Tunisia | Tags |

Desertec Taps Morocco For First Piece of Sahara Solar Development

Yacout Info | 11/02/2011 | News

We've covered Desertec's Sahara solar ambitions in this space before, so it is with some excitement that we note the announcement of the group's first major project, a 500-megawatt solar thermal plant to be built beginning next year in Morocco. The specific site is yet to be announced, but the...

Desertec, Morocco, Sahra, solar ambitions, Tunisia

Islamists to rule Tunisia; clashes in cradle of revolt

Yacout Info | 10/29/2011 | News

The leader of the Islamist party which won Tunisia’s first free election appealed for calm in the town where the “Arab Spring” began, accusing forces linked to the ousted president of fanning violence there. Party officials said coalition talks were already under way and they expected to form a new...

Ben Ali, Ennahada Sidi Bouzid, Hamada Jbeli, hijab, Islamist Party, Mohamed Bouazizi, Rachid Ghannouchi, Tunisia

Tunisia Islamic Party Considers Alliances With Secularists

Yacout Info | 10/26/2011 | News

Tunisia’s Islamic Ennahdha party said it is discussing alliances with secular groups after the first elections in an Arab country since uprisings began. Early results show that Ennahdha, banned until six months ago, won 30 percent of the vote for the 217-seat Constituent Assembly, Abdelhamid...

Ennahda, Rachid Ghannouchi, Samir Ben Amor, Tunisia

Analysis: Tunisia shows democracy can work for Arab Islamists

Yacout Info | 10/25/2011 | News

Tunisia gave birth to the "Arab Spring" and now it is again showing the way in the Middle East by demonstrating that moderate Islamists can win an election without causing a crisis. But Arab countries who are wondering, along with the outside world, how Tunisia’s Islamists will exercise that...

Control Risks, elections, Ennhada, HSBC, Jean Baptiste Gallopin, Moncef Marzouki, Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia

Islamists claim early lead as world praises Tunisia vote

Yacout Info | 10/25/2011 | News

Tunisia’s main Islamist party claimed Monday to have captured about 40 percent of the vote in the country’s first free polls, as the cradle of the Arab Spring basked in praise for its democratic revolution. Official results were only due Tuesday but provisional results released by some media...

elections, Ennhada, Kamel Jendoubi, Tunisia

The battle for the soul of Islam

| 10/25/2011 | Yacoupedia

In 1086, the last sovereign King of Andalusia “Al-Mu’tamid” made a call for help. He needed support in his battle against the King of Leon and Castile Alfonso VI. The support came from Morocco by devotees of a fundamentalist sect known as the Almoravids (Al-Morabiton), a Berber dynasty that emerged...

Aflfonso, Al Nahada, Almoravids, Bikaya Masr, Cordoba, Egypt, Fairuz, Osama Bin Layden, Sharia, Tunisia

Tunisians Vote in First Free Election

Yacout Info | 10/24/2011 | News

Ninety per cent of eligible Tunisians turned out to vote in the nation’s first free elections, ten months after the “Arab Spring” began there. Despite the ostensible move toward democracy, some observers are concerned that the apparent victory by an Islamist over a secular party could ultimately...

Elections, Hosni Mubarak, Mu'amar Al-Qaddafi, Tunisia, Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali

Tension mounts in Tunisia

Yacout Info | 10/20/2011 | News

Tunisia’s frontrunning Islamists warned Wednesday that post-revolution elections risk being rigged, as tension rose with the Arab Spring’s first polls four days away and Washington urged against violence. The Islamist Ennahda party, widely tipped to get the biggest bloc of votes in historic polls...

elections, Ennhada, Tunisia, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali

Arab Protests Send Tourists to Europe, Costing Region $7 Billion

Yacout Info | 10/17/2011 | Tourism

Shaun Mattingley began arranging a tailor-made family holiday to Cairo, Luxor and Aswan five months before their Feb. 19 departure, eager to show his wife and daughter “the Egypt I had grown to love over the years.” They never made it. With Hosni Mubarak’s regime in its dying days, he canceled...

Arab protest, cost to Mena region Orascom Develoment, Egypt, Morocco, Syria, Tourists to Europe, Tunisia, Turkey

Tunisia Islamists SET for big election gains

Yacout Info | 10/16/2011 | News

As the land that launched the Arab Spring heads into historic elections next week, all eyes are on the long-repressed Islamists — and whether a big victory for them will irrevocably change this North African nation and inspire similar conservative movements around the region. Many fear that...

