NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUES
- The Libyan General Authority for Search and Identification of Missing Persons has announced the recovery of 18 unidentified bodies in the city of Sirte. The Authority said the bodies were transferred to Ibn Sina Hospital in the city. The Authority’s specialized teams took bone samples after presenting them to forensic medicine, and then transferred them to its laboratories to work on them.
- The Tunisian navy have obstructed an attempted smuggling of medicines by sea allegedly headed for Libya. This was announced by the Tunisian Defense Ministry in a statement without providing details on the quantity of goods trafficked. The medicines were seized after monitoring suspicious movements of an unknown vessel off the coast of El Ktef in Ben Guerdane, southeast Tunisia, near the Libyan border. Two individuals were reportedly arrested in connection to the incident.
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The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has expressed concern about the deteriorating water, sanitation, and hygiene situation in Libya, saying that more than four million people, including 1.5 million children, will face imminent water problems if the issue remains unaddressed. The head of UNICEF’s Communications Office in Libya, Suad Al-Marrani, said that they based their report on the Man-made River statuses and Water Desalination project, as the frequent attacks on these facilities destroyed 190 wells.
- The mayor of the municipality of Zilten (130 km west of Tripoli), Omar Saleh al-Saghir, confirmed that he had been subjected to a “terrorist assassination attempt,” indicating that he had escaped from it after his car was shot at by masked gunmen. Al-Saghir said, on Facebook “Praise be to God, who saved me today from a premeditated, failed terrorist assassination attempt.” “Unknown gunmen from outside the city chased me and shot at my car, but I escaped without injuries while my car crashed into one of the houses in the area,” he added.
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Tunisian authorities recovered the bodies of four people believed to be African migrants, including a pregnant woman, off the coast of Kerkennah Island in the Mediterranean, the regional prosecutor said. The bodies were handed over to the regional hospital in the city of Sfax, Prosecutor Faouzi Masmoudi told The Associated Press. They were found early Sunday, December 25, and appeared to have drowned several days earlier, he said. Asked about online references to a newborn baby being among the dead, he said that only adult bodies were found.
NATIONAL POLITICS AND SOCIAL ISSUES
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The International Energy Forum (IEF) has approved Libya to join it, to become the 72nd country within the Forum, Libyan Oil Ministry announced. This came based on the recommendation of the Oil Ministry and the approval of the Government of National Unity (GNU) under Resolution No. (976) of 2022 AD, to join IEF, the Ministry said. The Forum includes more than 90% of countries and organizations working in the production, consumption and marketing of oil and gas in the world, according to the Libyan Oil Ministry.
- Member of the House of Representatives, Hassan Al-Zarqa, confirmed that the commander of the Libyan National Army, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, “spoke on behalf of the entire Libyan street, especially in Cyrenaica and Fezzan, regarding the fairness of the distribution of oil revenues.”
- French Ambassador to Libya and Parliament members representing the Southern region have reviewed mechanisms for overcoming current political deadlock and elections in Libya, according to French Ambassador, Mostafa Mihraje.
- Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, Commander of the Libyan National Army, received the pilot, Amer Al-Jagam, who was released in a prisoner exchange between eastern and western Libya. The General Command of the Armed Forces published pictures of the moment of the reception, where Al-Jagam appeared in full military uniform and saluted the Commander of the Armed Forces. Field Marshal Haftar also issued a decision to promote al-Jagam from the rank of major general to a lieutenant general, and assigned him an assistant to the Air Force Command of the Libyan National Army.
- U.N. Special Envoy to Libya Abdoulaye Bathily has been invited to Rome to discuss holding elections in the war-torn country, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani revealed. In an interview with Italian website Decode39, Tajani did not disclose the date of the visit but he stressed that the “path leading to the elections must be clear.”
- Speaker of Libya’s House of Representatives, Aguila Saleh, and chairman of High Council of State, Khaled Al-Mishri, have reached an agreement to resume talks in Cairo in the next few days to agree on a constitutional basis necessary for the holding of presidential and parliamentary elections, according to a report by Egyptian newspaper Youm 7. The Egyptian newspaper did not report on when will the potential meeting take place.
- Russian gas exports will decline by about 25% and gas output will drop by 12% in 2022, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said in an interview with TASS. “As for the gas industry, gas output and exports will forcefully fall. Gas production will decline by 12% compared to 2021 and exports will drop by about 25%, the main reason being the termination of export infrastructure facilities,” he noted.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
- CPaT Global, the world’s leading provider of distance learning for the airline and aviation industry, Wednesday, December 28, announced they have recently been awarded a new contract with Crown Airlines in Libya, according to American Journal of Transportation (AJOT). CPaT will be providing Airbus A320 Aircraft Systems training for their fleet along with Aviation Specialty Courses (General Subjects).
- Chinese President Xi Jinping has affirmed his country’s “desire to work on consolidating and deepening relations of friendship and cooperation with Libya, for the benefit of the two friendly countries and peoples.” This came in a letter received by the President of the Libyan Presidential Council, Mohamed al-Menfi, according to a statement by the Council’s media office.
- Minister of Labour and Rehabilitation Ali Al-Ridha held talks with the French Ambassador to Libya, Mustafa Mihraje, with a focus on aspects of cooperation between both sides. The meeting, convened at the Labour Ministry’s HQ in Tripoli, discussed vocational rehabilitation for youth and people with disabilities and ways to create jobs in the private sector. The two parties also exchanged notes on a mechanism to implement projects and programs of the National Rehabilitation and Reintegration Project.
