World
Tunisia’s political experiment threatens economic collapse

NICE, France (AP) — Tunisia’s more and more authoritarian president seems decided to upend the nation’s political system. The technique isn’t solely threatening a democracy as soon as seen as a mannequin for the Arab world, consultants say it’s also sending the financial system towards a tailspin.
The Worldwide Financial Fund has frozen an settlement meant to assist the federal government get loans to pay public sector salaries and fill funds gaps aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the fallout from Russia’s battle in Ukraine.
Overseas buyers are pulling out of Tunisia, and scores businesses are on alert. Inflation and joblessness are on the rise, and lots of Tunisians, as soon as pleased with their nation’s relative prosperity, now battle to make ends meet.
An election debacle per week in the past has made issues worse: Simply 11% of voters took half in a first-round vote for a brand new parliament meant to exchange a legislature disbanded final 12 months by President Kais Saied. Opposition figures, together with from the favored Islamist motion Ennahdha, are demanding that he step down, and unions are threatening a common strike.
Saied himself designed the elections to exchange and reshape the parliament, as a part of broad reforms that bolster his powers and that he says will remedy Tunisia’s a number of crises. However voter disillusionment with the ruling class amid dire financial troubles contributed to a near-boycott of the election.
Tunisia’s Western allies, like america and France, have expressed concern and urged the president to forge an inclusive political dialogue that may profit the sluggish financial system. Tunisia was the birthplace of Arab Spring democratic uprisings 12 years in the past.
Saied rejected criticism over the low voter turnout, saying what actually issues is the second spherical of voting Jan. 19. He says his reforms are wanted to rid the nation of the corrupt political class and Tunisia’s overseas enemies. He lashed out at his political foes within the Ennahdha celebration, which had the biggest variety of lawmakers within the earlier parliament, and ordered the arrest this week of its vice-president and former Prime Minister Ali Larayedeh on terrorism-related prices.
“Saied appears impervious to criticism and intent on bulldozing his strategy to a brand new political system irrespective of how few Tunisians are engaged within the course of,” mentioned Monica Marks, a Tunisia skilled and professor of Center East politics on the New York College in Abu Dhabi.
“No Tunisian requested Saied to reinvent the wheel of Tunisian politics, to put in writing a brand new structure and revamp the election legislation,” Marks mentioned. “What Tunisians have been asking for is a extra respectful authorities that meets their bread-and-butter wants and provides them financial dignity.”
Saied’s guarantees to stabilize the financial system helped guarantee his landslide victory within the 2019 presidential election.
However he has but to current an financial restoration plan or technique for his deeply indebted authorities to safe funds to pay for meals and power subsidies. The president has sidelined economists in state establishments, stalling the nation’s funds and souring the setting for overseas buyers.
Tunisians have been hit with hovering meals costs and shortages of gas and fundamental staples like sugar, vegetable oil and rice in latest months. Inflation has reached 9.1%, the best in three many years, in response to the Nationwide Institute of Statistics, and unemployment is at 18% %, in response to the World Financial institution.
“President Saied naively appears to suppose that if solely he can full his political roadmap, the financial system will repair itself,” mentioned Geoff Porter, a New York Metropolis-based North Africa danger evaluation analyst, in a latest transient.
Tunisia reached a preliminary settlement with the IMF on a $1.9 billion mortgage in October. It will allow the closely indebted Tunisian authorities to entry loans from different donors over a four-year interval in return for sweeping financial reforms that embody shrinking the general public administration sector — one of many world’s largest — and a gradual lifting of subsidies.
The settlement was topic to the IMF government board’s approval, scheduled for Dec. 19. The state information company TAP reported that “the federal government and the IMF have agreed to postpone” the ultimate resolution on the mortgage to present Tunisian officers “extra time to current a brand new reform plan for the nation’s sluggish financial system.”
Tunisia desperately wants entry to the particular drawing rights to be able to keep away from defaulting on exterior debt and to stabilize the financial system, Porter mentioned. He added: “With out the IMF funds, Tunisia’s financial freefall will speed up.”
Overseas buyers working in Tunisia are fearful.
Pharmaceutical producers Novartis, Bayer and GlaxoSmithKline are leaving the nation as a result of they aren’t getting paid by the insufficiently funded state pharmaceutical distributor.
Royal Dutch Shell, which operates two gasoline fields that accounted for 40% of Tunisia’s home manufacturing, introduced in November it’ll exit Tunisia by 12 months’s finish. Regardless of hype over the nation’s hydrogen sector, nothing has been completed to draw buyers because the nation’s regulatory establishments are paralyzed by Saied’s political strikes, Porter mentioned.
The president has additionally misplaced the tentative help of the nation’s highly effective commerce union, the UGTT, for the IMF-prescribed reform plan in change for a bailout.
UGTT chief Noureddine Taboubi agreed with the federal government in August to debate a brand new “social contract” to assist Tunisians in monetary misery, the state TAP information company reported. However Taboubi, whose influential union represents 67% of Tunisia’s work power, primarily employed within the public sector, just lately pulled again on his dedication. He renewed his opposition to the IMF’s most important calls for to obtain a mortgage program: a public sector wage freeze and restructuring of state-owned enterprises.
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Bouazza ben Bouazza contributed from Tunis, Tunisia.

