Tunisia
A Tunisian criminal court on Thursday sentenced activists Hadhami Hammami and Maryem Halfaoui to six months in prison, suspended, and Marwen Bedhiafi to seven months, suspended, over a 19 September solidarity march for the Gaza-bound Sumud Flotilla; all three were freed that evening. A fourth detainee, Kais Bouzouita, had his release request denied and his hearing postponed to 12 October; his lawyer, Leila Haddad, called the ruling "unjust" and said she hopes the remaining detainees will be released at their next hearings.
Italian trade data cited by La Presse de Tunisie puts the number of closed Tunisian hotels at up to 177, against just 15 to 17 new establishments under construction, representing over 4,000 rooms; the report blames ageing infrastructure, over-indebtedness and the cost of modernising the existing stock, not a lack of demand. Tourist arrivals reached about 7.1 million by the end of August 2026, with revenue of 5.52 billion dinars for the first eight months, up 5 percent on the year, and four Tunisian hotel operators will seek renovation partners at Italy's InOut trade fair in Rimini from 14 to 16 October.
Interior Minister Khaled Nouri travelled to Tripoli on Thursday to meet his Libyan counterpart, Major General Imad Mustafa Trabelsi, where both sides reaffirmed their shared will to develop security cooperation, looked at ways to ease border crossing operations, and discussed strengthening coordination between the two countries' security services. The visit comes amid a wider push to consolidate ties between Tunisia and Libya on security and the movement of people, though no new agreement was announced.
French coach Sabri Lamouchi, sacked after a single World Cup match in charge of Tunisia following a 1-5 loss to Sweden, told Al Jazeera this week that he is "not sure" his players were "on the same wavelength" as his plans to refresh an ageing squad, and called his dismissal "crazy" and "humiliating." The remarks, Lamouchi's first since Hervé Renard took over for the rest of the tournament, have revived a public argument over what went wrong for the Eagles of Carthage, the subject of the day's heaviest search traffic in Tunisia.
Geopolitics
The UK's maritime monitor reported several projectiles hit the Antigua-flagged tanker Acers north of Qatar on Wednesday, the first such attack in that stretch of water in over six months, while a second tanker, the Dhalgout, caught fire off Fujairah the next day under circumstances still unclear. Iran's acting defence minister, Majid Ebn ol-Reza, warned on social media that "the distance between you and us is determined by our missiles," naming the Gulf of Oman, the Indian Ocean and Cuba as places the war could spread. The Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries a fifth of world oil and gas shipments, has been effectively closed since Iran and the US imposed rival naval blockades in February.
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Euronews · Thursday, 8 October 2026
US prosecutors filed a revised indictment accusing former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, of conspiring to torture political opponents to stay in power, adding human-rights charges on top of the existing drug-trafficking case; the filing alleges Maduro personally approved torture methods including electric shocks, and separately threatened to kill a prisoner's child as a form of psychological torture; it names Venezuela's DGCIM military intelligence agency. Maduro and Flores, captured in a raid on their Caracas home and held in New York since January, have pleaded not guilty to the drug charges, which carry a possible life sentence. Maduro is separately under International Criminal Court investigation for alleged crimes against humanity, which he denies.
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Euronews · Thursday, 8 October 2026
Europe
A Russian guided bomb struck a crowded bus stop in Kramatorsk on Thursday, killing 30 people; the city's military administration chief, Oleksandr Honcharenko, said "there is no doubt that Russia is cynically targeting civilians." The same week a missile strike on Pryluky killed 22, including five children, while Kyiv's grid operator ordered emergency blackouts after drone strikes cut power across the capital. A Ukrainian delegation is due to meet Donald Trump's envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff in Miami from Friday to discuss strengthening Ukraine's air defences.
Italy's Chamber of Deputies approved the government's new electoral law, nicknamed the "Melonellum" by critics, 227 to 164 in a secret ballot on Thursday, after Meloni's coalition used confidence motions to push it through a third reading. The law adds preference voting to blocked party lists, raises the signature threshold for new parties from 1,500 to 6,000, and revises gender-balance rules; opposition leaders Elly Schlein and Giuseppe Conte say it is designed to protect sitting lawmakers rather than voters, and warn parts of it may be unconstitutional.
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Euronews · Thursday, 8 October 2026
The Interior Ministry counted 71,500 protesters nationwide on Thursday, 24,500 of them in Paris, as a three-week-old student movement over overcrowded classrooms and teacher shortages reached Place de la Bastille; clashes later broke out and police used tear gas and a water cannon. Jean-Luc Mélenchon declared the square "retaken" and called for another mobilisation on 13 October, while Education Minister Édouard Geffray said 3,000 substitute teachers would be sent to schools facing critical shortages; police have made more than 6,600 arrests since the movement began in mid-September.
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Euronews · Thursday, 8 October 2026
About 2,200 farmers and 625 tractors blocked roads across 39 French departments on Thursday, with hundreds gathering outside the National Assembly, as Coordination Rurale protested the EU-Mercosur trade deal and the government's handling of a lumpy skin disease outbreak in cattle. The pact would open the EU to more Brazilian, Argentine, Paraguayan and Uruguayan beef, poultry and sugar; President Emmanuel Macron said France would oppose it ahead of a decisive European vote, while Brussels says quotas on sensitive products and EU food-safety rules would still apply.
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Euronews · Thursday, 8 October 2026