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A towel draped over his head, Hamza Jabbari sets bags of plastic bottles onto a scale. He is among Tunisia’s “barbechas”, informal plastic recyclers whose increasing numbers reflect the country’s economic — and migratory — woes.The 40-something-year-old said he starts the day off at dawn, hunching over bins and hunting for plastic before the rubbish trucks and other plastic collectors come.”It’s the most accessible work in Tunisia when there are no job offers,” Jabbari said, weighing a day’s haul in Bhar Lazreg, a working-class neighbourhood north of the capital, Tunis.The work is often gruelling, with a kilogramme of plastic bottles worth only 0.5 to 0.7 Tunisian dinar — less than $0.25.In Tunis, it’s common to see women weighed down by bags of plastic bottles along the roadside, or men weaving through traffic with towering loads strapped to their motorcycles.”Everyone does it,” said Jabbari.- ‘Supplementary job’ -Hamza Chaouch, head of the National Chamber of Recyclable Waste Collectors, estimated that there were roughly 25,000 plastic collectors across Tunisia, with 40 percent of them in the capital.Yet, with the job an informal one, there is no official count of how many plastic collectors operate in Tunisia.One thing is certain: their number has increased in recent years, said Chaouch, who also runs a plastic collection centre south of Tunis.”It’s because of the cost of living,” he explained. “At first, it was people with no income, but for the past two years, workers, retirees and cleaning women have also turned to this work as a supplementary job.”Around 16 percent of Tunisians lived under the poverty line as of 2021, the latest available official figures.Unemployment currently hovers around 16 percent, with inflation at 5.4 percent.The ranks of these recyclers have also grown with the arrival of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa — often hoping to reach Europe but caught in limbo with both the EU and Tunis cracking down on Mediterranean crossings.Tunisia is a key transit country for thousands of sub-Saharan migrants seeking to reach Europe by sea each year, with the Italian island of Lampedusa only 150 kilometres (90 miles) away.Abdelkoudouss, a 24-year-old from Guinea, said he began collecting plastic to make ends meet but also to save up enough money to return home after failing two crossing attempts to Europe.For the past two months, he has worked at a car wash, he said, but the low pay forced him to start recycling on the side.”Life here is not easy,” said Abdelkoudouss, adding he came to the capital after receiving “a lot of threats” amid tension between migrants and locals in Sfax, a coastal city in central Tunisia.- ‘Just trying to survive’ -Thousands of migrants had set up camp on the outskirts of Sfax, before authorities began dismantling the makeshift neighbourhoods this year. Tensions flared in early 2023 when President Kais Saied said “hordes of sub-Saharan migrants” were threatening the country’s demographic composition.Saied’s statement was widely circulated online and unleashed a wave of hostility that many migrants feel still lingers.”There’s a strong rivalry in this work,” said Jabbari, glancing at a group of sub-Saharan African migrants nearby.”These people have made life even more difficult for us. I can’t collect enough plastic because of them.”Chaouch, the collection centre manager, was even more blunt: “We don’t accept sub-Saharans at our centre. Priority goes to Tunisians.” In contrast, 79-year-old Abdallah Omri, who heads another centre in Bhar Lazreg, said he “welcomes everyone”.”The people who do this work are just trying to survive, whether they’re Tunisian, sub-Saharan or otherwise,” he said.”We’re cleaning up the country and feeding families,” he added proudly.

US tariff negotiations with key trading partners have shifted into high gear as economies race to avoid steeper duties before an August 1 deadline.Many of these tariff hikes were part of a package first announced in April, under which dozens of economies were due to face higher levies — up from a 10 percent level …

What is the status of US tariff negotiations? Read More »

Dozens of economies including India, Canada and Mexico face threats of higher tariffs Friday if they fail to strike deals with Washington.Here is a summary of duties President Donald Trump has introduced in his second term as he pressures allies and competitors alike to reshape US trade relationships.- Global tariffs -US “reciprocal” tariffs — imposed …

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France and Saudi Arabia will lead the charge starting Monday to revive the moribund push for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians at a UN conference in New York.Days before the July 28-30 conference, to be co-chaired by Riyadh and Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that he would formally recognize the State of Palestine in September.Paris’s decision “will breathe new life into a conference that seemed destined to irrelevance,” said Richard Gowan, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.”Macron’s announcement changes the game. Other participants will be scrabbling to decide if they should also declare an intent to recognize Palestine.”In an interview with French weekly La Tribune Dimanche, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said that other European countries will confirm “their intention to recognize the State of Palestine” during the conference, without detailing which ones.France is hoping that Britain will take this step, and more than 200 British MPs on Friday pushed British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to do so, but he reiterated that recognition of a Palestinian state “must be part of a wider plan.”According to an AFP database, at least 142 of the 193 UN member states — including France — now recognize the Palestinian state proclaimed by the Palestinian leadership in exile in 1988.In 1947, a resolution of the UN General Assembly decided on the partition of Palestine, then under a British mandate, into two independent states — one Jewish and the other Arab. The following year, the state of Israel was proclaimed.For several decades, the vast majority of UN member states have supported the idea of a two-state solution, Israelis and Palestinians living side-by-side peacefully and securely.But after more than 21 months of war in Gaza, the ongoing expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and Israeli officials declaring designs to annex occupied territory, it is feared a Palestinian state could be geographically impossible. The war in Gaza started following a deadly attack by Hamas on Israel, which responded with a large-scale military response that has claimed tens of thousands of Palestinian lives.The conference is a response to the crisis, with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa and several dozen ministers from around the world expected to attend.It is coming at a moment when “the prospect of a Palestinian state has never been so threatened, or so necessary,” Barrot said. – Call for courage -Beyond facilitating conditions for the recognition of a Palestinian state, the meeting will have three other focusses — reform of the Palestinian Authority, disarmament of Hamas and its exclusion from Palestinian public life, and normalization of relations with Israel by Arab states that have not yet done so. No new normalization deals are expected to be announced at the meeting, according to a French diplomatic source.But “for the first time, Arab countries will condemn Hamas and call for its disarmament,” Barrot said. The conference “offers a unique opportunity to transform international law and the international consensus into an achievable plan and to demonstrate resolve to end the occupation and conflict once and for all, for the benefit of all peoples,” said Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour, calling for “courage” from participants.Israel and the United States will not take part in the meeting, while international pressure continues to mount on Israel to end nearly two years of war in Gaza. Despite “tactical pauses” in some military operations announced by Israel, the humanitarian catastrophe in the ravaged coastal territory is expected to dominate speeches by representatives of more than 100 countries as they take the podium from Monday to Wednesday.Gowan said he expected “very fierce criticism of Israel.”