Who says what · Tunisia's dependence on Algeria
On 27 July, Algeria's president Abdelmadjid Tebboune told Algerian media that whoever wants to destabilise Tunisia is really aiming at Algeria, and that this would not be allowed. The remark set off two weeks of Tunisian argument about where solidarity ends and tutelage begins, including a national statement circulated on 29 July and left open for signature, holding that real friendship exists only between two independent states equal in sovereignty, not between a protector and a protected. Algerian gas, carried by the TransMed pipeline that crosses the country, feeds Tunisian power generation, and in early August STEG publicly thanked its Algerian counterpart for support during the summer's planned outages.
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Tunisia
In an interview with La Presse, Ambassador Bill Bazzi says the sum is not an additional visa fee but a bond returned when the holder respects the conditions of the stay and leaves the United States on time. He says it does not apply to students, and that he has met Tunisians, among them former Fulbright grantees, who had been given incomplete information about the rule. The measure covers business and tourist visa applications, B-1 and B-2.
The US embassy in Tunis and the State Department's assistance coordination bureau for Near Eastern affairs have opened a single grant of between one and 1.536 million dollars under the heading of securing US critical mineral supply chains. The project runs 18 to 24 months and is described as strengthening downstream technical standards and trade between the two countries. Applications close on 2 September and questions on 18 August.
Thouraya Tebassi, vice-president of the consumer defence organisation ODC, says it has received several complaints that bottled water is hard to find while its price has risen. She condemns speculators and intermediaries, and argues that a supply crisis must not become a pretext for unjustified increases. During the week inspectors seized 8,832 bottles at Nabeul and, earlier, 40,000 litres at Sousse.
Source:
Webdo · Sunday, 9 August 2026
African Manager sets out the steps that apply to migrants who sign up for voluntary return from Tunisia, from registration to travel documents and departure. The programmes are run in practice by international agencies with European funding, and the number of departures has become a figure that both Tunis and Brussels cite. The account comes while the memorandum between the EU and Tunisia remains contested.
In a communiqué published on Monday, the defence collective for the former speaker of parliament said he stopped eating and taking his medication on Thursday 6 August, in protest at the total isolation imposed since he was moved to hospital on 29 July. It says his lawyers and his family have been refused any visit, any contact and any information about his health, and it holds the authorities responsible for any complication. Ghannouchi is 85 and has been in prison since April 2023; the prison service has denied earlier reports that detainees' health was suffering in the heat or that visits were banned.
The commission on major projects, chaired by head of government Sarra Zaafrani Zenzri, decided on Monday to open procedures at once for a turbine of 250 to 400 MW, costed at 600 million dinars and due in service in the summer of 2027, and to put the plant extension on the list of strategic projects. The file presented to the commission puts July's peak demand at 6400 megawatts against 5175 in 2025, with consumption growing 4 to 5 percent a year. The same meeting released the contracts to finish the 105-bed regional hospital at Thala in Kasserine and the Ennahli digital city in Ariana.
Geopolitics
Hamas told Trump's Board of Peace on 8 August that it stands by the plan's latest stage, under which weapons pass to a Palestinian governing committee, provided Israel approves and begins implementing the agreement. A Hamas official urged Washington to press Israel to move to phase two. Prime Minister Netanyahu, who faces a re-election fight in October and opposition from his own right-wing base, said last week that Israel had not agreed to the draft the Board put forward.
The Guards said on 9 August that the closure holds until the enemy accepts all our conditions, and that the strait is now a theatre of war rather than a waterway. Security chief Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr had set out the demands the day before: an end to the war against Iran and its allies, the lifting of the US counterblockade of Iranian ports, an end to sanctions, the release of frozen assets and compensation for war damage. Foreign Minister Araghchi says talks with Oman on the strait are approaching their final stages but that reopening depends on those conditions.
Damascus said on 9 August that an agreement had been reached on the future of Russia's two bases in the country, the installations used to support the deposed Bashar al-Assad during the civil war. The question has been one of the hardest for Syria's new leadership, because the bases are Moscow's only military foothold on the Mediterranean. The terms have not been made public.
The strikes target al-Makha on the Red Sea, a port held by Yemeni government forces. They fit the wider escalation around the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb, one of the two chokepoints that together with Hormuz govern oil movement between the Gulf and Europe. For European shipping it means both passages are unsafe at the same time.
Europe
Water levels in the Danube have fallen so far that islands are surfacing in the middle of the river, SVT reports from the bank. The river is one of Europe's main freight routes for grain, coal and industrial inputs, and cargo vessels can only be partly loaded as the depth drops. The same drought is hitting harvests in parts of Europe and the cooling water of power stations along the river.
German authorities describe a pattern of sabotage and intrusion running on a daily basis, after a drone carrying an explosive charge was found. The Bundeswehr separately says two drones were seen above a military base at Mechernich. The run of incidents over airports and military sites has sharpened the argument in Berlin about who is responsible for the airspace above protected installations.
Cyprus's energy minister says gas from the island's fields should reach European consumers in March 2028, processed in Egypt before being shipped on. The project is run by ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies. For the EU it is one more piece in the search for replacements for Russian volumes, and for the eastern Mediterranean one more reason to settle where the economic zone boundaries run.
Russia has stepped up its overnight bombardment of Ukrainian cities, with thirteen people killed and around ninety injured in a single day. The strikes hit residential districts in several parts of the country. The escalation comes while European capitals are dealing with drone incidents on their own territory.
Source:
Euronews · Sunday, 9 August 2026