Burak Bilgehan Özpek
For a political operative looking to make Europe’s life a little more miserable, Libya is a land of opportunity. Read More
Author - ab_mnbr
Charlie Mitchell
The Italian prime minister has visited Tripoli in her bid to ramp up new cross-Mediterranean energy links, but critics say that Libya is in no fit state to be a stable energy partner for Europe. Read More
Handing Over of Search Boat Makes EU More Complicit in Abuses
Hanan Salah
This week, the European Union handed over in Italy a search and rescue vessel to Libyan authorities intended for abusive Libyan Coast Guard forces and promised four more, without any apparent attempt to vet the human rights practices of the coast guard, thus making the EU more complicit in human rights abuses in the Mediterranean. Read More
Migrants, Asylum Seekers Face Murder, Torture, Enslavement in Libya
Giulia Tranchina
In its obsession to keep migrants and asylum seekers away from its shores, Italy is paying for tens of thousands of people to be intercepted and returned to Libya, where they face abuses that the UN describes as possible crimes against humanity. Read More
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) average declined on the 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) – hitting a low of 38 out of 100 after years of stagnation. Read More
Miral Sabry Al Ashry
When Vladimir Putin turned off Europe’s gas taps, most EU countries feared a winter of blackouts due to their sole reliance on Russian gas, which had left this industrial nation woefully exposed. Read More
Martin Jay
East meets West in Libya where regional powers seek to take advantage of the lull in war. With an oil deal in tatters, Emily Milliken and Giorgio Cafiero wrestle with the unenviable task of determining whether Turkey has the staying power in the West of the country as presidential election loom in Ankara. Read More
Egypt just seized part of Libya’s maritime zone.
Ali Bakir
On December 13, 2022, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi issued a presidential decree demarcating the country’s maritime borders with Libya. The presidential decree is believed to cut off thousands of square kilometers of Libya’s maritime zone. Read More
Migrants, Asylum Seekers Face Murder, Torture, Enslavement in Libya
Giulia Tranchina
In its obsession to keep migrants and asylum seekers away from its shores, Italy is paying for tens of thousands of people to be intercepted and returned to Libya, where they face abuses that the UN describes as possible crimes against humanity. Read More
Eritrean refugees are trafficked and enslaved in Libya, where they are tortured, abused and raped by slave traders to force family members to pay ransom for their release. If they escape and make it to the Mediterranean Sea, they risk being intercepted and sent back to Libya or dying at sea. Read More
Mustapha Dalaa, Halime Afra Aksoy
This agreement is expected to encourage international energy companies to invest in Libya again. Read More
Abdullah Alkabir
Exploiting the national reconciliation file for political goals will not achieve such goals, nor will it accomplish any step on the path to reconciliation. Read More
Amelia Smith
In December 2010 Mohamed Bouazizi grew so frustrated with inequality and corruption in the Tunisian government that he set himself on fire in the town of Sidi Bouzid, 100 miles south of the capital Tunis, and sparked a series of revolutions across the Middle East and North Africa which became known as the Arab Spring. Read More
Is There a Center to Hold?
Asif Majid
Social Identity
Today’s social identity struggle in Libya is embedded in yesterday’s malady of colonialism that manipulated existing precolonial divisions between tribes. Colonial powers governed each tribal group according to distinct customary law that was executed by ‘‘loyal’’ and favored native chiefs. Read More
Abdullah Alkabir
The High Council of State (HCS) has rebuffed the Presidential Council’s initiative for a tripartite meeting in Ghadames, without explaining the reasons behind such rejection. While the House of Representatives (HoR) and its speaker completely ignored the initiative. Read More
Kilian Bälz and Hussam Mujally
Introduction
Libya has excellent conditions for renewable energies both in the fields of solar and wind energy, though the tremendous potential is thus far untapped. There are several reasons for this including regulatory shortcomings, conflicting administrative competencies, and a lack of funding in the electricity sector. Read More
Is There a Center to Hold?
