Revolution in Tunisia...where next?

After a month of steadily escalating riots across Tunisia, President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali lost his grip on power Friday. The country's prime minister announced that he was taking over to organize early elections and usher in a new government as 74 year-old Ben Ali, who'd been in power for 24 years, fled the North African nation.

This is a people's revolution fuelled by a desire by Tunisian's to rid themselves of the shackles of authoritarianism and embrace democracy.  It's potential consequences for the whole region are enormous.  Just as strikes by disgruntled workers in the Polish dockyard in Gdansk at the end of the 1980s spread to unrest in other communist countries led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, these dramatic events in Tunisia could mark the beginning of profound change throughout the Arab world.

Could this destabilise the region, opening the door to fundamentalist Islamic forces to take a strong foothold?  Or will this revolution bring democracy to totalitarian Arab nations, including Israel's largest neighbour, Egypt?


Grandpa Jonathan
Prague, Czech Republic

Ageism

A landmark legal decision in Britain today is likely to have significant societal consequences.  The former presenter of BBC TV's Countryfile programme, Miriam O’Reilly won her employment case against the Corporation after she claimed she was discriminated against on the grounds of ageism.

O’Reilly, 53, was dropped from the show in 2009 when it moved to its current Sunday evening slot.
She was replaced by a younger presenter, while programme host John Craven, 68, was kept on.  Interestingly for me, John Craven is a TV personality from my youth.  He was the presenter of the very first news programme specifically made for children, called John Craven's Newsround.

Discrimination of all kinds is wrong.  But at the time of writing this, society is only just beginning to consider ageism as a form of discrimination.  This particular presenter is fully capable of doing her job and clearly should not have been sacked simply because some BBC executives wanted to freshen up the look of one of their TV programmes.



Grandpa Jonathan
Prague, Czech Republic