Tunisia

Tunisian police have used tear gas to disperse a demonstration of ultraconservative Islamists protesting against the government in the capital. Hundreds of Salafists took to the streets after Friday prayers condemning comments by the president that they were an insignificant minority. The protesters carried signs calling for Islamic law and chanted God is the greatest. Tunisia was ruled for 23 years by Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who espoused a secular ideology and imposed strict limits on political Islam.

The way things have been going, Americans should have expected a tough road back to Olympic men's basketball gold. "It's been that kind of a year," USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo said. The U.S., reeling from major injuries to NBA stars Dwight Howard and Derrick Rose, was placed into what appears to be the more difficult group Monday during the draw for the London Games in Rio de Janeiro. The defending champions face powerful Argentina, France and Tunisia in Group A, plus two more teams from a last-chance qualifying tournament in Venezuela in July.

Facts and figures about Tunisia, which on Sunday is holding its first truly free elections since 1956 independence: –– GEOGRAPHY: Tunisia lies in the center of North Africa, sandwiched between Algeria to the west and Libya to the east. Its 63,170 square miles (163,610 square kilometers) consists of fertile coast and mountains in the north, with a dry plain in the center and Sahara Desert to the south. It is about the size of Florida and a bit larger than Greece. –– POPULATION: Tunisia has a population of around 10 million people, overwhelmingly Arab and Muslim.

TUNIS, Tunisia — US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton blasted Russia and China as ‘‘despicable" for opposing UN action aimed at stopping the bloodshed in Syria, and more than 60 nations began planning a civilian peacekeeping mission to deploy after the Damascus regime halts its crackdown on the opposition. In his most forceful words to date on the Syrian crisis, President Barack Obama said the US and its allies would use ‘‘every tool available" to end the bloodshed by the government of President Bashar Assad.

MUNICH -- Tunisia made sure the first round of the World Cup wasn't a total loss for Africa. Rahdi Jaidi's powerful header in injury time gave Tunisia a 2-2 tie with Saudi Arabia in a Group H game that was also the only all-Arab match of the tournament. It was the first point earned by one of five African teams. Ivory Coast, Angola, Ghana, and Togo all lost their opening games. "Our objective is to be able to go into the last match without having lost all hope, so that we still have something to fight for," Tunisia coach Roger Lemerre said.

TUNIS — Tunisia’s interior minister suspended all activities of the country’s former ruling party yesterday amid the most serious protests since the country’s autocratic president fled into exile less than a month ago. Fahrat Rajhi suspended all meetings of the Democratic Constitutional Rally, known as the RCD, and ordered all party offices or meeting places it owns closed, a ministry statement said. The RCD embodied the policies of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the former president who fled into exile Jan. 14 after a month of nationwide antigovernment...

TUNIS, Tunisia - A moderate Islamist party will run most of Tunisia's government ministries in a new coalition Cabinet presented yesterday, the first since the country's first elections after its uprising. Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali of the long-banned Islamist party Ennahda said the 41-member government will focus on boosting the economy - with unemployment at 18 percent - and fighting corruption. Joblessness and corruption helped drive popular anger during protests a year ago that forced out hard-line president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, ending half a century of...

Eric Gordon scored 21 points and the United States pulled away after a sluggish first half to beat Tunisia, 92-57, yesterday in its final game of Group B pool play at the world championship in Istanbul. With nothing to play for, the Americans sleepwalked through most of the early start, leading the winless team by only 4 points early in the third quarter before turning it into a rout over the final 15 minutes. The US (5-0), seeded first in Group B, plays Monday against Angola, the No. 4 seed from Group A. The Americans misfired on 9 of their 10 3-point attempts in the first half and failed to...

France's foreign minister has told Tunisia's leaders they can expect France's full support for the North African country's democratic transition. Alain Juppe said Thursday during his visit that Tunisia has France's support because its democracy was founded on values the two countries hold in common, including respect for freedom and women's rights. He added that France would boost its aid to help Tunisia. Juppe is the first high-level Western official to visit the country since the formation of its new government following the victory by a moderate Islamist...

