Region

TUNIS — 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 has 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 3 million people — but with that came a huge richness on the level of the press,” Amamou added.

BEIRUT — A US envoy on Monday expressed optimism that Lebanon and Israel could move towards a maritime border deal to settle competing claims over offshore gas fields.

The dispute escalated in early June after Israel moved a production vessel near the Karish offshore field, which is partly claimed by neighbour Lebanon.

This prompted Beirut to call for the resumption of US-mediated negotiations on the demarcation dispute.

“I remain optimistic that we can make continuous progress as we have over the last several weeks and I look forward to coming back to the region and being able to make the final arrangements,” Envoy Amos Hochstein told reporters after meeting Lebanon’s top leaders.

Hochstein, on his second visit in less than two months, is carrying an Israeli proposal in response to a demarcation offer made by Lebanon, where officials also expressed optimism over a potential deal.

On Monday, he met with President Michel Aoun, Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri at the presidential palace.

He also met separately with caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib who called the progress in talks “potentially exceptional”.

“Negotiations are still ongoing, and they have almost reached their conclusion,” Bou Habib told a local broadcaster after the meeting.

Parliament’s deputy speaker Elias Bou Saab who attended Monday’s meeting called the talks “positive”.

“The gap... has narrowed, and the time period separating us from the return of the American mediator to Beirut will be short,” he said, quoted in a statement issued by the presidency.

“God willing, we will see results in the next few weeks,” added Bou Saab, tasked by the president with following up on negotiations.

Qana field 

Lebanon and Israel, whose border is UN-patrolled, have no diplomatic relations.

They had resumed maritime border negotiations in 2020 but the process was stalled by Beirut’s claim that the map used by the United Nations in the talks needed modifying.

Lebanon initially demanded 860 square kilometres  in the disputed maritime area but then asked for an additional 1,430 square kilometres, including part of the Karish field.

Israel claims the field lies in its waters and is not part of the disputed area subject to ongoing negotiations.

A Lebanese official in mid-June said Beirut had made a new offer to Hochstein, holding back on demands for territory where Israel planned to imminently extract gas.

Beirut was pushing for the country’s maritime border to exclude Karish and include the whole of a nearby field instead, the official told AFP at the time.

An Israeli official on Sunday said Israel’s offer on the original disputed zones was a “compromise to both sides” and would allow Lebanon to develop “the Sidon reservoir”, known as the Qana field, while safeguarding Israel’s interests.

After meeting Hochstein, Lebanon’s foreign minister said his country was demanding the right to develop “all of Qana”, without concessions.

‘Pay dearly’ 

On July 2, Israel said it had downed three drones launched by Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hizbollah that were headed towards the Karish gas field.

The Iran-backed Shiite Muslim movement on Sunday released a short video it said showed surveillance of several Israeli-chartered energy infrastructure ships.

Hizbollah’s chief Hassan Nasrallah had threatened attacks if Israel proceeds with gas exploration in the disputed area.

On Sunday, Nasrallah said Hizbollah will determine its next step based on the outcomes of the latest talks.

“We’re paying no attention to Nasrallah’s threats,” Ram Ben Barak, head of the Israeli foreign and defence committee told public broadcaster Kan radio on Monday.

“But if Nasrallah dares to do anything to Israel’s gas rigs, Lebanon — and Hizbollah — will pay dearly.”

Israel and Hizbollah last fought a devastating war in 2006.

KHARTOUM — Thousands of Sudanese protesters rallied in the capital on Sunday to demand an end to military rule and tribal clashes that have killed over 100 people, AFP correspondents said.

“Down with Burhan,” they chanted, referring to General Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, the army chief who last year led a military coup that upended a transition to civilian rule following the 2019 ouster of president Omar Bashir.

Near-weekly protests have been held since, despite a deadly crackdown that has killed at least 116 people, according to pro-democracy medics.

“The authority is the people’s,” protesters chanted, demanding soldiers return to their barracks.

Since last year’s coup, Sudan — already one of the world’s poorest countries — has been reeling from a spiralling economic crisis and a broad security breakdown which has seen a spike in ethnic clashes in its far-flung regions.

On July 11, tribal clashes over a land dispute erupted in southern Blue Nile state, leaving at least 105 people dead and 291 wounded, and sparking protests demanding justice and calls for coexistence.

Protester Mohamed Ali told AFP on Sunday that he was demonstrating for “one unified nation”.

The military council has “turned a blind eye” to tribal violence, Ali said, “because these problems allow it to stay in power”.

Pro-democracy activists have long accused Sudan’s military and ex-rebel leaders who signed a 2020 peace deal of exacerbating ethnic tensions for political gain.

