chicharitoutd's posterous

External debt capital stock : 21 708 517 000 => 3 times the amount of debt in 1987 and 50% of GDP.

Interests represent 70% of the total due amount.

Since 1987, multilateral credits went from 19% to 40% of the ongoing external debt.

5 loaners have 76% of the ongoing debt: Financial markets (31,5%) ; France (13,9%) ; European Investment Bank (11,1%) ; African Development Bank (10,5%) ; World Bank (9,1%).

In 2011 Tunisia will have to pay: 3 500 000 TND 

Between 1990 and 2008: Tunisia received 33,6 MTD and paid 38,5 MTD

New loans are being used to pay off the debt not the development !

*The debt in 2011 budget is :

- 3 Times the health budget

-11 Times the social affairs budget

-13 Times the justice budget

and...19 Times THE EMPLOYMENT BUDGET !

Instead of getting rid or at least negociating better terms for this shocking debt, the interim government contracted billions of dollars of loans.

Loans weren't used to finance growth and development but to finance Ben Ali and his family excesses and their stealing of honest tunisians projects.

"Empirically, there's little proof that a failure to pay leads to a long period of exclusion from the financial markets. Russia was able to have access 2 years after a payment failure which was decreed unilaterally without consultation with creditors. The fact that Argentina did so well even without IMF support (or thanks to that) should lead to a change of belief." Joseph Stiglitz  

High-ranking Tunisian policeman Samir Feriani is in military custody since May 29, after writing a letter to Interior Minister Habib Essid that named current high-level ministry officials whom he said bore responsibility for killing protesters during the Tunisian revolution, as well as for other human rights abuses. Feriani’s letter also charged that ministry officials have been destroying sensitive archives following the ouster of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali on January 14.

Feriani’s letter asserted that on January 20, ministry cars went to a location housing ministry archives and officers destroyed papers and cassettes, one of his defense lawyers, Samir Ben Amor, who read the letter, told Human Rights Watch. Feriani contended that the material targeted for destruction included archives of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) that, he said, documented Ben Ali’s relations with the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. The PLO was headquartered in Tunis from 1982 to 1994.

After first addressing the interior minister, Feriani then addressed his accusations to the office of Prime Minister Béji Caïd Essebsi, Ben Amor said. Shortly before his arrest, two independent Tunisian newspapers, El Khabir (The Expert) and l’Audace (The Bold One), had begun reporting on Feriani’s accusations.

A military court investigative judge is investigating Feriani on charges under the penal code of “harming the external security of the state,” distributing information “likely to harm public order,” and “accusing, without proof, a public agent of violating the law” (respectively, penal code articles 61, 121(3), and 128), another one of his lawyers, Mohamed Abbou, told Human Rights Watch.

Feriani has been referred to military rather than civilian court both because of his status as a police officer and the nature of the charges. In contrast to the civilian courts, the military court verdicts are subject to no appeal on the facts. A defendant can refer a military court verdict only to the Court of Cassation, which can annul a verdict only on the grounds of error in procedure or in application of the law. 

Feriani’s family and lawyers have been able to visit him in custody. However, the military investigating judge, Wahid Bounnani, has allowed the defense team only to view but not to take a copy of the case file, contrary to long-established practice by Tunisia’s judiciary, said Ben Amor, the defense lawyer.

The policeman has not so far been charged with divulging classified information or violating a professional obligation to maintain secrecy. By silencing him illegally, authorities are discouraging would-be whistle-blowers, the reform of the repressive dictatorial laws and the freedom of speech. So by fighting for the rights of Samir Feriani, tunisians are fighting for truth, for justice, for freedom and for the revolution.

Yesterday was ruled out the request for suspension of the judgment concerning the censorship of websites in Tunisia and yet another step made toward freedom thanks to the uprising is on the brink of being lost by tunisian people.

What happened is that 3 lawyers asked for the censorship of porn websites considering that Tunisia is an islamic country and that these websites are harmful for children.

First of all, what is democracy if not respecting minorities ? So even if we suppose that porn websites are against islam, is the problem their existence or visiting them ? In the first case we have to respect the freedom of non-islamic minorities and in the second one everyone is free not to visit them which makes censorship nothing but a symbolic act without any real purpose. So the argument of religion is...Bullshit !

Let's move on to the second argument of these 3 so well intentioned lawyers: children protection. I have looked at the latest stats and It seems pretty sure that kids are....Everywhere ! So what ? Tunisia is so much better than everyone else that it's going to be the only country to protect it's kids ? I don't think so, there's other ways to protect them like parental control which is a service already made available by most if not all the Internet Service Providers in the country. And it seems like a suitable way to preserve the freedom of adults and the innocence of children.

