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While Tunisians are often told that theirs is the only revolution that remains from the "Arab Spring," they know full well that its goals have not been achieved.

Béji Caïd Essebsi has always rejected a democratic process within the party he founded in 2012--the party that carried him to the highest office. At the end of the party's congress held in Sousse on 9 and 10 January, the party appointed Caïd Essebsi's son to succeed him as party leader

Béji Caïd Essebsi has always rejected a democratic process within the party he founded in 2012--the party that carried him to the highest office. At the end of the party's congress held in Sousse on 9 and 10 January, the party appointed Caïd Essebsi's son to succeed him as party leader,

There came a moment during Donald Trump’s April 2 phone call to Mohammed bin Salman when Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler, apparently stunned by what the American president had just said, asked his aides to leave the room. No courtiers were present when their master, no slouch at intimidation himself, was apparently bullied into submission.

Trump had, in effect, threatened the complete withdrawal of American troops from the kingdom if the Saudis didn’t slash oil production.

the crown prince must now recognize the limitations of his ill-judged strategy to base relations with the U.S., the kingdom’s indispensable ally, exclusively on the cultivation of the first family. Previous Saudi rulers would have been able to rely on friends in Congress to plead with the White House for leniency. But MBS has few friends in Washington — and the army of lobbyists he maintains there is of limited use in a crisis.

A spokesman for President Marzouki's Congress for the Republic ( CPR) told Reuters news agency that it would withdraw its three ministers from the Ennahda-led government because its demands over key portfolios had been ignored.

Another leader of the centre-left CPR, Chokri Yacoub, told the state-run TAP news agency that the withdrawal would be confirmed during a news conference on Monday.

Sources within the Congress for the Republic (CPR) also said they believed that a technocratic government was not the solution to the crisis. Instead, party leaders are reported to support the creation of a national unity government, led by Mr Jebali and supported by technocrats.

Congress erred by doing nothing when Obama waged war illegally in Libya. It will compound that error if there are no consequences now for Trump.  Every legislator who has expressed the belief that it would be illegal to strike Syria without their permission should start acting like they meant what they said. Given what recent presidents have been permitted, impeachment over this matter alone would understandably lack popular legitimacy. But I wouldn’t mind if anti-war legislators created a draft document titled “Articles of Impeachment,” wrote a paragraph about this strike at the top, and put Trump on notice that if he behaves this way again, a coalition will aggressively lobby their colleagues to oust him from office.

The alternative is proceeding with an unbowed president who is out of his depth in international affairs, feels entitled to wage war in ways even he once called illegitimate, and thinks of waging war as a way presidents can improve their popularity.

Western-produced surveillance technology sold to one authoritarian government became an investigative tool of choice to gather information about political dissidents -- and silence them

“The technology is becoming very sophisticated, and the only thing limiting it is how deeply governments want to snoop into lives,” says Rob Faris, research director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “Surveillance is typically a state secret, and we only get bits and pieces that leak out.” Some industry insiders now say their own products have become dangerous in the hands of regimes where law enforcement crosses the line to repression.

Across the Middle East in recent years, sales teams at Siemens, Nokia Siemens, Munich-based Trovicor and other companies have worked their connections among spy masters, police chiefs and military officers to provide country after country with monitoring gear, industry executives say. Their story is a window into a secretive world of surveillance businesses that is transforming the political and social fabric of countries from North Africa to the Persian Gulf. Monitoring centers, as the systems are called, are sold around the globe by these companies and their competitors, such as Israel-based Nice Systems Ltd. (NICE), and Verint Systems Inc. (VRNT), headquartered in Melville, New York. They form the heart of so- called lawful interception surveillance systems. The equipment is marketed largely to law enforcement agencies tracking terrorists and other criminals. The toolbox allows more than the interception of phone calls, e-mails, text messages and Voice Over Internet Protocol calls such as those made using Skype. Some products can also secretly activate laptop webcams or microphones on mobile devices. They can change the contents of written communications in mid-transmission, use voice recognition to scan phone networks, and pinpoint people’s locations through their mobile phones. The monitoring systems can scan communications for key words or recognize voices and then feed the data and recordings to operators at government agencies.

In a memo sent to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo by the agency’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs in early March and described to Foreign Policy, the nation’s most senior diplomat was given the option to cut up to $300 million in U.S. military aid to Egypt over the death of Mustafa Kassem, a dual American and Egyptian citizen who appealed unsuccessfully to U.S. President Donald Trump to secure his release in his final days.

In a letter sent late last month, Democratic Sens. Patrick Leahy and Chris Van Hollen also urged Pompeo to withhold $300 million in military assistance to Cairo and to sanction any Egyptian official “directly or indirectly responsible” for Kassem’s imprisonment and death

In two years on the job, Pompeo has twice decided to overlook human rights considerations to greenlight military aid to Egypt, leading some experts to cast doubt on whether the Trump administration will make cuts even after the death of a U.S. citizen.

Reps. Don Beyer (D-VA) and Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) announced the formation of the Egypt Human Rights Caucus to mark the 10th anniversary of the Egyptian revolution.

“American interests have not been served by a policy of unconditional support for the Egyptian military, while downplaying the military-led government’s human rights abuses, corruption, and mistreatment of American citizens,” said Rep. Malinowski. “The Egypt Human Rights Caucus will reflect and help shape the growing consensus in Congress that we need to rebalance our relationship with this important country."

On Feb. 24, Russia invaded Ukraine, and sanctions imposed on Russia by Western states led to surging food, fuel, and fertilizer prices. Burkina Faso saw two successful coups and a third foiled putsch. There were failed power grabs in São Tomé and Príncipe, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and against Mali’s military junta, sparked by armed groups’ escalating attacks and creeping inflation on food and services. It was a continuation of a trajectory set in 2021, a year that saw four successful coups in Africa (in Chad, Guinea, Mali, and Sudan).