The strength of the pro-democracy movement has ebbed and flowed since the coup, most recently rocked by a surprise announcement on July 4, when Burhan pledged in a televised address to step aside and make way for Sudanese factions to agree on a civilian government.

Key civilian leaders dismissed his move as a “ruse”, and pro-democracy protesters have held fast to their rallying cry that there can be “no negotiation, no partnership” with the military.

Other civilian factions have been more amenable to negotiations, seeing them as a necessary stepping stone to democratic rule.

BEIRUT — Parts of Beirut’s grain silos collapsed on Sunday, just days before the second anniversary of a catastrophic explosion at the Lebanese capital’s port that ravaged the stores and swathes of the city.

AFP correspondents said a cloud of dust covered the port after the partial collapse of the silos, where a fire has been burning for more than two weeks.

Army helicopters doused the area with water to try to put out the blaze.

“Two towers have collapsed so far, and another two are in danger of collapsing,” in the heavily damaged silos’ northern section, Public Works Minister Ali Hamieh told AFP.

The silos complex had absorbed much of the impact of the August 4, 2020 mega-blast at the port that killed more than 200 people and injured over 6,500.

The silos shielded much of the city’s west from the devastating effects of the blast, which was caused by haphazardly stored ammonium nitrate fertiliser catching fire.

Sunday’s partial collapse came after fire broke out at the silos earlier this month, caused by fermentation of remaining grain stocks along with soaring summer temperatures, according to authorities.

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister this week warned they could fall.

“The northern group of silos are now in danger of falling,” Najib Mikati said Wednesday in a statement, which added that the silos still contained thousands of tonnes of wheat and corn.

He told the army to be prepared and warned workers, civil defence members and firefighters to keep a safe distance from the site.

Once boasting a capacity of more than 100,000 tonnes, an imposing 48-metre high remnant of the silos has become emblematic of the catastrophic port blast.

The government in April ordered their demolition due to safety concerns, but that move was suspended amid objections, including from relatives of blast victims who want the silos preserved as a memorial site.

“I cried when I learned that they collapsed,” Cecile Roukoz, who lost her brother in the explosion, told AFP.

“We want a part of them to stay as a witness to the crime, as a collective memory to the city, and in memory of those who lost their lives for no reason.”

The Lebanese investigation into the blast has faced systematic and blatant political obstruction from day one.

Authorities were unable to unload around 3,000 tonnes of wheat and corn stuck in the silos because doing so might accelerate their collapse, this week’s statement said.

The environment and health ministries had advised the public to evacuate the port area and use masks in the vicinity of the silos in case they collapsed.

BAGHDAD — Hundreds of followers of powerful Iraqi Shiite preacher Moqtada Sadr camped at the country’s parliament on Sunday for a second day, protesting against corruption and political mismanagement.

Despite tear gas, water cannon and baking temperatures that touched 47ºC, they stormed the complex on Saturday after pulling down heavy concrete barricades on roads leading to Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone of diplomatic and government buildings.

The health ministry said at least 100 protesters and 25 security personnel were hurt in the confrontation.

Nearly 10 months after October elections, Iraq is still without a new government despite intense negotiations between factions.

Analysts have said Sadr, a mercurial cleric who once led a militia against US and Iraqi government forces, is using street protests to signal that his views must be taken into account in any government formation.

Both the United Nations and European Union warned about escalating tensions.

The immediate trigger for the occupation was the decision by a rival Shiite bloc, which is pro-Iran, to pick former Cabinet minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani for the prime minister’s post.

On Sunday morning, the demonstrators marked the Muslim month of Muharram, a traditional Shiite celebration, with religious chants and collective meals.

“We were hoping for the best but we got the worst. The politicians currently in parliament have brought us nothing,” said one of the protesters, Abdelwahab Al Jaafari, 45, a day labourer with nine children.

Volunteers distributed soup, hard-boiled eggs, bread and water to the protesters.

Some had spent the night inside the air-conditioned building — which dates from dictator Saddam Hussein’s era — with blankets spread out on the marble floors.

Others took to the gardens, on plastic mats under palm trees.

Logjam 

In multi-confessional and multiethnic Iraq, government formation has involved complex negotiations since a 2003 US-led invasion toppled Hussein.

Sadr’s bloc emerged from elections in October as the biggest parliamentary faction, but still far short of a majority.

In June, his 73 lawmakers quit in a bid to break a logjam over the establishment of a new government.

That led to a pro-Iran bloc becoming the largest in parliament, but still there was no agreement on naming a new prime minister, president or Cabinet.

The occupation that began on Saturday was the second time within a week that Sadr’s supporters had forced their way into the legislative chamber.

They left on Sadr’s orders last Wednesday after about two hours inside.

The protests are the latest challenge for a country trying to overcome decades of war and now facing the impact of climate change.

