Tunisia
Some Tunisian poultry farms reported total flock losses this summer, as extreme heat combined with electricity and water cuts disabled ventilation and cooling systems, hitting small and medium farms without backup generators hardest. The poultry traders' chamber projects September output near 11,000 tonnes against a planned 16,000, while daily consumption runs 350 to 400 tonnes. The agriculture ministry plans to import hatching eggs to rebuild flocks by November and December, and expects the shortage to ease in October.
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Réalités · Monday, 7 September 2026
National production fell about 2,000 megawatts short of the roughly 6,400 megawatts Tunisia needed at peak demand in July, after postponed investment and slow construction work left capacity lagging behind rising consumption and heavy summer air-conditioning use. The government is accelerating work at the Borj El Amri plant and continuing to import electricity from Algeria, which officials call a stopgap rather than a fix. Without new capacity, officials have warned next summer's shortfall could be worse.
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Réalités · Monday, 7 September 2026
Tunisia's bottled water shortage, which began when a 70 million litre buffer stock ran down over the summer, is still disrupting supply in twelve governorates including Mahdia, Sousse and Monastir. Summer demand for bottled water runs 10 million litres a day against about 7 million the rest of the year, as the sector's 31 bottling plants struggled with heat waves and the power and water cuts that repeatedly halted production. The commerce ministry has ordered an intensive distribution push while directing plants to run at maximum capacity.
An investigating judge at Tunis's Economic and Financial Judicial Pole ordered journalist Mohamed Yousfi into pretrial detention on Tuesday. Yousfi, editor-in-chief of Al Katiba, was detained on September 4 outside Express FM's studios. His defense said the judge acted before questioning was finished and before his lawyers had completed their pleading. During the hearing his condition worsened sharply, the SNJT journalists' union said, and Civil Protection medics treated him on site. The SNJT declared what it called a press emergency, and colleagues held a protest outside the courthouse, repeating the union's demand for his release and calling the illicit enrichment and money laundering investigation a pretext targeting his journalism. Yousfi had emergency appendix surgery in custody earlier in the case.
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Réalités · Tuesday, 8 September 2026
Geopolitics
IAEA director general Rafael Grossi said a nuclear reactor built by North Korea in Syria's Deir Ez Zor province, and long denied by the Assad government, was configured to produce fissile material usable directly in weapons. Inspectors had to break through walls and navigate narrow hidden passages to reach the site during an August visit, arranged after Syria's post-Assad government granted access. Israel bombed the reactor in 2007; Syria bulldozed the site afterwards and never fully accounted for it to the IAEA.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio began a three-country tour on September 8, meeting Colombia's new president Abelardo de la Espriella before travelling on to Ecuador and then Peru, where he is due to meet newly elected leader Keiko Fujimori. The State Department said the trip covers earthquake recovery aid for Colombia, counter-narcotics cooperation and deeper trade ties. It follows a rightward shift across Latin America that has also brought Trump-aligned leaders to power in Honduras and Bolivia this year.
UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese said Israel's large-scale crushing and removal of rubble in Gaza risks erasing evidence of what she called “atrocity crimes,” noting Palestinian authorities estimate more than 10,000 people remain buried under the debris. She said the rubble contains evidence relevant to investigating alleged international crimes, including genocide, and that states and companies involved in its removal could incur international criminal responsibility. Israel's military carried out a large clearing operation in August at sites that include former cemeteries.
Europe
The far-right Alternative for Germany won the final count with 43.8% of the vote in Sunday's Saxony-Anhalt state election, more than doubling its 2021 result, while Chancellor Merz's CDU fell to 17.2%; the party is still three seats short of an outright majority, and every mainstream party maintains its 'firewall' refusing to govern with it. Merz said the result had 'changed not only Saxony-Anhalt, but Germany as a whole' and that he was 'profoundly shocked.' It is the closest a far-right party has come to power in a German state since the Second World War.
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Euronews · Monday, 7 September 2026
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced a 200 million euro, two-year package for Greenland covering connectivity, clean energy, fisheries and education, during a visit to the capital Nuuk. She said the EU stood with Greenland, which is under “enormous pressure,” without naming Donald Trump, who has repeatedly said the US should take control of the Danish territory. Greenland is a self-governing Danish territory, and Denmark is an EU member, but Greenland itself is outside the union.
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Euronews · Monday, 7 September 2026
German police found and defused 21 homemade explosive devices near high-voltage lines in Saxony, part of a sabotage campaign that has also targeted power infrastructure in Brandenburg and North Rhine-Westphalia. A 48-year-old suspect, described as a climate activist, is wanted after sending letters to media and authorities claiming responsibility and citing opposition to fossil fuels. Suspected explosive materials were found at his home; three lignite-mining states have now been targeted.
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DPA · Monday, 7 September 2026
Madrid's Audiencia Nacional ordered a criminal investigation into the roughly 72,000-strong crossing from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta over two days in July, which this paper has previously reported left dozens dead by drowning. The investigating judge cited the same police report on Moroccan security forces' 'total permissiveness' that Spain's national police chief has said does not blame Moroccan authorities for planning the surge, and wrote that it fit the pattern of 'hybrid warfare' aimed at Spain. The court will examine whether an organised structure lay behind the crossings and the deaths.
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Euronews · Monday, 7 September 2026