After the failure of the agreement with the International Monetary Fund Blinken: Tunisia is heading into the unknown

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that Tunisia's economy is heading towards the unknown if it does not reach an emergency agreement with the International Monetary Fund.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken warned Wednesday that Tunisia urgently needs to reach an agreement with the International Monetary Fund, after the European Union expressed concern about the deteriorating political and economic situation in this country.

"The most important thing they can do in Tunisia from an economic point of view is to reach an agreement with the International Monetary Fund," Blinken said in response to a question about Tunisia during a hearing of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"We strongly encourage them to do so because the economy may be heading into the unknown," he added.

Tunisia is struggling under mounting debt and price hikes exacerbated by Russia's military offensive in Ukraine. It reached a tentative agreement in October for a new loan from the International Monetary Fund of about $2 billion.

The World Bank sought to ensure reforms in Tunisia, and recently expressed concern about a series of racist attitudes against the backdrop of statements by President Kais Saied in which he criticized the large presence of illegal immigrants in his country and talked about a conspiracy to change the "demographic composition" in the country.

On Monday, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell announced that the bloc is concerned about the deteriorating political and economic situation in Tunisia and fears its collapse.

"If Tunisia collapses, it threatens an influx of migrants towards the European Union and causing instability in the Middle East and North Africa region. We want to avoid this situation," he said.

On Tuesday, the Tunisian Foreign Ministry expressed its rejection of Borrell's statements, considering them "exaggerated."

Blinken also expressed his concerns about the political transformation of Tunisia under Said, who has monopolized all powers since July 25, 2021.

The opposition accused Saeed of carrying out a coup in the country from which the Arab Spring was launched a decade ago.

Dismantling a criminal network that planned to assassinate political figures in Brazil What is its story?

On Wednesday, Brazilian security carried out an operation against a criminal network aimed at assassinating political figures, including former Justice Minister Sergio Moro. In 2019, when he was a minister, Moro ordered the transfer of the network's historic leader, Marcus Willian Gerbas, and 21 other members of the group to maximum security prisons.

On Wednesday, Brazilian security forces carried out an operation to dismantle a criminal network that aimed to assassinate political figures, including former Justice Minister Sergio Moro, according to the federal police. 

"The aim of this operation is to dismantle an organization that aimed to attack civil servants and elected officials," the police said, noting that the network was planning "murder and extortion after the kidnapping."

She added, "The attacks could have occurred simultaneously" in five Brazilian states. 

Police sources confirmed to Agence France-Presse that Senator Sergio Moro, former justice minister during the reign of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, was one of the targets of this gang linked to Primeiro Comando da Capital, one of the main criminal factions dominating the drug trade in Latin America.

And in 2019, when he was a minister, Moro ordered the transfer of the historical leader of this faction, Marcus Willian Gerbas, and 21 other members of the group to maximum security prisons.

Justice Minister Flavio Dino, who was appointed by leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in January, confirmed that the police had "discovered a plan to kill a number of high-ranking officials, including a senator and a prosecutor," without naming them.