LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY “This was not a random robbery. It was well-prepared.These were professionals.”Anja Bijnens, spokesman for the Brussels prosecutors’ office, after thieves made off with millions of dollars worth of diamonds at Belgium’s main airport Article, 1ATunisia credit rating cut; premier quits

TUNIS, Tunisia - Tunisia’s prime minister announced his resignation Tuesday after a failed effort to form a technocratic government to see the country out of its political crisis.

Earlier Tuesday, the country’s political instability prompted international ratings agency Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the government’s credit rating.

Tunisians overthrew a dictator in January 2011, sparking the Arab Spring revolutions. A moderate Islamist party, Ennahda, won subsequent elections in the country of 10 million and has since struggled to govern in a coalition alongside two secular parties.

After the assassination of a leftist opposition politician Feb. 6 set off riots across the country, Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali offered to dissolve the factious governing coalition and put together a new government of technocrats - a move welcomed by the opposition. But his own party, Ennahda, rejected his initiative, insisting that the country still needed a government of politicians.

Jebali announced that he’d quit after a meeting with President Moncef Marzouki.

U.S. lawmakers meet with Castro aide

HAVANA - U.S. lawmakers met Tuesday with Cuba’s foreign minister and have been told they will be allowed access to an American imprisoned in Havana, with the State Department saying they will push for his release.

The delegation of five senators and two representatives, led by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., was also hoping to meet with Cuban President Raul Castro before it departs Wednesday.

The detention of Maryland-native Alan Gross has become the chief impediment to improved relations between Washington and Havana. Gross, 63, was arrested in 2009, when he was caught taking sensitive communications equipment into Cuba during a U.S. Agency for International Development democracy-building program. He was sentenced to 15 years.

Leahy led a similar trip a year ago, meeting with Gross and Castro.

Ex-rival to join Netanyahu government

JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced an agreement Tuesday night to include his one-time political foe Tzipi Livni, head of the centrist Movement Party, in his pending coalition government.

Livni, a former foreign minister who ran against Netanyahu in 2009 and served as opposition leader for much of the past four years, will become justice minister under the plan, both leaders announced during a joint appearance.

Her party also will lead the Environmental Protection Ministry. In return, Livni will deliver the six Knesset seats her party won in the Jan. 22 election to Netanyahu’s proposed coalition.

Livni will become part of Netanyahu’s inner Cabinet and serve as head of a new ministerial committee to be created to lead Palestinian peace talks, if they are resumed.

Leaders of other center-left parties quickly criticized Livni for joining forces with Netanyahu, whom she has frequently criticized for failing to make a serious effort to resolve the Palestinian conflict. Restarting peace negotiations was her party’s top priority.

Her support gives Netanyahu 37 of the 61 seats he needs to form a Knesset majority.

For 3rd day, strikes snarl Egyptian city

PORT SAID, Egypt - A third day of protests and strikes slowed the restive city of Port Said to a halt Tuesday, as demonstrators demanded that security officials be held accountable for the killings of more than 40 residents in riots last month.

The city at the mouth of the Suez Canal has been at the forefront of protests against President Mohammed Morsi as discontent widens beyond the capital, Cairo.

In Port Said, thousands marched in support of a general strike called by soccer fans and students. Some carried banners bearing the names of their companies. Others held aloft pictures of those killed in the violence. Most chanted against the president.

Last month, residents rose up in fury over death sentences issued against locals over a deadly soccer riot a year ago. Most of the deaths in the crisis happened when security forces reportedly opened fire on protesters, some of whom attacked police facilities, and at funerals the next day.

Front Section, Pages 5 on 02/20/2013