Despite oil wealth and elevated global crude prices, Iraq remains hobbled by corruption, unemployment and other woes, which sparked a youth-led protest movement in 2019.

As a result of past deals, the Sadrists also have representatives at the highest levels of government ministries and have been accused by their opponents of being as corrupt as other political forces.

But protesters see in Sadr an opposition figure and champion of the anti-corruption fight.

One of them, Oum Hussein, 42, said the sit-in sought a government of “people with integrity who serve the country”.

She accused Sadr’s opponents of choosing for a new government figures “known for corruption”.

Sudani is the prime ministerial choice of the Coordination Framework alliance which includes lawmakers from the party of Sadr’s longtime foe, ex-prime minister Nuri Al Maliki.

It also represents the pro-Iran former paramilitary group Hashed Al Shaabi, now integrated into the regular forces.

On Sunday, a spokesperson for the European Union expressed concern about “the ongoing protests and their potential escalation”.

The EU called for “constructive political dialogue”.

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged “peaceful and inclusive dialogue” to form an effective national government, his spokesperson said.

Iraqi Kurdish authorities in the country’s north offered to host talks in their capital Erbil.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — A Palestinian, described as a suspect by the Israeli forces and as mentally disabled by his family, died on Saturday four days after being shot by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint.

Hussein Qawariq, 59, from the village of Awarta, was shot on Tuesday by Israeli forces manning a checkpoint in Huwara, near the West Bank city of Nablus, the Palestinian health ministry said.

The Israeli forces told AFP that soldiers "spotted a suspect approaching them at a military post" and initially fired in the air after "receiving no response".

"The suspect continued approaching the soldiers who responded with fire toward him. A hit was identified," the army said.

Huwara Mayor Wajih Odeh told AFP Qawariq was "mentally disabled". He "used to collect bottles and cans from the street and ask for money from businesses in the area", he said.

Qawariq’s family too said he had a “mental disorder”, Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. He succumbed to his wounds in the Rabin Medical Centre in Israel, it added.

The Israeli forces said it was looking into the fatal shooting.

At least 54 Palestinians have been killed since late March, mostly in the West Bank. They have included suspected militants and also non-combatants, among them Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American dual national, who was covering an Israeli raid in Jenin.

Attacks on Israeli targets have killed 19 people over the same period, most of them civilians killed in attacks inside Israel. Three Arab Israeli attackers have also been killed.

BAGHDAD — Supporters of powerful Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr penetrated Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone on Saturday, occupying parliament with no plan to leave.

In a deepening political crisis, it is the second time in days that Sadr supporters have forced their way in to the legislative chamber, months after elections that failed to lead to formation of a government.

"The demonstrators announce a sit-in until further notice," Sadr's movement said in a brief statement to journalists carried by state news agency INA.

Supporters of Sadr, who once led a militia against US and Iraqi government forces, oppose the recently announced candidacy of Mohammed Shia Al Sudani, a pro-Iran bloc's pick for prime minister.

"We don't want Mr Sudani," said one protester, Sattar Al Aliawi, 47, in the parliamentary gardens.

The civil servant said they were protesting "a corrupt and incapable government" and would "sleep here".

He added: "The people totally refuse the parties that have governed the country for 18 years," since a US-led invasion toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.

Demonstrators inside the legislature waved Iraqi flags and pictures of the cleric.

They crowded the chamber where some sat at lawmakers' desks while others milled about, raising their mobile phones to film the occupation.

'The people are with you' 

They entered after thousands of protesters had massed at the end of a bridge leading to the Green Zone before dozens pulled down concrete barriers protecting it and ran inside, an AFP photographer reported.

Security forces had fired tear gas and water cannon near an entrance to the district, also home to foreign embassies and other government buildings.

Some protesters on the bridge were injured and carried off by their fellow demonstrators.

The health ministry said at least 100 protesters and 25 members of the security forces had been hurt.

“All the people are with you Sayyed Moqtada,” the protesters chanted, using his title as a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed.

Sadr’s bloc emerged from elections in October as the biggest parliamentary faction, but was still far short of a majority.

The mercurial Sadr, long a player in the country’s politics, has a devoted following of millions among the country’s majority Shiite population.

His supporters oppose the candidacy of Sudani, the pro-Iran Coordination Framework’s pick for premier.

The protests are the latest challenge for a country trying to overcome decades of war.

Despite oil wealth and elevated global crude prices, Iraq remains hobbled by corruption, unemployment and other problems which sparked a youth-led protest movement in 2019.

‘Revolution’ 

Saturday’s demonstration came after crowds of Sadr supporters breached the Green Zone on Wednesday. They left two hours later after Sadr told them to.

