- Tunisia's President Saied set for landslide election win
- Barca hoping to return to Camp Nou 'by end of year'
- Trump to open second golf course at Scotland resort in summer 2025
- Super-sub Jhon Duran rewarded with new Aston Villa deal
- US duo win Nobel for gene regulation breakthrough
- Masood hits first ton for four years to power Pakistan to 233-1
- Fritz wins delayed match to reach Shanghai Masters third round
- Naomi Osaka pulls out of Japan Open with back injury
- Weather may delay launch of mission to study deflected asteroid
- China to flesh out economic stimulus plans after bumper rally
- Artist Marina Abramovic hopes first China show offers tech respite
- Asian markets track Wall St rally on US jobs data
- Pakistan 122-1 at lunch in first England Test
- Kazakhs approve plan for first nuclear power plant
- World marks anniversary of Oct. 7 attack on Israel
- 'Second family': tennis stars hunt winning formula with new coaches
- Philippines, South Korea agree to deepen maritime cooperation
- Mexico mayor murdered days after taking office
- Sardinia's sheep farmers battle bluetongue as climate warms
- Japan govt admits doctoring 'untidy' cabinet photo
- Israel marks first anniversary of Hamas's October 7 attack
- Darvish tames Ohtani as Padres thrash Dodgers
- Asian markets track Wall St rally on jobs data
- Family affair as LeBron, Bronny James make Lakers bow
- Cancer, cardiovascular drugs tipped for Nobel as prize week opens
- As Great Salt Lake dries, Utah Republicans pardon Trump climate skepticism
- Amazon activist warns of 'critical situation' ahead of UN forum
- Mourners pay tribute to latest victims of deadly Channel crossing
- Tunisia incumbent Saied set to win presidential vote: exit polls
- Phillies win thriller to level Mets series
- Yu bags first PGA Tour win with playoff win
- PSG held by Nice to leave Monaco clear at top of Ligue 1
- AC Milan fall at Fiorentina after De Gea's penalty heroics
- Lewandowski treble for leaders Barca as Atletico held
- Fresh Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Sucic stunner earns Real Sociedad draw against Atletico
- PSG draw with Nice, fail to reclaim top spot in Ligue 1
- Gudmundsson downs AC Milan after De Gea's penalty heroics for Fiorentina
- 'Yes' vote prevails in Kazakhstan nuclear plant vote: TV
- 'Difficult day': Oct 7 commemorations begin with festival memorial
- Commemorations begin for anniversary of attack on Israel
- Lewandowski hat-trick powers Liga leaders Barca to Alaves victory
- 'Nothing gets in way of team,' says Celtics' MVP hopeful Tatum
- India maintain Pakistan stranglehold as Windies cruise at Women's T20 World Cup
- 'We will win!': Mozambique's ruling party confident at final vote rally
- Tunisia voting ends as Saied eyes re-election with critics behind bars
- Florida braces for Milton, FEMA head slams 'dangerous' Helene misinformation
- Postecoglou slams 'unacceptable' Spurs after 'terrible' loss at Brighton
- Marmoush double denies Bayern outright Bundesliga top spot
- Rallies worldwide call for Gaza, Lebanon ceasefire
Tunisia library races to preserve rich polyglot press archive
In the basement of the National Library of Tunis, conservator Hasna Gabsi combs through shelves of newspapers dating back to the mid-19th century to select the latest to digitise.
She picks out a yellowed copy of an Arabic-language newspaper printed in the 1880s, then walks to the sections containing French, Italian, Maltese and Spanish-language newspapers published in Tunisia.
"The archive is a witness to an important, historical culture," Gabsi said under the flickering neon lights.
The library's collection includes some 16,000 titles printed in Tunisia -- numbering hundreds of thousands of editions of newspapers and periodicals.
As part of a campaign to preserve the country's archives, the library staff have been working to digitise the documents.
Most of the newspapers are in Arabic, with the oldest from the mid-19th century when Tunisia was an Ottoman province.
After France occupied Tunisia in 1881, European settlers published periodicals in several languages, including French, Italian, Spanish and Maltese.
Some publications are even in Judeo-Arabic, a local Arabic dialect written in the Hebrew alphabet.
Gabsi selects a copy of Voix d'Israel, a Hebrew-language newspaper printed by Tunisia's Jewish community, which numbered around 100,000 when the country gained independence from France in 1956.
Further along the shelves, she picks out L'Unione, published in 1886 by an Italian community that would number some 130,000 by the middle of the following century.
Nearby, technicians use huge scanners to digitise the newspapers and other documents, which have been made available to the public online since May.
The library's director Raja Ben Slama has brought together a team of around 20 employees to accelerate the process.
She said the importance of preserving the newspapers was clear to her when she arrived in 2015.
"We are in a race against time with the elements against the deterioration of the periodicals," she said.
Some of them "can't be found anywhere else", she added.
Many of the publications have disappeared, particularly those published in Italian, Hebrew and Maltese.
Economic woes and tensions sparked by the Arab-Israeli conflict led to the departure of most of the country's Jewish community, while most Italians left in the years after independence.
For historian Abdessattar Amamou, the archives are rare in the region, reflecting the "mosaic" of different communities that were present in the North African country.
"At the dawn of independence, we were three million people -- but with that came a huge richness on the level of the press," Amamou added.
A.Jones--AMWN