Libya - The African Mirror

Mar

2024

Libya’s oil minister suspended for legal investigation

LIBYA'S oil and gas minister in the Government of National Unity has been temporarily suspended from work, a state institution said on Monday, citing a legal investigation. The Administrative Control Agency (ACA) said on its verified Facebook page that its head Abdullah Qadirbuh issued the suspension decision against the oil and gas minister in Tripoli for the investigation "regarding the facts of case No.178, which revealed the presence of legal violations". It did not disclose further details. The oil ministry has not received a copy of the decision yet, a source at the ministry told Reuters. The ACA mentioned the…

Mar

2024

By The African Mirror

Libyan leaders agree to form new unified government

NEWS

THREE key Libyan leaders said they had agreed on the "necessity" of forming a new unified government that would supervise long-delayed elections. A political process to resolve more than a decade of conflict in Libya has been stalled since an election scheduled for December 2021 collapsed amid disputes over the eligibility of the main candidates. The leaders are the president of the Presidential Council (PC) Mohamed Menfi, the head of the High State Council (HSC) Mohamed Takala, who are both based in Tripoli, and Aguila Saleh, speaker of the House of Representatives (HoR) in Benghazi. In a joint statement, the…

Feb

2024

By SETH ONYANGO, BIRD STORY AGENCY

Mike Tyson lands knockout punch on Gaddafi-era boxing ban with Libyan visit

NEWS

THE starting buzzer is ringing for boxing's long-awaited revival in North Africa as former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson set social media aflame with news that he would appear at a boxing event in Benghazi next Friday. The expected presence of the iconic Tyson marks a watershed moment for the sport in Libya. Boxing was banned in the oil-rich nation for decades by the country's former leader, Muammar Gaddafi. Tyson, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest boxers of all time and a 'knockout king', shared the news on his Instagram page, posting: “Hey boxing world, I’m pleased to…

Feb

2024

By The African Mirror

Returning sea migrants to Libya is illegal, Italy’s top court says

NEWS

ITALY'S top appeals court has established that sending sea migrants back to Libya is unlawful, a ruling hailed by charities and human rights groups. The Court of Cassation upheld the conviction of the captain of an Italian towboat, Asso 28, who in 2018 rescued 101 migrants from a rubber dinghy and returned them to Libya. The rescue took place in international waters about 105 km off Libya, the court said. Pregnant women and children were among the migrants, it added. The captain - whose name was blacked out in the ruling for privacy reasons - was sentenced to one year's imprisonment for…

Jan

2024

By The African Mirror

Libya’s $18-billion dollars flood repair bill

NEWS

LIBYA'S deadly flash flood in September constituted a climate and environmental catastrophe that requires $1.8 billion in reconstruction and recovery, an international report said. Huge swathes of the city of Derna were destroyed in the flood, after heavy rainfall from Storm Daniel crashed through two aging dams, sweeping entire districts into the Mediterranean. The report by the World Bank, United Nations and European Union said the disaster affected about 1.5 million people or 22% of Libya's population, and cited figures from the U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA of 4,352 confirmed deaths with 8,000 still missing. Libya has been split since 2014 between rival…

Jan

2024

By The African Mirror

Protesters in Libya threaten to shut down oil and gas facilities

NEWS

PROTESTERS have threatened to shut down two oil and gas facilities near the Libyan capital Tripoli, with one group that is campaigning against corruption issuing a 72-hour ultimatum. The group called the Corruption Eradication Movement said in a video statement online that it would "stop the pumping of gas from the Mellitah complex", a joint venture between Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) and Italy's Eni. Any halt would disrupt the supply of gas through the Greenstream pipeline between Libya and Italy. Eni declined to comment and NOC was not immediately available for comment on the latest threat. The protesters demanded…

Dec

2023

By The African Mirror

Libya’s stock market resumes trading after more than 9 years of closure

BUSINESS

LIBYA'S Stock Market resumed trading at a hall in the capital Tripoli after more than nine years of closure because of the political and security situation. The prime minister of the Government of National Unity Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah and the market's chairman of the board of directors Bashir Mohamed Ashour with other officials rang the bell to announce the resumption of trading. The stock market also has a trading hall in Libya's second city of Benghazi where trading is expected to resume next week, a source said on Monday. Dbeibah said the bourse was "one of the means to improve the…

Dec

2023

By The African Mirror

Sixty-one migrants drown in shipwreck off Libya – IOM

NEWS

SIXTY-ONE migrants, including women and children, drowned following a shipwreck off Libya, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Libya said. IOM, in a post on social media platform X, quoted survivors as saying the boat, carrying around 86 people, departed the Libyan city of Zwara, about 110 km (68 miles) from the capital, Tripoli. "The central Mediterranean continues to be one of the world's most dangerous migration routes," IOM said. Deadly incidents this year included one in June, when a fishing boat packed with hundreds of migrants sank off Greece after departing from Tobruk, Libya. The voyage, which was supposed to…

Oct

2023

By AYMAN AL-WARFALI

Libya flood disaster damaged ancient city but revealed new remains

NEWS

THE flooding that killed thousands in Libya's Derna last month damaged the ruins at the ancient Greek city of Cyrene in the mountains nearby, but it also revealed new archaeological remains thereby washing away earth and stones. Storm Daniel may have caused a meter of rain to fall on the hills of eastern Libya, an unprecedented amount since records began in the mid-19th century scientists say, and water was still flowing through the site when Reuters visited last week. The flooding caused mud and rubble to pile in Cyrene's Greek-era baths that will require specialised clearing said local antiquities department official Adel Boufjra.…

Jul

2023

By The African Mirror

What does the Wagner Group do? Operations in Africa and the rest of the world explained

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

THE abortive mutiny by Russia's Wagner group last week calls into question the fate of the group's wide network of military and commercial operations across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. This factbox shows what Wagner is doing and where. UKRAINE Wagner deployed in Ukraine soon after the invasion began early last year and by the summer it was enlisting thousands of prisoners to fight for it on the front lines. By December, as it took a central role in the battle for Bakhmut, U.S. intelligence estimated it had 40,000 prisoner recruits fighting in Ukraine, though Wagner itself has not commented on…