Tunisia's prime minister says authorities are stepping up enforcement of a state of emergency after pockets of violence erupted in recent days — new instability after the country's revolution. The nationally broadcast remarks by Beji Caid-Essebsi come ahead of Tunisia's Oct. 23 elections for an assembly that will write a new constitution in the wake of the fall of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January. Several poorer central and southwestern towns have been roiled by recent clashes.

A court has released the publisher of a Tunisian newspaper accused of violating public morals by publishing a photo of a naked woman, pending a verdict in the case. The Attounisia daily printed a photograph of German-Tunisian football player Sami Khedira of Real Madrid dressed in a tuxedo with his hands covering the breasts of his otherwise naked German model girlfriend, Lena Gercke. Publisher Nasreddine Ben Saida was released Thursday while he awaits the verdict in the case, expected March 8. Though Tunisia is not as conservative as its neighbors, it was unusual for the...

Tunisian police have used tear gas to disperse a demonstration of ultraconservative Islamists protesting against the government in the capital. Hundreds of Salafists took to the streets after Friday prayers condemning comments by the president that they were an insignificant minority. The protesters carried signs calling for Islamic law and chanted God is the greatest. Tunisia was ruled for 23 years by Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who espoused a secular ideology and imposed strict limits on political Islam.

CAIRO - The United States and other Western governments must accept the new reality that Islamists have emerged to fill the power vacuum in the Arab world after a wave of popular uprisings, Human Rights Watch said in its annual report yesterday. The New York-based group also urged Islamist parties, which have emerged as the biggest winners in recent elections in Tunisia and Egypt and are expected to fare well in Libya, to respect the rights of women and religious minorities, saying they cannot "pick and choose" when it comes to human rights.

By Adam Burrows, Boston.com Correspondent Gernot Rohr enjoyed a long playing career at Bordeaux and has held some plum postings as a coach, but that won't be enough to win over skeptics in the central African nation of Gabon, where Rohr took over the helm of the national team in early 2010. Rohr replaced the popular Alain Giresse, who left for Mali, and Gabon supporters have been slow to embrace the 58 year-old native German, notwithstanding his French fluency and affection for the natural wonders of the country.

France's foreign minister has told Tunisia's leaders they can expect France's full support for the North African country's democratic transition. Alain Juppe said Thursday during his visit that Tunisia has France's support because its democracy was founded on values the two countries hold in common, including respect for freedom and women's rights. He added that France would boost its aid to help Tunisia. Juppe is the first high-level Western official to visit the country since the formation of its new government...

TUNIS, Tunisia - A moderate Islamist party will run most of Tunisia's government ministries in a new coalition Cabinet presented yesterday, the first since the country's first elections after its uprising. Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali of the long-banned Islamist party Ennahda said the 41-member government will focus on boosting the economy - with unemployment at 18 percent - and fighting corruption. Joblessness and corruption helped drive popular anger during protests a year ago that forced out hard-line president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, ending half a century of dictatorship.

TUNIS, Tunisia — Tunisia extended a state of emergency that has been in place since the country’s longtime autocratic president was overthrown during an uprising last month, while it ended the curfew imposed during the deadly protests, the Interior Ministry said yesterday. The curfew was in place since Jan. 13, the day before President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia in the wake of clashes between police and protesters angry about unemployment, corruption, and repression.

TUNIS - Tunisia has issued a warrant summoning the widow of deceased Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat over a corruption scandal, the state news agency reported yesterday. The warrant was issued last week over Suha Arafat's role in a scandal involving the former Tunisian dictator, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, his family, and other high government officials, said Kadhem Zine El Abidine, spokesman for the Justice Ministry. He did not provide any details, but an online journal "Attounissia" said she was being investigated over the International School of Carthage, which she founded in 2006 with Ben...

TUNIS - The moderate Islamist party that appears to have won Tunisia's landmark elections was in talks with rivals yesterday about forming an interim coalition government to lead the birthplace of the Arab Spring through its transition to democracy. Partial results released yesterday supported the Ennahda Party's claims that it had won the most seats in a 217-member assembly with the task of running the country and writing its new constitution. But results so far indicate the Islamists had failed to win an outright majority, meaning a coalition must be formed.