ABIDJAN: Almost 300 people returned from Tunisia to Mali and Ivory Coast on Saturday after boarding repatriation flights, fearful of a wave of violence since the president launched a tirade against migrants.
Last month President Kais Saied ordered officials to take “urgent measures” to tackle irregular migration, claiming without evidence that “a criminal plot” was underway “to change Tunisia’s demographic makeup”.
Saied claimed that migrants were behind most crime in the North African country, fuelling a spate of sackings, evictions and attacks.

RAMALLAH: A year after conducting the wide-scale military operation in the West Bank “Break the Wave,” the Israeli security apparatus seems to have achieved little. The situation is more dangerous and violent than before the operation, defense experts told Arab News.

The operation started in February 2022 with the assassination of three Palestinians in Nablus — Adham Mabrouka, Ashraf Mubaslat, and Mohammed Dakhil — and continued with terrible violence, spreading into Gaza.

TUNIS: More than 3,000 people demonstrated against Tunisia’s government on Saturday at a rally organized by the UGTT trade union, which called on President Kaid Saied to accept “dialogue.”
Saied has pushed through sweeping changes to the political system in the country.
In a major crackdown, police have arrested around 20 prominent political figures over the past two weeks, primarily Saied’s opponents.
Demonstrators marched in Tunis on Saturday, also calling for “a halt to impoverishment” in the North African country.

TUNIS: The Tunisian Judges Association said in a statement on Saturday that Tunisian President Kais Saied had suspended a judge because he had not sent a suspect to prison, accusing the government of a crackdown on opponents.
“The Association warns of the great and unprecedented pressures on the judiciary, after arrests and prosecutions that included political activists, judges, lawyers, trade unionists, journalists and media professionals,” the statement said.
A spokesperson for the president was not immediately available.

CHICAGO: John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy for climate, said on Friday that environmental threats relating to climate change and the world’s oceans persist, but he praised the work that is being being done to address them by the UN and the support it is receiving from nations in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain.