Zine el Abidine Ben Ali News

Massive numbers of Tunisian police and army surrounded Tunisia's religious center of Kairouan to prevent a conference by a radical Islamist movement that has been implicated in attacks around the country.

The Salafist group has already vowed to go ahead with the gathering and warned that the government would be responsible for any violence.

BRADENTON, Fla., Updated Jan. 29, 2011-- Americans don't ask their country to get involved in the internal political struggles of the nations it interacts with, and the general rule is that we don't. But prior to the last decade, we were surely too involved in such struggles.

It would appear that after more than 26 months of violent strife in Syria, Canada's Foreign Affairs minister is beginning to understand that this is a very complex equation.

BRADENTON, Fla., Updated Jan. 29, 2011-- Americans don't ask their country to get involved in the internal political struggles of the nations it interacts with, and the general rule is that we don't. But prior to the last decade, we were surely too involved in such struggles.

It would appear that after more than 26 months of violent strife in Syria, Canada's Foreign Affairs minister is beginning to understand that this is a very complex equation.

BRADENTON, Fla., Updated Jan. 29, 2011-- Americans don't ask their country to get involved in the internal political struggles of the nations it interacts with, and the general rule is that we don't. But prior to the last decade, we were surely too involved in such struggles.

TUNIS: The threat Islamist militants posed to Tunisia under ousted dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was worse than the current threat, the ruling Islamist party Ennahda's leader Rached Ghannouchi said yesterday.

Tunisian army vehicles are deployed in Kasserine, the regional capital of the western region of Mount Chaambi, on May 7, 2013.

BRADENTON, Fla., Updated Jan. 29, 2011-- Americans don't ask their country to get involved in the internal political struggles of the nations it interacts with, and the general rule is that we don't. But prior to the last decade, we were surely too involved in such struggles.

A whitewashed synagogue gleams in the sunlight as Saidia Ben Khayat, a basket of raw eggs in hand, labors up a winding path on Tunisia 's Djerba island.

BRADENTON, Fla., Updated Jan. 29, 2011-- Americans don't ask their country to get involved in the internal political struggles of the nations it interacts with, and the general rule is that we don't. But prior to the last decade, we were surely too involved in such struggles.

TUNIS: Tunisia's ousted president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on Tuesday was handed a third life sentence since he fled to Saudi Arabia in January 2011 during a mass uprising against his rule.

Under a bright Mediterranean sun Saturday, Jews whose forebears once thronged Tunisia are trekking to a celebrated synagogue under the protection of police - as organizers try to inject new momentum to an annual pilgrimage that's been depleted in recent years by fears of anti-Semitism. Jewish leaders hope the three-day pilgrimage to the Ghriba ... (more)

Hundreds of Jewish worshippers on Sunday completed an annual pilgrimage to Ghriba, Africa's oldest synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba, where security was high to prevent any violence.

The revolutions sweeping the Middle East provide dramatic evidence of the role that technology plays in mobilizing citizen protest and upending seemingly invulnerable authoritarian regimes.

Africa's oldest synagogue is playing host to that rarity in the Arab world - a religious gathering of hundreds of Jews drawn from Europe and Israel.

BRADENTON, Fla., Updated Jan. 29, 2011-- Americans don't ask their country to get involved in the internal political struggles of the nations it interacts with, and the general rule is that we don't. But prior to the last decade, we were surely too involved in such struggles.

In northern Africa, winters are usually mild and summers normally dry and hot. The glorious Arab Spring revolts in this part of the world can also be measured in this same way - sometimes hot, in fact, blazing hot; sometimes warm; sometimes mild and sometimes just plain dry.

File picture dated May 8, 2012 shows Tunisian policemen standing guard inside the synagogue of Ghriba on the southern Tunisian island of Djerba.