The anti-terrorism unit of the Tunis court of first instance delayed the case to October 27, the second postponement, over a recording attributed to Ennahdha's interim leader Mondher Ounissi that El-Heni says he verified before reporting on it. His support committee renewed its call for his release.
The Tunisian Economic Observatory (Observatoire Tunisien de l'Économie, OTE) said public debt reached 136.7 billion dinars in 2024, up from 47.3 billion in 2015, as domestic borrowing's share of financing rose from a 2015-2019 average of 30 percent to 82 percent in 2024 while access to foreign lending narrowed. The report found that most of 35 loans approved over two parliamentary terms funded general budget support rather than specific projects, often without the contracts reaching parliament.
Tunisia's national police said Thursday that six more suspects, artisan jewelers working in Sfax's gold market, had been placed in custody in the investigation into a gold-laundering network, according to a statement from the Directorate General of National Security carried by the state news agency TAP. Investigators now say the network laundered close to two tonnes of gold over the past six years, and accuse the suspects of taking commissions to pass gold quotas assigned by the central bank to other members of the ring. A first phase of the same investigation, reported by this paper on 20 October: thirteen suspects remain in custody, and investigators seized more than 70 kilograms of gold, 4.5 kilograms of silver, nine luxury cars and cash, worth close to 25 million dinars in total.
Tunisia's draft 2027 budget law earmarks 11.846 billion dinars in subsidy spending, according to the same TAP-obtained document this paper reported on 15 October, now detailed further by two outlets. Energy subsidies take the largest share at 7.09 billion dinars, or 59.8 percent of the total: 3.676 billion dinars for the state power and gas utility STEG and 3.414 billion for the refiner STIR, figures that include about 500 million dinars toward STEG's accumulated 2017-2023 debts and 320 million toward STIR's 2022 and 2024 debts. Subsidies for basic foodstuffs come to 4.036 billion dinars, 34.1 percent of the total and down from 41.7 percent planned for 2026, while transport subsidies rise slightly to 720 million dinars. The energy figures assume an average Brent crude price of 80 dollars a barrel in 2027, against 63.3 dollars assumed for 2026.
A projectile hit the tarmac at King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, killing one person and wounding eight, widening a month of Houthi attacks on Saudi airports that has already struck Riyadh's King Khalid airport four times. The US State Department ordered non-emergency staff and their families to leave its Saudi mission, with similar orders expected across other Gulf posts.
IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohebi said Iran's military has moved to an 'offensive and asymmetrical' defence posture and would invade any country that strikes it. The statement came as Israeli jets held a show-of-force exercise near Iran's western border.
Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and President Emmanuel Macron, meeting in Doha, called for freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz 'without constraints or fees' and for Israel's withdrawal from Gaza under the agreed ceasefire terms. The joint statement came as Macron continued a tour of Gulf states.
Union leaders left a two-and-a-half-hour meeting with Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu saying the government offered no concrete response to this month's nationwide cost-of-living protests, which turned to looting. CGT general secretary Sophie Binet said strike action must “take over” from November 5, with nearly 2,500 people detained since the unrest began.
The Daphne Caruana Galizia prize went to Dutch outlet De Correspondent for its report on two Italian-run detention centres in Albania that cost 259 million euros over two years to hold 256 people. The investigation found Italian authorities withheld contracts and barred journalists, before the centres were repurposed in 2025 after repeated legal setbacks.