TUNIS: Schools and businesses in Om Laarayes, a major Tunisian mining town, shut down Thursday as a general strike protested deteriorating infrastructure, days after a deadly road accident.
The regional URT labor union, part of the powerful UGTT trade federation, called for the strike to demand improvements to the southwestern town’s infrastructure and health care.
“All schools, shops and local institutions have shut down in protest against the deteriorating state of infrastructure,” said URT secretary-general Mohamed Sghaier Miraoui.
The strike followed a road accident on Tuesday when a bus collided with a truck in the town, killing six people and injuring nine.
“This tragic accident has sparked outrage among residents of our neglected region,” Miraoui told AFP.
“Such incidents are frequent because we still lack basic infrastructure Public transport is inadequate, and our hospital is poorly equipped even for emergency care, while the morgue cannot properly accommodate bodies.”
Despite its phosphate wealth, Om Laarayes, home to 40,000 people, remains underdeveloped.
“Our town is a mining city and has natural resources,” said Miraoui. “It should be among the main regions with infrastructure.”
Many inland areas of Tunisia struggle with social and economic hardship, unlike wealthier coastal cities.
Protests have been common in these regions since the 2011 revolution that toppled longtime ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and sparked the Arab Spring uprisings.
In the mining hub of Gafsa, people have long demanded better infrastructure and jobs by reviving phosphate production.
Tunisia produced eight million tons of phosphate in 2010 but has only been producing up to half of that in recent years due to underinvestment and recurring social unrest.
Phosphates, one of Tunisia’s few natural resources, are a key ingredient in fertilizers.
Strike shuts Tunisia mining town over infrastructure woes
https://arab.news/cb64x
Strike shuts Tunisia mining town over infrastructure woes
- The regional URT labor union called for the strike to demand improvements
- The strike followed a road accident on Tuesday when a bus collided with a truck in the town
Iran, UK foreign ministers in rare direct contact
- A UK government source said Cooper “emphasized the need for a diplomatic solution on Iran’s nuclear program and raised a number of other issues”
TEHRAN: Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has spoken by phone with his British counterpart Yvette Cooper, an Iranian foreign ministry statement said on Saturday, in a rare case of direct contact between the two countries.
The ministry said that in Friday’s call the ministers “stressed the need to continue consultations at various levels to strengthen mutual understanding and pursue issues of mutual interest.”
A UK government source said Cooper “emphasized the need for a diplomatic solution on Iran’s nuclear program and raised a number of other issues.”
The source in London said Cooper raised the case of Lindsay and Craig Foreman, a British couple detained in Iran for nearly a year on suspicion of espionage.
The Iranian ministry statement did not mention the case of the two Britons.
It said Araghchi criticized “the irresponsible approach of the three European countries toward the Iranian nuclear issue,” referring to Britain, France and Germany.
The three countries at the end of September initiated the
reinstatement of UN sanctions against Iran because of its nuclear program.
The Foremans, both in their early fifties, were seized in January as they passed through Kerman, in central Iran, while on a round-the-world motorbike trip.
Iran accuses the couple of entering the country pretending to be tourists so as to gather information for foreign intelligence services, an allegation the couple’s family rejects.
Before Friday’s call, the last exchange between the two ministers was in October.