World
Houthis Vow Retaliation After U.S. Strikes in Yemen

The Houthi militia in Yemen has vowed to retaliate after President Trump ordered large-scale military strikes on targets controlled by the group that it says killed at least 53 people.
The group, which is backed by Iran, said that women and children were among those killed in the strikes on Saturday, the most significant U.S. military action in the Middle East since Mr. Trump took office in January.
For more than a year, the Houthis have launched attacks against Israel and threatened commercial shipping in the Red Sea in solidarity with their ally Hamas, which led the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that set off the war in Gaza. The Houthis suspended the campaign in January after a cease-fire was reached in Gaza but have vowed to step up attacks again after Israel instituted a blockade on aid to the enclave this month.
The U.S. airstrikes targeted Houthi-controlled areas across Yemen, including the capital, Sana, as well as Saada, al-Bayda, Hajjah and Dhamar Provinces, according to reports from Houthi-run media channels. The strikes killed at least 53 people and wounded 98, Anis al-Asbahi, a spokesman for the Houthi-run health ministry, said on Sunday.
The casualty figures could not be independently verified, and the United States has not given any estimates for the number of people killed or wounded in the strikes.
On Sunday, Michael Waltz, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, described the U.S. weekend attacks on Yemen as both successful and effective. “We hit the Houthi leadership, killing several of their key leaders last night, their infrastructure, the missiles,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” He cast the Houthis as “essentially Al Qaeda with sophisticated Iranian-backed air defenses and anti-ship cruise missiles and drones” that have attacked the entire global economy.
The U.S. Central Command, which posted a video of a bomb leveling a building compound in Yemen, said that Washington had employed precision strikes to “defend American interests, deter enemies and restore freedom of navigation.”
U.S. airstrikes also targeted a power facility in the northwestern town of Dahyan, causing a nightlong electricity blackout, residents said.
A United Nations spokesperson expressed concern about the American strikes while also noting recent Houthi threats to resume attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.
The Houthi-run Al-Masirah television channel reported that 13 people were killed and nine others wounded in airstrikes on al-Jeraf, a district in Sana that is considered a stronghold of the group. In Saada Province, in the northwest, 10 people, including four children, were killed when airstrikes hit two buildings, the report said.
Residents in Sana shared images and videos on social media showing shattered windows and fireballs rising from sites that were struck. Others posted anguished messages as the airstrikes hit.
Abdul Rahman al-Nuerah, a resident of Sana, said the blasts had shattered the windows of his home and terrified his four children. “I instantly embraced and comforted them,” Mr. al-Nuerah said by telephone. “Children and mothers are afraid and still in shock.”
Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a senior Houthi leader, vowed retaliation against the United States, calling the strikes unjustified. “We shall respond to the escalation by escalating,” he wrote on X.
The Houthi rebels, who control most of northern Yemen, had temporarily halted attacks in the Red Sea when a cease-fire took effect in Gaza in January. But last week, they said they would target any Israeli ships violating their ban on Israeli vessels passing through the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, the Bab el-Mandeb and the Gulf of Aden.
The Bab el-Mandeb is a strait between the Horn of Africa and the Middle East that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, which opens into the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean.
Mr. Trump said in a statement on his Truth Social platform that the strikes were also intended as a warning to Iran, the Houthis’ main backer.
“Support for the Houthi terrorists must end IMMEDIATELY!” he wrote. He also warned Iran against threatening the United States, saying, “America will hold you fully accountable, and we won’t be nice about it!”
Some military analysts and former American commanders said on Sunday that a more aggressive campaign against the Houthis, particularly against Houthi leadership, was necessary to degrade the group’s ability to threaten international shipping. “This is long, long overdue,” Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., a retired head of the Pentagon’s Central Command, said in a telephone interview on Sunday.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Sunday that the United States would conduct an “unrelenting” campaign of strikes against the Houthis until the militant group ceased its actions in the Red Sea.
“This isn’t a one-night thing. This will continue until you say, ‘We’re done shooting at ships. We’re done shooting at assets,’” Mr. Hegseth told Fox News on Sunday. “This campaign is about freedom of navigation and restoring deterrence.”
Iran strongly condemned the strikes.
Esmaeil Baghaei, a spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, called them a violation of international law regarding the use of force and respect for national sovereignty.
And Hossein Salami, the commander in chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards force, denied on Sunday that his country was making policy decisions for the rebels in Yemen. The Houthi militia “makes its own strategic decisions” and Tehran plays “no role in setting the national or operational policies” of the group, he was quoted as saying by Iranian state news agencies.
Days after taking office, Mr. Trump issued an executive order to redesignate the Houthis a “foreign terrorist organization,” calling the group a threat to regional security.
The order restored a designation given to the group late in the first Trump administration. The Biden administration lifted the designation shortly after taking office, partly to facilitate peace talks in Yemen’s civil war.
Last year, the Biden administration labeled the Houthis a “specially designated global terrorist” group — a less severe category — in response to attacks against vessels in the Red Sea.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, on Saturday told Secretary of State Marco Rubio that all sides should cease from the “use of force” in Yemen and enter a “political dialogue,” according to the Russian foreign ministry. Moscow has condemned past U.S. and British strikes on Yemen.
Hezbollah, another armed proxy for Iran in the region, voiced its condemnation of the U.S. strikes on Yemen and described it as a “war crime,” according to a statement on Sunday.
Carol Rosenberg, Eric Schmitt and Leily Nikounazar contributed reporting.
World
Pope Francis seen for first time since being admitted to hospital: photo

