Tunisian protesters burned down a regional national security headquarters near the Algerian border, prompting authorities to send in troops after police retreated, witnesses said, as unrest over prices and taxes raged on nationwide. But the government, under pressure to cut a ballooning deficit and satisfy international lenders, will not revise austerity measures in the 2018 budget despite the spate of protests, Tunisia’s investment minister said on Thursday. Army troops have been deployed in several cities to help quell the unrest, seven years after the overthrow of autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali in the first of the Arab Spring revolts. In Thala, near the Algerian border, soldiers were sent in late on Wednesday after crowds torched the region’s national security building, forcing police to retreat from the town, witnesses told Reuters. Tunisia’s unity government — which includes Islamists, secular parties and independents — has portrayed the unrest as driven by criminal elements....
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