Tunisia is just one of many countries experiencing a rollback of democratic gains. Amid an economic crisis worsened by the pandemic and made even more acute by the war in Ukraine, democratic backsliding is increasing. As reported in Africa Brief this year, Sudan’s democratic future still hangs in the balance, and Mali’s putsch leaders agreed to a two-year democratic transition that would allow coup leader Col. Assimi Goïta and other military members to run in general elections in 2024. Ibrahim Traoré, an army captain in Burkina Faso, proclaimed himself the new president of the country’s military junta in the country’s second coup in eight months while Guinea’s military rulers issued a three-year ban on public demonstrations to combat growing calls for democracy. And around 50 people were killed by security forces as Chadians took to the streets to demand a quicker transition to democratic rule.

Recent elections in Kenya and Angola showed democratic gains as Kenyans defied their outgoing president’s chosen successor and young Angolans increasingly challenged their one-party state. Africans want more democracy even if their leaders want less of it.

Ali Abdullah Saleh's continuing sway over Yemen is worrying Gulf neighbours and Western nations who fear that the political transition could descend into chaos

"We share the concern over the role that the former president and those hardcore elements around him are playing right now," a senior Western diplomat in Sanaa said, adding they were undermining the government and hindering the transition. "We do have concerns about their resistance to following the legitimate orders of President Hadi."

Restoring stability in Yemen has become an international priority for fear that Islamist militants will further entrench themselves in a country neighbouring top oil exporter Saudi Arabia and lying on major world shipping lanes.

Mohamed Bennour, spokesperson of the center-left party Ettakatol, declared that the gathering was a way of misleading the public. “People who attended the event are using Bourguiba’s name to impose their ideas. These people do not care about Bourguiba – where were they when Bourguiba was imprisoned by Ben Ali for 13 years? They were supporting Ben Ali’s decision,” he said.

Samir Ben Amor, a member of the center-left Congress for the Republic party, also saw in the meeting an attempt to move Tunisia back towards the undemocratic ways of Ben Ali’s RCD party. “The meeting conveys that these people want to steal the Tunisian revolution and its aims. It is inappropriate for some opposition figures to refuse to join the coalition government, yet accept to ally with RCD’s legacy parties. It is a failed attempt to bring back the RCD using a different name. It is a shame that they are using Bourguiba’s name to achieve this purpose,” he announced.

Abed Hamid Jelassi, a member of Ennahda’s executive office, stated his belief that the gathering was a way of hijacking the Tunisian revolution, but that he thinks Tunisians are too clever to fall for the trap. “Obviously these people want the return of RCD, they are using the fear that people have against religious extremists to serve their own interests,” he said.

Tunisia’s deputies have managed to achieve something unique in the Arab world: making the parliament the centrepiece of political discourse and power

Though having almost no parliamentarian tradition, Tunisians have succeeded in creating, defending, and pushing their interim assembly that, despite major problems, transformed into a real parliament

With 37% of all votes, Ennahda clearly bypassed the Congress for the Republic Party (CPR) of state president Moncef Marzouki (8,7%) and Ettakatol led by NCA president Mostapha Ben Jafaar (7,03%) and secured more votes (1.5 mio.) than all other parties and independent candidates in parliament together (1.26 mio.)

The king's constitutional reforms will transfer most authority to an elected prime minister, who will have the power to appoint and dismiss ministers and state officials. The new Moroccan parliament, in effect, will have the same powers as representative assemblies of developed democracies -- complete with a bicameral legislature akin to U.S. Congress.

the constitutional reforms include the guarantee of an independent judiciary and a new commitment to combat corruption.

The February 20 protest movement has thus acted as an accelerator, not a catalyst. Unlike in other Arab countries, most protesters did not call for the fall of the monarchy, but simply demanded the end of absolutism and corruption.

A Cambridge University student facing the death penalty in South Sudan is being "arbitrarily detained in a modern-day hellhole", his lawyer says.PhD student Peter Biar Ajak, 35, a critic of his country's regime, has been detained without charge since his arrest at Juba Airport in July.

Shortly before his arrest, Mr Ajak had tweeted about South Sudan's "so-called leaders". Human rights group Amnesty International is campaigning on his behalf and his plight was highlighted this week in the United States Congress.

Mr Genser said his client had called for the country's current leaders to step down so that younger people could take over and achieve peace."This has become a real problem for the government in South Sudan, which then decides to target him for arrest and arbitrary detention because he was being a very effective critic," he said.

Ennahda’s decision to jettison “political Islam” has far less to do with Islam than it does with politics. Judging by its program, its actions, and the people who run it, Ghannouchi’s party remains a conservative Islamic party. That hasn’t really changed. What Ennahda’s carefully orchestrated rebranding demonstrates, however, is just how skillfully its leaders continue to adapt to the changing landscape of Tunisian electoral politics.

Ennahda’s leaders had to take into account the fact that a large part of Tunisian society remained devoted to the secularist values aired by the old regime’s leading politicians and that they regarded the new ruling party and its aims with suspicion

opponents of political Islam continue to dominate the political scene

The civilian wing of the Sudanese state is bankrupt but unwilling to confront powerful generals, who control a sprawling network of companies and keep the central bank and the Ministry of Finance on life support to gain political power

Chronic shortages of basic goods and soaring inflation have come to define the life of ordinary Sudanese. In villages and towns that rely on gasoline pumps – such as Port Sudan – the taps have often run dry, forcing people to queue to buy barrels of water.

Western countries and international institutions have let the civilian wing of the government down: they failed to provide the financial and political support that would allow Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok to hold his own against the generals