LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Tunisia: North Africa
built 230 days ago
Tunisia is a land with a rich cultural heritage. From the earliest Phoenician colonists to the arrival of Islam, Tunisia has continually absorbed a diverse succession of “foreign” cultures onto its native Berber population. According to Roman legend, the Phoenicians were the first colonists to arrive in Tunisia, founding the city of Carthage in 814 BC. Carthage became one of the leading cities in North Africa and soon came into conflict with Rome over control of the western Mediterranean. The two powers fought three wars (the Punic Wars), which ended in the destruction of Carthage and her absorption into the Roman province of Africa. The city of Carthage was refounded as a Roman colony sometime in the late second or early first century BC.
Source:
Tunisia is in north Africa, between the Mediterranean Sea and the Sahara Desert and between Algeria and Libya. Much of the land is semi-arid and desert. There are mountains in the north. The climate is temperate in the north, with mild, rainy winters and hot, dry summers. The desert is in the south.
Source:
Tunisia has one oil refinery in Bizerte on the north coast and in May 2006 awarded a tender for a second at La Skhira near Gabes to Qatar Petroleum. Natural gas production is currently about 3 million tons oil equivalent Proven reserves are about 2.8 trillion cubic feet, two-thirds of which are located offshore. British Gas is the major developer of the natural gas industry, and the largest foreign investor in Tunisia.
Source:
An ideal climate, a long and gentle seacoast, Tunisia, the northernmost country of Africa has for over 3000 years witnessed the passage of Phoenicians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Turks, Spanish and French. They came as fugitive s or adventurers, to conquer or to claim, warriors and missionaries, traders and farmers each leaving a part of their story in stone or mosaics, on hills of Carthage and the threshold of the Sahara.
Source:
If American commanders and troops thought their brief combat experience in French Morocco and Algeria in November 1942 was adequate preparation to face hardened Axis units in a lengthy campaign, the fighting in Tunisia brought about a harsh reappraisal. With few exceptions, French units in North Africa had been more intent on upholding national honor than inflicting casualties and damage; those that offered determined resistance were at a marked disadvantage in terms of weapons, equipment, supplies, and numbers. In Tunisia... American soldiers found themselves faced with well-trained, battle-tested units skillfully using the most advanced weapons and innovative combined arms tactics repeatedly to frustrate Allied plans. The result was painful to Army units involved and a shock to the American public: five months of almost continuous setbacks with commensurably high casualties.
Source:
(Washington D.C., February 14, 2004) -- U.S. President George W. Bush should publicly state that Tunisia's policies of repression are incompatible with his administration's initiative on democracy in the Middle East, Human Rights Watch said today. Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali will meet with Bush at the White House on February 18. "Tunisia bills itself as a moderate Muslim nation," said Joe Stork, acting director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa division. "But there is nothing moderate in the way authorities repress nearly all forms of dissent."
Source:
MORE ABOUT
North Africa