Word: tunisia
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...have featured traumatized patients discussing the reaction they'd have faced on their wedding night or following virginity examinations frequently required prior to traditional marriages. Some admit they've paid as much as $5,250 to have their hymens reconstituted in private French clinics; others go to cities in Tunisia, Algeria, or Morocco, where the procedure is even more common, and costs as little as $300. Though the number of Muslim women in the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, and France undergoing the procedure is unknown, there's a consensus among doctors that hymenoplasty is increasingly common. Ironically, as some commentators...
...Tunisian government, like many of its neighbors, recognizes the potential in such trade. Already the exporter of 30% of the world's dates, many destined for markets in Europe's Muslim neighborhoods, Tunisia wants to make a name for its country's nectarines, oranges, wines and even olive oil - which is currently shipped out in bulk, mixed and then bottled under Italian and Spanish labels. Mohamed Ali Jendoubi, a top agriculture ministry official, says that, with the right kind of marketing, people will seek out Tunisian products. "With our climate, our fruit has the taste of the sun," he says...
...Tunisia's agricultural exports, worth $1.2 billion, still lag behind its $1.4 billion in farm imports. North Africa's natural gifts are too often wasted, says Gunther Feiler of the Tunis office of the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). "There is big potential in fruits and other high-value crops," Feiler says of the entire Maghreb area. "But there are too many small farms that don't have the resources to gain access to foreign markets." Policy changes are needed on both sides of the Mediterranean. In North Africa, governments have kept prices low, fearing the political consequences...
...been a key impediment to more investment in North Africa, notes Carlo Altomonte, a professor of international economic policy at Milan's Bocconi University. "One of the main reasons of the trading success in Eastern Europe is that they integrated among themselves," he says. "If you invest in Tunisia, you get stuck in Tunisia. The North Africans are painfully slow to trust each other...
Projects like this are part of the solution for Europe's immigration crisis, says Abdelhakim Khaldi, head of Tunisia's public land agency: "We have land, we have water, we have human resources. And we're open to all possibilities. But there must be open access to European markets for these products. If there is, I can sign my name to a document that there will be no problem of emigrants. People here just need a job." It will take more than a presidential photo op in Paris to find them one. But it may be a start...