Ben Ali

Pamela Blake Actress in action serials Pamela Blake, 94, a B-movie actress known for her roles in such late 1940s action serials as "Chick Carter, Detective" and "Ghost of Zorro," died of natural causes Tuesday at a Las Vegas care facility, her family said. Born in 1915 in Oakland, Blake came to Hollywood after winning a beauty contest at age 17. Originally known by her given name, Adele Pearce, she adopted the stage name Pamela Blake in 1942, the same year she signed with MGM, according to the All Movie Internet database.

When topless protesters decided to take aim at Islamism, some Muslim women fired back. “Nudity DOES NOT liberate me -- and I DO NOT need saving,” one wrote on a sign, held up to the camera in an image posted on Twitter. A furious debate broke out in the blogosphere after radical feminist group Femen launched its “Topless Jihad” last week for Amina Tyler, a Tunisian woman who faced threats after sharing a topless photo of herself online. Tyler, 19,  had written “My body is mine, not somebody's honor" across her chest in Arabic in solidarity with Femen, a Kiev, Ukraine-based group known for topless protests.

He remembers the form. You filled it out to become a "citizen watcher" for the party of Zine el Abidine ben Ali. It meant you would spy. Inform on your friends, your family, the people at work and get paid for it. Again and again over the years, Ahmad Chebil says, they approached him. They offered him perks and advantageous jobs, home loans and car credit. But each time he refused entreaties to join the president's Constitutional Democratic Rally, or RCD, its French initials. He pushed them away because he had read a book in his early teens that explained everything he needed to know about the party and political life of his country: a French translation of "1984," George Orwell's dystopian vision of a totalitarian society.

TUNIS, Tunisia - Tunisia's Islamist-led government Thursday rejected a proposal by its prime minister to form a new Cabinet amid growing political tension after nationwide protests sparked by the assassination of a key opposition figure. The announcement by the dominant Nahda party highlighted differences among Islamists and spurred fresh uncertainty over how to keep the slaying of Chokri Belaid, a fierce government critic, from tipping the economically fragile country into deeper unrest.

President Zine Abidine ben Ali changed nearly half his Cabinet on Tuesday, ousting most remaining figures who had served under deposed President Habib Bourguiba. In his biggest ministerial shake-up since taking power in November, 1987, Ben Ali replaced Foreign Minister Mahmoud Mestiri with Abdel Hamid Cheikh, a former minister of sports and youth, the official TAP news agency said.

When topless protesters decided to take aim at Islamism, some Muslim women fired back. “Nudity DOES NOT liberate me -- and I DO NOT need saving,” one wrote on a sign, held up to the camera in an image posted on Twitter. A furious debate broke out in the blogosphere after radical feminist group Femen launched its “Topless Jihad” last week for Amina Tyler, a Tunisian woman who faced threats after sharing a topless photo of herself online. Tyler, 19,  had written “My body is mine, not somebody's honor" across her chest in Arabic in solidarity with Femen, a Kiev, Ukraine-based group known for topless protests.

Ben Ali, 82, the founder of Ben's Chili Bowl diner, a landmark in Washington's black business and entertainment district and a frequent stop for politicians and celebrities, died of congestive heart failure Wednesday at his home in Washington. Ali opened the restaurant with his wife, Virginia, in an old movie house in 1958, when Dwight D. Eisenhower was president. It became a longtime fixture in the black business community, serving up bowls of chili and its trademark chili-covered half-smoke sausages.

The people of this North African country are quietly proud these days of what seems like a revolution without pain, their ability to end the long reign of elderly Habib Bourguiba without bloodshed, without fanfare and without panic. "It was a great historic event," Khemais Chamari, long known as an opposition leader, told a group of American journalists Sunday, "but it has passed as if it were no event at all."

Just outside the medina, or old city, of the Tunisian capital, sits a large, modern, stark-white building that houses the ruling party, the Constitutional Democratic Rally. Known by its French acronym as the RCD, the political party of President Zine Abidine ben Ali dominates the country's politics just as the party headquarters dominates its surroundings.

The deep divide in Tunisia over the status and fate of the deposed dictator's ruling party threatened the fragile unity government on Tuesday just a day after it was announced. At least four former opposition figures quit the Cabinet, apparently under pressure from rank-and-file members opposed to the inclusion of six members of the previous regime in the transitional administration meant to pave the way for new elections. Rowdy demonstrators enraged over the participation in the government of members of former President Zine el Abidine ben Ali's ruling Constitutional Democratic Rally, or RCD, taunted baton-wielding police officers during cat-and-mouse clashes in the capital and other cities.