Chris Alexander, Davidson college, Election, Ennahda, Ghannouchi, Hamadi Redissi, Islamists, Tunisia

Tunisian leader vaunts ‘success’

Yacout Info | 10/14/2011 | News

Tunisia’s interim president Foued Mebazaa on Thursday congratulated a top-level council for “succeeding in its mission” of steering through political and electoral reforms as it wound up its work. Presided by jurist Yahd Ben Achour, the last meeting of the high council was held in Bardo palace,...

Beji Caid Essebsi, Foued Mebazaa, Tunisia, Yahd Ben Achour, Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali

Preparing a Lifeline for Tunisian Job Seekers

Yacout Info | 10/04/2011 | Yacoupedia

Some Tunisian university students got a preview of an education program that is designed to give them opportunities in a poor job market. The students, in Tunis, had a video chat September 26 with a vice president of the Washington-based Education for Employment Foundation (EFE)...

EFE, jobs, Students, Taleb Salhab, Tunisia

They’re proud Muslims, they’re top models, and they’re remaking the fashion world’s ideal of beauty.

Yacout Info | 09/23/2011 | Portrait

When 20-year-old Hind Sahli, a brown-skinned young woman with dark shoulder-length hair, was growing up in Casablanca, she used to watch television shows like America’s Next Top Modeland daydream about being on a fashion runway. Sahli was appropriately tall and thin, but in Morocco, the beauty...

Hanaa Ben Abdessalem, hijab, Hind Sahli, Morocco, Nabeul, Tunisia

TUI Travel On Track To Meet Full-year View – Update

Yacout Info | 09/22/2011 | News

UK-based travel operator TUI Travel Plc (TT.L: News ) said on Thursday, in a trading update,that it is on track to meet its full-year expectations. The company said its winter bookings are satisfactory overall and booked load factors are in line with its expectations. Meanwhile, TUI shares are...

Belgium, bookings, Canada, Egypt, Germany, London Stock Exchange, Netherlands, Peter Long, TUI, Tunisia

Tunisia destroys anti-aircraft unit

Yacout Info | 09/21/2011 | News

The Tunisian army on Wednesday destroyed a convoy that included vehicles mounted with anti-aircraft guns in a remote southern region near the Algerian border, the defence mninistry said. “A helicopter destroyed seven out of the nine vehicles spotted by an aerial patrol on Wednesday at 0500 GMT,”...

army, Bir Znigra, Haykel Bouzouitz, helcopter, Tunisia

IMF expects a growth of 4.6% in Morocco in 2011

Yacout Info | 09/20/2011 | News

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expected this year a growth of 4.6 per cent in Morocco. In its biannual forecast for the Middle-East and North Africa region (MENA), published on Tuesday in Washington, Bretton Woods institute noted that "the growth continues to increase"...

Algeria, Economic growth, IMF, Mena, Morocco, Tunisia

Moroccan FM calls for expanding Agadir initiative within participative framework

Yacout Info | 09/17/2011 | News

Moroccan Foreign Minister Taib Fassi Fihri called for expanding the Agadir initiative, which brings together Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan, to make of the region not only a space of free trade, but also a participative framework to achieve an enlarged integration including all strategic,...

Deauville, Egypt, International foruim, Rabat, Taieb Fassi Fihri, Tunisia

Morocco's eligibility for G8 funding stems from its reforms' adequacy - official says

Yacout Info | 09/11/2011 | News

Morocco's eligibility to benefit from the G8 funding to support democracy in the Arab countries stems from the adequacy of its reforms, said, Saturday in Marseille, Economy and Finance Minister Salaheddine Mezouar, who represents the Kingdom at the Group of Eight finance chiefs meeting. ...

Egypt, eligibilty, G8 funds, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia

G8 extends Arab financing pledge to $38 bln, includes Libya

Yacout Info | 09/10/2011 | News

Group of Eight finance chiefs pledged on Saturday $38 billion in financing to Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco and Jordan over 2011-13 and said Libya’s interim ruling council would be invited to join the scheme. Finance ministers and senior officials from the G7 major economies plus Russia extended...

38 billion, Arab Financing pledge, Egypt, G8, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia

Tunisia: Empty resort highlights tourism crisis

Yacout Info | 07/11/2011 | News

The Tunisian seaside resort of Yasmine Hammamet with its fine beach, warm blue sea and welcoming hotels is like a picture postcard in early summer -- but with nobody in it. Europeans, Algerians and Libyans have all deserted the town in the northwest of Tunisia, which is undergoing the worst tourist...

Tourism, Tunisia, Yasmine Hammamet