african kingdoms with support from various kingdoms in the iberian peninsula.
Post Reports
Is Tunisia an Arab Spring Success Story?
"When we talk about cooed unquote the arab spring. We tend to refer to tunisia as the one success to come out of it. Be you've been reporting from tunis for quite some time now do. Do the people think it was a success. You get really mixed answers when it. When i've asked that question and i think many people these days say no just looking at sort of day to day living situation the lack of jobs the high prices just the inability to satisfy basic needs and to see opportunity in the future. Those were the main buckets of complaints and where people say that the revolution democracy really fell short clear. Parker is a freelance journalist based in tunis tunisia. But people at the same time are proud of the freedoms that they've acquired specifically civil society is flourishing. There's freedom of expression although it faces some threats but you know a lot of civil liberties especially compared to other countries in the region and a lot of protest movement and right to protest. So there's a sense that at least they have this freedom and that's kind of the main gain of the revolution