Now just for those who are reading for the first time about censorship or who never thought about it for more than 2 minutes. I have to tell you that censorship is against human rights : "Liberty consists in being able to do anything that does not harm others..." (no, your wrist is not considered as others),you also have to know that once it starts censorship doesn't stop, after porn we'll have to get rid of proxys because tunisians learn to use them since kindergarten, then we'll have to close blogs and video sharing services cause someone posted the latest upskirt of Kate Middleton getting in a car ! So no Flickr, no Youtube, no Dailymotion...Just like before, when our not so deposed friend Ben Ali was still here. So let's fight against those "we decide what's good for you" like we did with the previous ones and let's act and protest against censorship !

22 May, Raid Attac Cadtm organizes a popular meeting at Bourse Du Travail in Tunis, with alongside tunisian activists, 4 Euro-MPs from the Unified European Left group : Marie-Christine Vergiat (France) ; Paul Murphy (Ireland) ; Georgios Toussas (Greece) ; Joao Ferreira (Portugal) they are the representatives of a petition signed by 75 European MPs backing Raid Attack Cadtm in their and many other tunisians battle to get rid of the odious debt. The association spokesman Fathi Chamkhi wrote on Cadtm.org "The tunisians got rid of  the dictator and they have the right to get rid of the debt that he left, they have to choose between paying the dictator's debt and satisfying they're own economical, social and cultural needs, it's a matter of basic democracy and social justice."

Paying the debt or not is quite a controversial matter, in one hand it would show that Tunisia is determined to get free from all national and internatinal, political and economical dictatorships alongside other countries like Greece, Portugal, Spain who are fighting right now for a change. In the other hand many people don't believe that such a global alteration is possible and without that, a cancellation of a debt would be too much a risk to take for tunisian economy.

I say we're seeing citizens of the world waking up, protesting and trying to make a change...You can start by coming to the meeting, learning more about the subject, make yur own opinion, that would already be a manner of showing that you care about your national and international environment and that you want it to be as fair as possible.

PES 2012: 

What we know : 

• A lot of work has gone into attacking as a team and defense balance
• Improvement to the movements of players off the ball
• More intelligent and realistic use of space
• Tighter Man-Marking
• More direct control over holding an attacker up
• Closer one-on-ones
• A lot more physical gameplay

Announcement video :

FIFA 2012:

What we know :

• New Impact Engine to make player contact more realistic
• Improved Personality Plus system to make players act even more like in real life
• Removal of the system that allowed to steal the ball by holding the press button
• Enhancement of dribbling and one-on-ones

First Screenshot:

"The tour is a world of contrasts and oddities, and this is what i'll try to express in my photos" Explains Moby. Destroyed, the name of the album, is also the last word of the insignia "Unattended luggage will be destroyed" it was photographed by Moby in a deserted corridor of a New York airport. You'd say it's nothing exceptional knowing that Moby graduated at the faculty of Cinema and Photography, well he says "The goal of my shots is to take the normal and present him as eccentric, and capture the eccentric presenting it as normal". If you are familiar with the works of Sally Mans and Wolfgang Tillmans you'd realise that Moby doesn't really bring anything new to photography and doesn't seem able to free himself from influences.

"Shouldn't he be hanging out with Thom Yorke in some weird house in the Yorkshire Dales, reading Foucault and drinking herb tea" That's what people say about him according to the artist, well if they do, they'd be definitely right. Instead he goes from bar to bar getting drunk and the least we can say is that it's not inspiring him. Once you hear the first four bars, you've heard the whole song, and the further you get into this album, the more often this phenomenon occurs. Destroyed lacks focus, lacks originality and is not even ashamed of giving us oddly similar songs. By comparision, this album is the direct antithesis of Moby's last effort Wait for me where he melded traditional blues rock with his ambient best while on Destroyed it's as if his scope was all encompassing and the result is clustered and unfocused.

1. The Broken Places 
2. Be the One 
3. Sevastopol 
4. The Low Hum 
5. Rockets 
6. The Day 
7. The Right Thing 
8. After
9. Victoria Lucas 
10. Blue Moon 
11. Lie Down in Darkness 
12. Stella Maris
13. The Violent Bear it Away 
14. Lacrimae 
15. When You Are Old

Javier Hernandez was honoured by the fans as Manchester United celebrated yesterday their premier league title-winning season. Notching 13 league goals in his debut season the mexican picked up 21% of the votes, he declared upon receiving the award "I dreamt about playing for Manchester United and thought perhaps for my first season i'd play for the reserves with maybe a few minutes in the first team. But thanks to the boss and all my team-mates i have played a little bit more". Upon news of Chicharito's success Rio Ferdinand tweeted "Chicharito won fans player of the year...Fully deserved, has fitted in here so well + scored many goals. Huge future !" The other winners of the night were : Ryan Tunicliffe for young player of the year, Oliver Gill for reserve player of the year, Rooney's overhead kick against City won him the goal of the year award while Nani was voted players' player of the year.

