Three ministers quit new Tunisian government

Thousands of protesters put Tunisia's new government under pressure Tuesday with activists rejecting the leadership just days after the ouster of the Arab state's former president, Zine bin Abidine Ben Ali.

Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi brought opposition leaders into a coalition Monday after the president fled to Saudi Arabia following weeks of violent street protests. But key "old guard" figures kept their jobs, angering many.

Thousands of people rallied in several cities in central Tunisia, including Sfax, Regueb, Kasserine and Sidi Bouzid, calling for members of the old regime to be excluded from the country's new government, AFP reported Tuesday.

"The new government is a sham. It's an insult to the revolution that claimed lives and blood," a student among the protesters told Reuters.

The General Union of Tunisian Workers, a Tunisian main trade union, has decided "not to recognize the new government," its spokesman, Ifa Nasr, told AFP Tuesday.

The AP reported later Tuesday that Tunisia's junior minister for transportation, Anouar Ben Gueddour, said he, along with Labor Minister Houssine Dimassi and Abdeljelil Bedoui, a minister without portfolio, had resigned from the new government.