Jan. 17 updates

From social media:
• OK, this is just gross. But I'm putting it out there anyway. One of the big parts of the Wikileaks link to the Tunisian story was the famous cable about Sakhr el-Matri's Tony Montana-esque pet tiger. The people of Tunisia got to the tiger. The tiger didn't make it. Here's the video proof. Don't say I didn't warn you that it was gross.
• Interior Ministry now confirms 78 dead since beginning of uprising. I still think that's a low-ball estimate.
• One of our friends linked to an amazing FB analysis about the events since Jan. 13. The author makes a very interesting case for the violence in Tunis being tied to the desperate soccer rivalries; Slim Chiboub, a son-in-law of Ben Ali, was a big wheel with Esperance Sportive de Tunis (EST), which is one of the two most popular teams in the nation. Did EST fans follow a secret Chiboub call for anarchy?
• The ministries of agriculture and environment have been merged.
• Messages from a few of the social media groups are calling for calm, in order to stave off further economic crisis, which they say (correctly) will attract extremists.
• Government offices will start reopening soon with civil service workers ordered back for limited hours Monday through Thursday, and the abbreviated hours for Friday and Saturday.


From traditional media sources:
• The composition of the new unity government was announced today. RCD kept most of the important jobs, which may not be a bad thing given the fact that the opposition parties have never been included in any details or preparation.
• Some Tunisians are not amused by the number of RCD members included in the new Cabinet. Protests broken up by water cannon and tear gas reported in Tunis.
• AJE reprints pieces of new Wikileaks documents related to Tunisia. Near the end of the article is this joke:
A popular joke tells of President Ben Ali being stopped by a traffic cop when out for a drive by himself. Ben Ali explains he is the President, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, but the cop says "Never heard of you," and takes Ben Ali to the police station. The station chief looks at Ben Alis identification card and says, "Its okay. Hes related to the Trabelsis." [A reference to the infamously corrupt family of Ben Ali's wife, Leila] The joke outlines what most Tunisians feel today: compared to the strength and depth of the Trabelsi familys grip on Tunisia, Ben Ali is inconsequential.
• Estimated cost of damages over the past month: $3B Tunisian dinars. Forty-six National Guard barracks, 85 police stations, 66 stores, 43 banks, and a host of other government buildings destroyed. Innumerable other properties looted, windows broken, etc.
• Tunisie Actualite has a great piece (au Francais) about unanswered questions of the revolution. Among the best questions: Can you have free and fair elections within 60 days, under a state of emergency, with opposition parties that have been neutered by Ben Ali's history of repression?
• Let's not call it a 'wave' of self-immolation, but in the past day a Mauritanian man set himself ablaze, as did four Algerians and an Egyptian man.