Wednesday 24 October 2012
Rached Ghannouchi says he doesn’t want an Islamic state in Tunisia. Can he prove his critics wrong?
The leader of the North African country’s largest political party defends it against accusations that it poses a threat to secularism in the birthplace of the Arab Spring
When Rached Ghannouchi met Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali - before Mr Ghannouchi wisely exiled himself to London as an enemy of the dictatorship - a very odd thing happened. “He didn’t look me in the eye,” Mr Ghannouchi said. “He didn’t speak that much. But when I was with him, they brought coffee for both of us.
“I was talking and he was silent and listening, then he surprised me. He switched the coffee cups round. He gave me the coffee that he had, and took the coffee that I had, saying: ‘Did you have some doubt about the coffee?’ But this never crossed my mind! So I switched the coffees back again and took the one I was originally given.”
MIDDLE EAST
Lebanon's fragile inner peace
After the deadly attack on Lebanese security chief al-Hassan it was mostly Sunni Muslims who took to the streets in Beirut. What is behind the tensions? Why is the country repeatedly rocked by violence?
Omar Deeb is not surprised. According to him it's only logical, that again and again violence flares up in his country. "All Lebanese know exactly that our political system, which is based on religious confession, is the root of all those problems."
Omar Deeb teaches physics at a high school in Allay, a small town east of Beirut. The 20-year-old is part of a left-wing organization, fighting for a secular Lebanon. The mixing of religion and politics is what is the country's biggest problem, he thinks. It's what causes the enduring mistrust and the tensions between the different religious confessions.
Yulia Tymoshenko's daughter warns of 'dictatorship' in Ukraine
The daughter of Yulia Tymoshenko, the jailed former prime minister of Ukraine, has warned that this weekend's parliamentary elections could lead to an irreversible "dictatorship".
By Katinka Dufour
Sunday's parliamentary elections will be the first national vote in Ukrainesince President Viktor Yanukovych beat Mrs Tymoshenko in the 2010 presidential poll.
Since then, 51-year-old Mrs Tymoshenko, a promoter of Western-leaning policies, has been sentenced to seven years in prison for abusing of office charges. She and Western states view it as a way of putting her on the sideline from politics.
"If the democratic world and the observer missions (do) not state at the end of the day that (Sunday's elections) are not free and not fair, we might see the legitimisation of a Ukrainian dictatorship, of a Yanukovych dictatorship," Yevgenia Tymoshenko said in Geneva.
North Korean minister 'obliterated'
October 25, 2012 - 12:18PM
Julian Ryall
TOKYO: A North Korean army minister was reportedly executed with a mortar round for drinking and carousing during the official mourning period after the death of Kim Jong-il.
Kim Chol, the vice-minister of the army, was taken into custody earlier this year on the orders of Kim Jong-un, who assumed the leadership after his father died in December. On the orders of Mr Kim to leave "no trace of him behind, down to his hair", Kim Chol was forced to stand on a spot that had been zeroed in for a mortar round and was "obliterated", South Korean media reported.
The execution is just one example of a purge of members of the North Korean military or party who threatened the fledgling regime of Mr Kim.
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So far this year, 14 senior officials have fallen victim to the purges, according to intelligence data provided to Yoon Sang-hyun, a member of the South Korean foreign affairs, trade and unification committee.
Khartoum blames Tel Aviv for arms factory fire
THURSDAY, 25 OCTOBER 2012 00:00
SUDANESE Information Minister, Ahmed Belal Osman, has blamed Israel for arms factory fire after four military planes attacked it.
“Four military planes attacked the Yarmouk plant,” he told reporters in Khartoum, adding the planes appeared to approach the site from the east.
Meanwhile, Palestinians, according to Reuters yesterday fired dozens of rockets into Israel from Gaza and an Israeli air strike killed a militant in a surge of violence after the Emir of Qatar embraced the enclave’s Hamas leadership with a visit.
Hamas claimed responsibility for some of the rocket and mortar bomb attacks, raising questions among Israelis over whether it had been emboldened by the Qatari visit on Tuesday that challenged the Islamist group’s diplomatic isolation.
Tunisia Jews: A tiny community hanging on - and cooking
By Magdi AbdelhadiBBC World Service, Tunis
Tunisia has a long Jewish history - Jews were present in North Africa before the arrival of Islam or Christianity. In good times they prospered and in hard times they bore the brunt of discrimination, but now they are at risk of extinction. Of 100,000 before the creation of Israel in 1948, only about 1,500 are left.
After the revolution that ousted President Zein al-Abidine Ben Ali last year, there have been ominous signs. More than once, hardline Salafists have staged demonstrations shouting "Death to the Jews".
This has alarmed many in Tunis's tiny Jewish community.
"In around 15 years, we start to speak about the Jewish community in the past tense," says Jacob Lellouche, the only Jew who tried to win a seat on the assembly drafting Tunisia's new constitution. (He didn't succeed.)
But while he is gloomy about the future he is also a dreamer, and the centrepiece of his dream is a small villa in the seaside suburb of La Goulette.
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