n Tunisia, the ruling coalition has decide to hold Presidential and parliamentary elections on June 23 next year. The new President will be chosen directly by voters.

The move comes in the wake of growing criticism from the opposition that the ruling Ennahada coalition wants to control the government and avoid elections.

The Islamist Ennahda Movement won the country's first free elections last October after the uprising which set in motion the “Arab Spring”. Ennahda leads a government comprising of two secular parties, the Congress for the Republic and the Ettakatol.

The agreement has to be approved by the Constituent Assembly, where the ruling coalition has a majority of the 217 seats.

The Constituent Assembly elected Moncef Marzouki as the President in December 2011 to follow Zine el Abidine, who was ousted as President in January 2011 after weeks of protests.

Those protests inspired the wave of “Arab Spring” uprisings that spread across the Middle East and North Africa.

 Tanzania has said a shipping agent based in Dubai had re-flagged 36 Iranian oil tankers with the Tanzanian flag without the country's knowledge and approval. Tanzania said it was now in the process of de-registering the vessels after an investigation into the origin of the ships concluded they were originally from Iran.

Re-flagging ships masks their ownership, which could make it easier for Iran to obtain insurance and financing for the cargoes, as well as find buyers for the shipments without attracting attention from the United States and European Union. The National Iranian Tanker Company changed the names and flags of many of its oil tankers ahead of the EU ban, part of sweeping economic measures aimed at pressuring Tehran to end its nuclear programme.

 he crude oil export earnings by the Arab world petroleum exporting nations reached its peak in 2011 by nearly $174 billion. A report by Kuwait based Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries OAPEC said the earnings soared to $624.8 billion in 2011from around $450 billion in 2010. The report said that increase in crude oil prices and a higher production by the oil exporting Arab nations were responsible for the gains in export earnings. Saudi Arabia accounted for almost half the total income while UAE gained most in terms of net income . Saudi Arabia, the number one oil power, netted nearly $289 billion last year compared with $184.4 billion in 2010. The UAE’s income swelled to an all time high of about $85.9 billion from $57.9 billion .In Kuwait the income grew to $79.6 billion from $53 billion. The earnings leaped to $27.3 billion from $20.5 billion in Qatar. It went up to $37.2 billion from $28 billion in Algeria. The report, which gave no data for Tunisia, showed the 2011 income stood at $6.3 billion in Bahrain and around $4.6 billion in Egypt. Libya was the only exception as its income tumbled in 2010 because of the uprising which ended with the death of Muammar Gaddafi. The report said that in real terms, the combined Arab income was at $479 billion in 2011, taking into account the real dollar value and global inflation. While the nominal price of OPEC’s basket of crudes was at around $107 a barrel in 2011, its real value averaged about $88 in terms of 1995 prices.