Arab Spring again in Tunisia, Sudan?

This video says about itself:

Protests rock Sudan after spike in bread prices 🇸🇩

8 January 2018

At least two people have been killed after protests across Sudan over rising bread prices.

The government has warned demonstrators that acts of destruction will be met with force.

Police have been arresting opposition leaders and confiscating newspapers to control the situation.

Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid reports.

By Bill Van Auken:

Mass protests against austerity, unemployment shake Tunisia

10 January 2018

Tunisia has erupted over the past three days in demonstrations and violent clashes with security forces. Workers and youth have taken to the streets in at least 18 different towns in protest against a 2018 austerity budget that will only exacerbate prevailing conditions of mass unemployment, poverty and social inequality in the North African nation.

The Interior Ministry acknowledged that a 55-year-old man was killed during a protest on Monday in the town of Tebourba, about 20 miles outside of the capital of Tunis, and five other people there were wounded. There were conflicting reports over the cause of death, with some protesters saying the man had been run down by a police vehicle, while the authorities claimed he had been overcome by tear gas. …

The eruption of mass social upheaval comes just over seven years after the self-immolation of the 26-year-old street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi triggered a sweeping revolt that brought down the Western-backed dictatorship of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Hundreds of demonstrators marched in Sidi Bouzid, the town where Bouazizi took his life in protest over police harassment and unemployment. They carried banners with slogans denouncing rising prices and the lack of jobs. …

In Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, manifestations of the so-called “Arab Spring” were brutally crushed by military force. Meanwhile the region has been devastated by wars waged by the imperialist powers from Libya, to Syria, Yemen, Mali and beyond, all with the aim of reasserting their control.

The spark that ignited the latest uprising was the announcement of a 2018 austerity budget that hikes fuel prices, increases taxes and slaps new customs duties on imported products, all of which spell a further punishing attack on the living standards of Tunisian working people.

The annual inflation rate had already risen to 6.4 percent in December. Unemployment meanwhile stands at over 15 percent, with more than a third of all younger workers without jobs.

The economic “reforms” are being imposed by the government of Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi to meet the conditions demanded by the International Monetary Fund and the European Union in return for loans that have gone largely to paying off the country’s debts to the international banks. …

Meanwhile, similar protests have broken out in the African nation of Sudan against the autocratic regime of Omar al-Bashir, which announced sharp price increases for flour, resulting in a doubling of the price of bread overnight.

Protests that began in the southeastern city of Sennar on Saturday quickly spread, reaching the capital Khartoum and many towns throughout the south. In Geneina, the capital of West Darfour, one student died under unclear circumstances when the security forces intervened to disperse a protest, and at least five other demonstrators were wounded. A fourth day of protests was reported in Khartoum Monday, with the police firing tear gas into crowds.

The austerity measures are being imposed at the behest of the IMF, which has urged Khartoum to float its currency to encourage foreign investment. This followed the decision by the US to lift 20-year-old sanctions on the country in October.

What is clearly emerging across a region that has been overshadowed by imperialist war and the deliberate fomenting of sectarian conflict is a powerful resurgence of the class struggle. …

The tumultuous events in the Middle East and North Africa are joined by growing signs of class conflict internationally, including strikes by pharmaceutical and municipal workers in Israel, the wildcat action by Ford workers in Romania, strikes by metalworkers in Germany, actions by rail workers in the UK and confrontations between French workers in auto and other industries and the government of Emmanuel Macron.

See also here.

Related articles

• FEANTSA: Greeks face unbearable housing cost, far above the EU average
• European Union, more militarism?
• Tunisian airline stops flights to Tripoli, Libya, in November 2011