The Vatican released a photo of Pope Francis observing Mass on Sunday, highlighting how his health has gradually improved over recent days.
The photograph is the first picture of Pope Francis that has been released since he was admitted to Gemelli Hospital on Feb. 14. The photo shows him sitting near an altar with his back facing the camera.
Pope Francis was diagnosed with a complex viral, bacterial and fungal respiratory tract infection that worsened before improving earlier last week. At the worst of his health condition, he battled renal failure and the onset of pneumonia in both lungs.
The 88-year-old suffers from chronic lung disease and had part of one lung removed when he was younger, making his recovery difficult. Since then, he has been able to eat solid food and continues receiving high-flow supplemental oxygen.
POPE FRANCIS’ MEDICAL CONDITION: WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT BILATERAL PNEUMONIA
Pope Francis celebrating mass on Sunday, March 16, 2025, in his chapel at the Gemelli Hospital in Rome, Italy. (Holy See Press Office)
On Monday, the Vatican said that he was “out of danger from death” and that the “clinical conditions of the Holy Father continue to be stable.” On Saturday, the Vatican confirmed that his condition remained stable.
“The Holy Father still needs hospital medical therapy, motor and respiratory physiotherapy,” the Saturday bulletin said, noting that these therapies show “gradual improvements.”
POPE FRANCIS SUFFERING FROM ‘MILD RENAL INSUFFICIENCY,’ THOUGH CONDITION REMAINS ‘UNDER CONTROL,’ VATICAN SAYS

Pope Francis attends the weekly general audience on February 12, 2025, at Paul-VI hall in The Vatican. (Filippo Monteforte/AFP via Getty Images)
Though Sunday’s photograph is the first time the world has seen Pope Francis since Feb. 14, many “heard” from him earlier this month. On Mar. 6, Pope Francis recorded a short, two-line message in Spanish thanking his well-wishers around the world, marking the first time his voice was heard since his hospitalization.
“I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your prayers for my health from the Square,” he said in a message that was translated from Spanish to English. “I accompany you from here.”

Pope Francis attends a mass at the Esplanade of Tasitolu in Dili, East Timor, on September 10, 2024. (Tiziana Fabi/Pool/AFP/Getty)
“May God bless you and the Virgin protect you. Thank you.”
Fox News Digital’s Bradford Betz, Brie Stimson and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
World
Spain's president urges solidarity with Russia's EU neighbours

Addressing his party’s congress, Pedro Sánchez said Spain must show solidarity with nations close to Russia who are most likely to be threatened.
In his speech to the PSOE party Sánchez said the multilateral order was being threatened by Russia.
“What is at stake is not simply a war or an invasion. There is something much more besides this, which would be important in itself, and that is that the multilateral order is at stake,” he said, stressing that it is a system based on principles established in the United Nations Charter.
The Spanish leader indicated that the aim is to achieve a “just and lasting” peace in Ukraine, where “peace is urgent, but not at the cost of rewarding the aggressor, which will open the door to future, even more serious aggressions.”
He was also blunt in declaring that “if Ukraine wants to be part of the European Union, Russia has to respect what Ukraine wants to be”.
Solidarity between European countries
Sánchez however acknowledged the different security realities faced by European countries, admitting that “defence in the east or east of Europe has nothing to do with the security challenges we have in Spain.” Despite this, the president said that Spain will act in solidarity with those under threat.
“We are not going to have a physical attack from Russia like some of the Baltic or Nordic countries, such as Finland, might have. They need our solidarity and they need and demand that together we increase our security capacity to dissuade Russia,” Sánchez explained, reaffirming Spain’s pro-European commitment both “out of interest” and “out of conviction”.
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