A compilation of Javier Hernandez's all premier league goals this season:

It all started with the first two tweets sent by @Afek_Tounes , a tunisian political right-wing party born after the revolution. Swiftly, a huge number of mentions and replies were directed at them joking about and deriding those two tweets and the party in general, just minutes later a blog was created to regroup the funniest ones and the next step was a facebook page. But what is the image of that party and what does it represent in the minds of tunisians to make it a target for their humorous creativity and sometimes pure mockery ?

First of all, the tunisian uprising was a popular one, even if it spread to all regions and every component of tunisian society contributed in it's way to get rid of dictatorship, it all started in the most neglected parts of the country and by it's most forgotten people. So seeing those top level executives and white collars coming back from the richest occidental countries to either help or maybe get their share of the new tunisian political and economical environment can certainly be perceived as frustrating or paradoxical for some and that surely places them in a good position to be the victim of jests like : "We live in France, but we will rule Tunisia" , "We don't master arabic but we will master arabs" and "We won't make anybody laugh during Roland Garros".

Another reason that puts Afek into such position is certainly the fact that they are percieved as being excessively rich, nobody really knows what they do have and what they don't but you can't stop people's imagination so it flows like money into Afek's bank accounts and that gives us jokes like "You are rich ? Vote for Afek and get richer" , "Other parties have bank accounts in our banks" and "We're not in the Top 10 richest of the world, vote for us and we'll be"

The final explanation for Afek being the latest scapegoat of tunisian's web amusement, is it being regarded as an outrageously capitalistic party and that certainly makes it a target of choice for those who have different political views and in a country where only 8% of the actual parties are declared as liberals there's no doubt that a lot of people are opposed to that economical ideology or at least against it's excess. We can see such opposition in facts like "Please bring your iPad to our meetings, Smartphones wouldn't be well percieved by our sponsors...Sorry we mean our companies" , "Tunisia is our monopoly, we are the players and you are the pawns" and "Our social programme is that everybody does whatever he wants, that way you will be pretty occupied while we screw you with our economical one".

That's about the start of Afek Facts. Now, one can only wonder about a few things : Will this action spread even more and become comparable to ones such as Humour de droite in France, will Afek be the only target of such derision and is it a good or a bad buzz for the party considering that it's yet unknown to many tunisians ? Only time can tell...

Sweden ? Retail ? Furniture ? You guessed it, the Cannes 2011 advertiser of the year is Ikea. The swedish retailer first win in Cannes Lions international festival of creativity was in 1991, since then the company won 50 other awards in the same festival. According to Philip Thomas, Cannes Lions CEO "The company's superb track record at Cannes reveals a clarity of vision and an enviable willingness to allow its agencies to truly flex their creative muscles. We congratulate both Ikea and its many agencies across many countries on this well-deserved honour". About the creative success of Ikea, global retail manager and vice-president of Ikea Group Noel Wijsman said "We want to inspire people to fulfill needs and dreams in their everyday life at home. And we want to do that with a smile." Commenting on the award he added "I am honoured to receive this award on behalf of Ikea. It is a great recognition of Ikea advertising that speaks to all of us who want to have a functional and beautiful home".

Below a video of one of the recent successful marketing compaigns for Ikea, it was made by Mother London and it's called Happy Inside

The chance of seeing a foreign movie in Tunisia just 3 months after its release is in itself quite remarkable, when the same movie is in 3D, is directed by Wim Wenders, got a huge acclaim in Europe and provides quite an original cinematographic experience it becomes unmissable and i'm the first one in line. Now, let's take a closer look to the movie itself, Pina 3D is incredibly beautiful, the scenes shot in the streets as much as those shot in natural environments are breathtaking. Also, the illustration of the emptiness that the dancer left behind is fascinating just like her portrayal is. On the other hand many voices said that Pina will revolutionize the use of 3D but sadly it didn't happen. The reason is, that the images and the scenes that we are offered are meant to be natural and true, the technology that was used made them artificial and took life out of them. We also realise that Pina is not really the movie it was supposed to be and the dancer's fate made it more of a documentary which comes with a classical structure made of archives, reconstructions and interviews, so this is no longer a proper movie nor a proper documentary and it's delivered by an uninspired Wenders because the amazing scenes are not enough to make Pina the great movie it was supposed to be and not even enough to prevent the viewer from getting bored. The last screenings of Pina 3D in Tunis are today 17/05 at 13h, 15h30 and 18h at the CinemAfricArt.

Movie : Pina 3D / Genre : Musical / Director : Wim Wenders / Screenplay : Wim Wenders / Stars : Regina Advento, Malou Airaudo, Ruth Amarante