SIDI BOUZID, Tunisia - Bearded and sweaty, they pressed in, their faces shining in the shadow and light beneath billowing tunics hanging for sale outside a mosque. The sun edged higher. A veiled woman hurried past and a boy stepped closer to listen to men complain about no jobs in fields or factories, no water in thousands of homes. "I didn't trust the old government and I don't trust the new one. They lie. I trust in another revolution," said Khalid Ahmedi, his disgust sharpening as shopkeepers slipped past him to pray.

In the year since the Arab Spring, attention has been riveted on one issue above all others: the place of religious practice in public life. In Tunisia, where the movement began, full-face and body veils, now often worn complete with gloves, are increasingly visible on the streets - an exotic sight for locals and foreigners alike. And the secular opposition seems increasingly strident in its conviction that the Islamist government is driving the country the way of Iran. But it wasn't religion that set off the Jasmine Revolution; it was acute economic injustice and the pervasive and structured corruption that helped produce it. The fate of Tunisia, and its neighbors, may depend most on whether that lingering problem is addressed.

As Mondher Kouki waited to vote in the first free elections since political uprisings began sweeping the Arab world in January, he complained about the cost of electricity, the dubious promises of politicians and the prospect that he wouldn't be able to afford a sheep to slaughter for an upcoming holy festival. Kouki and dozens of his neighbors stood in the sun in a Tunis slum to cast ballots for an assembly to write Tunisia's new constitution. They all remembered the thrilling days 10 months ago when street protests here led to the toppling of President Zine el Abidine ben Ali — and inspired so-called Arab Spring upheavals in Muslim states across North Africa and the Middle East.

After she dropped her 7-year-old son off at school Thursday, Dorsaf Naouali drove more than two hours to Los Angeles to vote for the first time in a Tunisian election. The San Diego mother of two brought her daughter Layla, 4, with her to the voting center at a Hollywood hotel, explaining the day's significance along the way. "I told her the one little paper that we drop in the box could change the future of our country," the mother said, beaming. "She was excited that paper could be that powerful.

The interim prime minister of the North African country that inspired the ongoing uprisings throughout the Arab world resigned Sunday after a new round of daily protests resulted in three weekend deaths. Interim President Fouad Mebazaa named Beji Caid Essebsi, a former foreign minister who served under Tunisia's long-ago President Habib Bourguiba, as new caretaker prime minister ahead of elections planned for the summer, state television reported. Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi, who served in the same post under deposed President Zine el Abidine ben Ali, bowed to public pressure and unruly street protests demanding that any traces of the former regime be purged from public life.

French Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie resigned Sunday after weeks of growing criticism over her links to the former government of Tunisia. In a hasty but widely expected government reshuffle ? the fourth in a year ? Alliot-Marie, one of the government's longest serving ministers, was replaced by conservative Alain Juppe, who served as prime minister and foreign minister in the 1990s but was convicted in a 2004 political corruption scandal. The moves came as criticism swirls over France's inability to come to grips with the pace of change in the Arab world and popular uprisings in some of its former colonies.

As Tunisia's top general warned that the country's revolution "risks being lost," the fragile transitional government was on the verge of a fresh crisis Monday over an issue that has dogged it from the start: the inclusion of politicians associated with the regime ousted this month. Political insiders and media reports said changes in the interim government of Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi were imminent, and officials were in talks late into the night. Ghannouchi held the same post under President Zine el Abidine ben Ali, who was driven from power after weeks of street protests.

The revolution didn't come just to the streets. It came to the beaten-down newsroom of an ousted ruler's meek mouthpiece, a newspaper where journalists didn't believe the news releases they were spoon-fed and passersby didn't believe the headlines they read on newsstands. "We called the managing director and told him not to come in," said Samira Dami, a film critic who has just become one of the editors in chief of La Presse, Tunisia's 75-year-old French-language newspaper. "He represents the old regime, the one who writes good things for the regime and says everything is beautiful.

Tunisia's new interior minister on Sunday ordered the party of ousted President Zine el Abidine ben Ali to shut its offices and suspend all activities pending its formal dissolution as part of the purge of all vestiges of the former regime, state television reported. Interior Minister Farhat Rajhi, a former criminal court judge, has been a particularly zealous advocate of forcing former regime loyalists from power and has already purged his own ministry of top officials. He blamed members of the Constitutional Democratic Rally, the former ruling party, for a fresh outbreak of violence in the provinces that has left two dead in recent days.

As French officials continue to grapple with the fallout of their African foreign policy, they have been rocked by new disclosures about aid to security forces in Tunisia and Egypt, and calls for the foreign minister's resignation over her holiday in Tunisia during the uprising there. French Prime Minister Francois Fillon confirmed this week that the government had authorized a shipment of tear gas grenades to Tunis on Jan. 12, two days before Tunisian President Zine el Abidine ben Ali was toppled from power.