Word: tunisian
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...interview requests, but his officials gladly rattle off lists of figures to show Tunisia's progress under his regime. The numbers are striking: while Egypt and Algeria suffer from chronic shortages, Tunisia has a 15% surplus of housing, thanks to massive government construction programs. And about 80% of Tunisians own their homes - ahead of much of Europe. While African countries struggle to educate their children, school is compulsory - and free - in Tunisia up to age 16. About 34% of Tunisian high school graduates go to university, more than five times the rate when Ben Ali took power. This creates...
...have plenty of skilled people here," says Moez Bakir, an engineering manager at Eurocast, a Tunisian subsidiary of Arizona-based firm Paradigm Precision Holdings. Eurocast, which is based outside Tunis, builds aircraft parts for GE Aviation and Rolls-Royce, paying its machine operators about $280 a month - a fraction of what equivalent workers would earn in Europe. Over 80% of Tunisia's exports head to Europe, where they will soon be exempt from customs duties, thanks to a free-trade agreement that takes effect in January. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Europeans soak up the sun on Tunisia's beaches...
...with its small population and economy - should perhaps matter little to the West, compared with that of Libya and Algeria, whose mammoth energy reserves make them important strategic players. But Tunisia's crackdown against Islamic militants has made it a dependable partner in Washington's war on terror, and Tunisian intelligence officers provide "intense cooperation" with CIA and FBI agents, says Tahar Fellous Refaï, director general of external relations and international cooperation at Tunisia's Ministry of the Interior. In October the ripples from Tunisia's approach to human rights reached Washington: a federal judge ordered the U.S. government...
...officials make no apologies for their tough stance on political dissent, which they say has helped to protect Tunisia from the kind of terrorist attacks suffered in Algeria and Morocco. "We have eradicated terrorism as a phenomenon," says Refaï. Scores of members of the Tunisian Islamic organization Ennahdha have been jailed or exiled to Europe. This crackdown has intensified since Algeria's Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat last year renamed itself al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and vowed to recruit terrorists across North Africa. In January, at least 14 people were killed in gun battles between security...
That can hardly be said of Tunisia's business executives, who are busily promoting their country as an ideal launching pad for foreign investors seeking a cheap, well-located route into Europe's markets. Fifteen Tunisian businessmen flew to Washington in October to pump that message to Congressmen and executives, and a group of U.S. businessmen is slated to arrive in Tunis this month to scout for opportunities. At Eurocast, the aircraft-parts maker, engineering manager Bakir says revenues should jump from $5 million to $7 million next year, as more Western companies sign contracts. To him, the possibilities...