Asif Majid
Struggling with Leadership in a Power Vacuum
Libya is finding it increasingly difficult to forge national independence in the face of foreign pressure and in a declining security situation. Armed groups align themselves with external and internal sources of funding, promoting tribal allegiances and vying with one another to secure the support of different elements of the Libyan government. Read More
Majdi Halabi
The 1951 constitution, which served as the foundation for Libya’s establishment following the end of the Italian occupation, was considered to be highly progressive at the time of its approval, particularly with regard to women’s rights. Read More
Tsvetana Paraskova
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is expected to travel to Libya on Saturday to discuss more oil and natural gas supply from the North African country, Italian media report. Read More
Is There a Center to Hold?
Asif Majid
After accepting responsibility—but not culpability—for the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, Muammar Qaddafi was received back into the international community in 2003. Read More
Mustafa Gurbuz
On January 9, 2023, a Libyan court suspended an energy exploration deal between Turkey and Libya’s Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU) that was originally signed in October 2022. Read More
Wolfram Lacher
For years, whenever I would come to Tripoli, fighting was either raging or the next round was looming on the horizon. An internationally recognised but powerless government in Tripoli would look on as armed groups clashed over influence in the capital, and as the warlord Khalifa Haftar extended his power over eastern, central and southern Libya, often by extraordinarily violent means. Read More
Libya’s Tripoli-based administration Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush descends an escalator during a meeting with other Arab chief diplomats in the capital of Tripoli, on Sunday. She is followed by Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General to Libya Abdoulaye Bathily, and representatives from Qatar and Sudan. Read More
Natasha Bertrand and Katie Bo Lillis
The US Treasury Department will designate the Russian mercenary organization Wagner Group as a “transnational criminal organization” and will impose additional sanctions next week against the group and its support network across the world, the White House said on Friday. Read More
Kamel Abdallah
Local political efforts as well as diplomatic and intelligence moves by foreign powers have been made this month in an attempt to end Libya’s political stalemate. Those efforts included meetings of local players, leaders of international and regional intelligence services, and diplomatic figures. Read More
After a 2022 marked by great division, 2023 could be the year of change in Libya. Read More
Hafed Al-Ghwell
The history of the Arab identity is as long and complex as the history of the Arab people themselves. Stretching over 22 countries with more than 400 million inhabitants — about 6 percent of the world’s population — the Arab world comprises a wide spread of ethnicities, religions, languages, distinct cultures, shared heritage and complex histories. Read More
Guma el-Gamaty
The main obstacles to elections in Libya are the current political elite, who stand to lose power. The UN must bypass them if the country is to renew its political legitimacy. Read More
Khaled Assari
Monarchy has been the understated fixture of the year. Yet its most relevant aspect has been its least understood – monarchy, when it is properly instituted, provides a divided society with the opportunity for renewal and revitalization. Read More
Christina Lu
Following years of war and political fragmentation, Abdoulaye Bathily, the United Nations’ Libya envoy, has warned that Libya will be “at risk of partition” if it continues to delay elections that were supposed to be held nearly a year ago. Read More
Mauro Indelicato
While on the one hand the year just greeted has not seen any positive development within the Libyan framework , 2023 on the other hand could lead to quite a few new developments. The first concerns the direct interest of the United States in the dossier. Read More
Dusan Stojanovic
A senior U.S. envoy expressed strong concern Thursday about the activities of the Russian private military contractor Wagner Group and its alleged attempts to recruit soldiers in Serbia and elsewhere in the world. Read More
Armed groups aligned with the two rival authorities, the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU) and the Government of National Stability (GNS) based in the east, clashed in Tripoli and its environs after GNS forces attempted to take control of the capital. Read More
Diplomats from France, Germany, Italy, UK, US to meet on Friday to discuss next steps. Ex-UN envoy: ‘A transactional ruling class uses Libya’s state and sovereign institutions as cash cows’. Read More
Mohamed Belrawin
The experience of the past ten years has taught us that Libyan politicians have no covenant, do not respect their covenants, and do not believe in the principles they advocate unless they serve their own personal interests. Read More
The Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), William J Burns, has demanded that the commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA), Khalifa Haftar, should cooperate with the Government of National Unity in Tripoli headed by Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh and enable it to operate in eastern Libya. This, said Burns, will preserve the principle of “the unity of the country’s executive institutions.” Read More