After the latest occupation began, the Coordination Framework called on “the popular masses... to peacefully demonstrate in defence of the state and its legitimacy”.

The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq said the “ongoing escalation” was deeply concerning.

“Voices of reason and wisdom are critical to prevent further violence,” it said in a tweet.

The current Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhemi in a statement expressed regret that “political escalation increases tensions in the street”.

“We are here for a revolution,” said one protester, Haydar Al Lami.

In June, Sadr’s 73 lawmakers quit their seats in a move seen as seeking to pressure his rivals into fast-tracking the formation of a government.

Sixty-four new lawmakers were sworn in later that month, making the pro-Iran bloc the largest in parliament, and triggering the fury of Sadr’s supporters.

“We would have liked them to wait until the government was formed to evaluate its performance, to give it a chance and to challenge it if it is not,” said Ammar Al Hakim, whose Hima movement is part of the Coordination Framework.

“The Sadrist movement has a problem with the idea that the Coordination Framework will form a government,” he said in a recent interview with BBC Arabic.

TEHRAN — At least 80 people have been killed and 30 others are missing in floods that have wreaked havoc across Iran for more than a week, state media reported on Saturday.

Since the start of the Iranian month of Mordad on July 23, "59 people died and 30 are still missing in the incidents caused by recent floods", Yaghoub Soleimani, secretary general of the Red Crescent Society, was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.

That is in addition to flash floods caused by heavy rains in the normally dry southern province of Fars that left at least 22 people dead just before the start of Mordad.

Many of those victims were spending the day by a riverside.

Soleimani noted that 60 cities, 140 towns and more than 500 villages across the country of around 83 million people have been affected by the inundations.

Tehran province is the hardest-hit with 35 deaths. Nearby Mazandaran province has the highest number of missing people at 20, a list published by the Red Crescent showed.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a letter published on his website on Saturday, expressed condolences to the families and called on authorities to take necessary measures to repair the damage.

President Ebrahim Raisi visited flood-ravaged areas in Firouzkouh region east of the capital, his office said.

Severe damage occurred there primarily because of a mountain landslide late Thursday which claimed 14 lives, according to state media.

Videos and pictures posted by Iranian media and on social media showed houses and cars surrounded by grey mud, and people trying to recover their belongings.

Initial estimates point to more than 60 trillion rials (about $200 million) in damages to the agricultural sector, Agriculture Minister Javad Sadatinejad said, according to state broadcaster IRIB.

Iran’s meteorological centre on Saturday warned of more rains in the southern and northern provinces in the coming days.

Scientists say climate change amplifies extreme weather, including droughts as well as the potential for the increased intensity of rain storms.

Like other regional countries, Iran has endured repeated droughts over the past decade, but also regular floods, a phenomenon made worse when torrential rain falls on sun-baked earth.

In 2019, heavy rains in Iran’s south left at least 76 people dead and caused damage estimated at more than $2 billion.

BEIRUT — A Lebanese prosecutor ordered the seizure on Saturday of a Syrian-flagged ship that docked at a northern port with a cargo of Ukrainian grain Kyiv’s embassy in Beirut said was “illegal”.

Prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat instructed police to investigate the Laodicea, which docked in Tripoli earlier this week, a judicial official said.

Oueidat “ordered the seizure of the ship until the investigation is completed”, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Lebanese police were also instructed to consult Ukraine’s embassy after it claimed that the grain aboard the Syrian-flagged ship was loaded from a region occupied by Russian forces.

Ukraine, which Russia invaded in February, has regularly accused Moscow forces of ransacking its grain warehouses.

According to the Lebanese foreign ministry, the “Syrian-flagged ship is carrying barley and flour”.

Ukrainian Ambassador Ihor Ostash told Lebanese President Michel Aoun on Thursday that “illegal barley from occupied Ukrainian territory” was on board the ship.

Preliminary reports indicate that the owner of the shipping company is a Turkish national and the grain belongs to a Syrian merchant, the judicial official said.

Part of the cargo was due to be unloaded in Lebanon and the rest shipped to Syria, the official added.

A customs official told AFP that the vessel’s documents were “all in order and there is no proof that the merchandise was stolen”.

“The ship travelled through Turkey, and would have been seized by Turkish authorities if the vessel was under sanctions,” said the official who declined to be named.

According to some media reports, the US sanctioned the Laodicea several years ago as part of measures taken against the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The incident came as Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain exporters, prepares to resume grain exports following a UN-backed deal.

Millions of tonnes of Ukrainian grain are stranded by a Russian naval blockade and Ukrainian mines laid to avert an amphibious landing on the Black Sea coast.

The seizure of the Laodicea comes as Lebanon, which is struggling with one of the world’s worst financial crises, is also facing a major bread shortage.