Tunisia
Tunisia's Court of Cassation reviews the 3 September appeal in the case against more than 40 political figures and businesspeople convicted of plotting against state security, with sentences from November's appeal ranging five to 45 years. Defence lawyers and the families' coordination say they learned the hearing date only three days in advance, before a summer chamber during judicial recess, and the Tunisian League for Human Rights has called on the court to ensure a fair hearing.
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Kapitalis · Wednesday, 2 September 2026
Sfax MP Tarek Mahdi told Diwan FM that summer blackouts, driven by heatwave demand for air conditioning, knocked out both SONEDE's pumping stations and private bottling plants, worsening both tap-water disruptions and the mineral-water shortage. He urged the presidency to deploy emergency generators and open renewable energy to private investment, as SONEDE announced fresh cuts on Tunis's southern supply line and supermarkets say they still receive only 5 percent of the bottled water being distributed nationally.
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Réalités · Wednesday, 2 September 2026
The Free Destourian Party (PDL) announced a march for 12 September from the Social Affairs Ministry to the Justice Ministry, under the slogan 'no water, no electricity, no freedom, no medicine'. The party, whose president Abir Moussi remains in detention, cited deteriorating public services and what it called 'judicial injustices' amid poor detention conditions.
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Réalités · Wednesday, 2 September 2026
SONEDE said Thursday that a technical failure at the Ghdir El Goulla treatment station, worsened by power cuts to the network's pumps, had cut water supply since Tuesday to parts of southern Grand Tunis, Zaghouan and Nabeul. The utility said repairs are now complete, reservoirs have refilled to about 50 percent, and distribution is resuming in stages, with higher-altitude areas expected to wait longest as the network repressurizes.
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RTCI · Thursday, 3 September 2026
UGTT, the bar association and the Tunisian League for Human Rights, three of the four bodies that shared the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize as the National Dialogue Quartet, said Thursday they are launching a joint coordination framework titled 'Tunisia first, the people above all else'. The statement, signed by UGTT secretary general Salaheddine Selmi, bar president Boubaker Bethabet and LTDH president Bassem Trifi, cites eroding rights and freedoms, prison conditions, pressure on the media, and shortages of water, power and medicine, and says the country 'cannot be governed through denial, silence or a single voice'. The employers' union UTICA, the Quartet's fourth member, is not among the signatories, and the statement does not say whether it was invited.
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Kapitalis · Thursday, 3 September 2026
Geopolitics
Iran's Revolutionary Guards launched missile and drone strikes on US bases in Erbil, Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait, after US strikes on Iran's coast this week killed at least 18 people, among them several at a wedding hit two days earlier. No American casualties were reported; the ceasefire framework from June lapsed on 17 August and there is no active negotiation.
President Xi Jinping told Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi that Middle Eastern countries should reject external interference and reshape the region's security order, during his first visit to Cairo in ten years. The two leaders launched a third phase of a Chinese-Egyptian industrial zone at the Suez Canal and called for a diplomatic end to the US-Israel war with Iran, which has disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb for six months.
Nicolás Maduro's lawyers filed a motion in a New York federal court arguing he is immune from prosecution as Venezuela's recognised head of state, after his January capture in a US military raid on Caracas. Prosecutors have until 2 October to respond, a hearing is set for 17 November, and Maduro's trial on drug-trafficking charges is currently scheduled for June 2027 if the dismissal bid fails.
Europe
A police document reported by Spanish media said Moroccan officers may have guided migrants toward Ceuta during the roughly 72,000-strong crossing in July that this paper has previously reported, though the national police chief later said the report does not blame Moroccan authorities for planning it. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who has pointed instead to criminal networks and disinformation, faces opposition claims that his government knew more than it has said.
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Euronews · Wednesday, 2 September 2026
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Germany's finding that Russia was behind an explosive-laden drone found at Leipzig airport marks a new escalation on EU soil and 'the new normal', warning Europe faces 'a new era of security'. The Commission is weighing further sanctions, on top of Germany's own decision to close Russia's Bonn consulate and end its cultural centre's arrangement in Berlin.
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Euronews · Wednesday, 2 September 2026
Polls put the far-right AfD at around 40 percent ahead of the 6 September election in Saxony-Anhalt, far ahead of the governing CDU's 23 to 26 percent, and within reach of the outright majority that would make it the first far-right party to lead a German state government since 1945. Chancellor Friedrich Merz, campaigning for the CDU's Sven Schulze, warned an AfD win would make investors 'think twice, or rather three times'.