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Geopolitics

Tunisia In Turmoil After Assassination, Ruling Party Rejects Call For New Government

FRANCE 24 (France), AL JAZEERA (Qatar), REUTERS

Worldcrunch

Tunisia's ruling Islamic Ennahda party has rejected Prime Minister Hamdi Jebali's proposal to dissolve the government in a bid to restore calm after the killing of opposition leader Chokri Belaid in Tunis.

Hours after Wednesday morning's assassination, which sent protesters onto the streets across Tunisia, Jebali had announced that the country’s government was to be dissolved and an interim non-political cabinet formed. But on Thursday morning, Jebali’s own Ennahda party rejected his proposal, France 24 reports.

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"The assassination that puts Tunisia in danger," reads Le Monde"s cover

"The prime minister did not ask the opinion of his party," Abdelhamid Jelassi, Ennahda's vice-president, told Reuters. "We in Ennahda believe Tunisia needs a political government now. We will continue discussions with others parties about forming a coalition government," he added, distinguishing the solution with Jebali’s call for a cabinet of non-partisan technocrats.

Meanwhile Ennahda’s leader Rachid Ghannouchi has denied opposition claims that the party was behind Chokri Belaid’s killing. The senior leader of the Democratic Patriotic party, whose assassination sparked the most violent protests in Tunisia since the uprising began two years ago, was a prominent secular opponent of Tunisia's moderate Islamist-led government, according to Al Jazeera.

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Geopolitics

Yes, Xi Jinping Is Now More Powerful Than Mao Zedong Ever Was

After being re-elected as head of the Communist Party last year, the Chinese leader has been unanimously re-elected to another five-year term as head of state. Now, wielding more power than any other past Chinese communist leader, he wants to accelerate the rise of Chinese influence around the world.

Photo of huge portrait of Xi Jinping

Huge portrait of Xi Jinping is displayed in the National Day mass pageantry celebrating the 70th founding anniversary of the People's Republic of China

Yann Rousseau

-Analysis-

BEIJING — Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping has been re-elected to a third five-year term at the head of the world's second largest economic power. Nobody was surprised.

The vote took place during a legislative assembly convened to rubber stamp decisions of the authoritarian power, during which 2,952 parliamentarians unanimously approved Xi's re-election before rising, in perfect choreography, to offer a prolonged standing ovation to their leader. As usual, Xi remained completely neutral in the face of the enthusiasm.

His victory was a mere formality after his re-election last fall as the head of the all-powerful party, which controls all of the country's political institutions, and after legislative amendments to erase term limits that would have forced him out.

Xi Jinping, who took over the presidency in 2013, "is now the most powerful leader in the history of the People's Republic, since its founding in 1949. Institutionally, he holds even more power than Mao Zedong," says Suisheng Zhao, a professor and Chinese foreign policy expert at the University of Denver.

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