Photo Credit: Israel Ministry of Foreign AffairsIsrael’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and Libya’s Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush held talks last week in an historic first-ever meeting between foreign ministers from the two nations. Advertisement“The historic meeting with the Foreign Minister of Libya, Najla Mangoush, is the first step in the relationship between Israel and Libya,” Cohen noted Sunday in a statement to journalists. The first woman to serve as foreign minister, Mangoush began her political career in Libya following the ouster of President Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. She has served as Foreign Minister in the Tripoli government under the leadership of Prime Minister Alhamid Dabiba since the establishment of the consensus government in March 2021. Many Libyan Jews immigrated to Israel starting in the 1930s and in the first years after the establishment of the state.

Foreign Minister Eli Cohen met with Libyan counterpart Najla Mangoush last week in Italy, the Foreign Ministry announces, marking the first-ever official meeting between the countries’ top diplomats. The two met to discuss the possibility of cooperation and the preservation of Jewish heritage sites in Libya. Cohen calls the meeting “historic” and a “first step” in the creation of ties between the countries. The country split in the chaos that followed, with rival administrations in the east and west backed by rogue militias and foreign governments. While Israel and Libya have never had ties, there have long been reported contacts between Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam and Israeli officials.

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Following revelations by Foreign Minister Eli Cohen that he met with his Libyan counterpart Najla Mangoush last week in Italy, Libyan presidential candidate Suleiman al-Bayoudi calls to exclude the current internationally recognized prime minister Abdul Hamid al-Dbeibeh from the upcoming elections. In a post on his Facebook account, al-Bayoudi accuses al-Dbeibeh, leader of a unity government, of promoting normalization with Israel to curry American favor, and says that he has “nothing but Israel’s card to throw in the face of his opponents, after playing all his other cards to continue to remain in power… Israel is the last straw he’s grasping before he drowns.”“Relations with Israel can only be established after a national consensus has been reached within the framework of elected institutions, and with considerations to all relevant aspects, including the question of Libyan Jews,” he adds. The meeting between the two top diplomats in Rome, which took place under the auspices of Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, was, according to presidential rival al-Bayoudi, “the confirmation that Dbeibeh intends to keep ruling without running for office.”Al-Bayoudi calls for al-Dbeibeh’s final exclusion from the elections, for which no date has been set yet but may take place by the end of this year, according to the UN Libya envoy. Khaled al-Mishri, a former head of Libya’s High State Council affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, also expresses his condemnation of the top-level meeting between Libya and Israel, suggesting that it is probably not the first one, and saying that the “Dbeibeh government has crossed all red lines and must be overthrown,” according to the news website al-Anwan al-Libiya. Meanwhile, Raphael Faelino Luzon, chairman of the Union of Libyan Jews, writes on his Facebook profile in Arabic that “a lot of work took place behind the scenes to reach this agreement,” sparking speculations among the Libyan press that he may have played a role in organizing the meeting.

The President of Congo Denis Sassou Nguesso is expected to visit Libya soon within the framework of the role played by the African Union in supporting the political process in Libya, according to a statement by the Libyan Presidential Council on Sunday. Deputy Chairman of the Presidential Council Moussa Koni met with Sassou Nguesso on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit, and “discussed the process of working on national reconciliation, the mechanisms for achieving the stability that Libya needs, and its repercussions for the region and the entire continent.”“The Congolese president made it clear to Koni that there are arrangements for his upcoming visit to Libya within the framework of the role played by the African Union in this regard,” as per the council’s statement.

The latest report by the Engineering Export Council of Egypt (EEC) revealed that Egyptian engineering exports were up by 10 percent during the first 7 months of 2023, reaching $2.492 billion between January and July compared to the $2.271 billion recorded during the same period last year. In July 2023, engineering exports hit $331 million, up by 14 percent compared to $290 million recorded in July 2022. The council revealed that the European countries that increased imports of Egyptian engineering exports were Turkey, France, Netherlands, Hungary, Germany, and the Czech Republic. Asian and ME countries that upped imports were Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iraq, and Oman, while exports to Brazil also grew. African countries that raised imports of Egyptian engineering exports were Algeria, Libya, Sudan Côte d’Ivoire, Tanzania, and Mauritius.

CAIRO – 27 August 2023: Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shokry received Sunday a phone call from his Italian counterpart Antonio Tajani to learn about Egypt's assessment of events in Niger and ways to resolve the issue in diplomatic ways that would preserve security and stability in the country and the region. Similarly, Minister Shokry presented Egypt's vision on political and security developments in Libya, and on options to push forward Libyan solutions that would ensure holding parliamentary and presidential elections in the nearest future. In that context, the two minister agreed on continuing consultations in the coming period, and on holding a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) taking place in New York next September. Shokry and Tajani also discussed bolstering economic cooperation, and Italian investments in Egypt leveraging the large capabilities of both countries. They equally conferred over common challenges in the Mediterranean, mainly illegal migration.

Libya intends to activate strategic and economic cooperation with China, in the light of the North African country’s possible accession to the New Silk Road or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), said Deputy Chairman of Libya’s Presidential Council Moussa Koni, on Sunday. Koni made his remarks during a meeting with the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, on the sidelines of the special session on Afro-Chinese cooperation in the framework of the BRICS summit held in South Africa. According to Koni, the return of Chinese companies to Libya would send “a strong and reassuring message to all international businesses on achieving stability in Libya”. The deputy chairman then stressed to the Chinese president that reconstruction projects in Libya “need Chinese expertise” and that the Chinese model of economic progress “should be emulated”.

QNANew York: Permanent Representative of the State of Qatar to the United Nations HE Sheikha Alia Ahmed bin Saif Al-Thani met with Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Libya HE Abdoulaye Bathily. During the meeting, they discussed ways to enhance efforts to implement the tasks of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), which aim to maintain security and achieve peace and stability in the country.

SEBHA, Libya – Brigadier General Saddam Khafila, commander of the Libyan National Army’s (LNA) joint operations room, inspected military operations in southern Libya on Saturday as part of a major security sweep aimed at stabilizing the restive region. Khafila, along with Major General Al-Mabrouk Sehban, commander of LNA’s southern military zone, and other senior officers toured residential buildings in the Um Al-Aranib district of Sebha. Their visit was to review progress of ongoing security activities, according to a statement by the LNA’s media office. The inspection comes a day after the LNA announced the launch of military operations to purge southern areas of foreign armed groups and human trafficking networks. The LNA maintains aerial surveillance over the entire area of ongoing military operations in the south, added Al-Mismari.

The men, who dreamt of getting jobs in Italy on work permits, were duped by Indian ‘agents’. In February, Mr. Kumar packed his bags. Selling dreamsBack in Pehowa, at his sister’s house, Mr. Kumar sits on a sofa, looking at his children, all below 10. Over 30 people were crammed into tiny rooms Mr. Kumar says. Life in traumaParamjit Singh, 44, a cloth shop owner in Kurukshetra before he left for Libya, has panic attacks that appear every other hour.

Interconnect Malta welcomed the Environment and Resources Authority’s approval of the environmental impact assessment of the development of Interconnector 2. This will be the second submarine electricity cable between Malta and Italy. The environmental impact assessment, which was completed earlier this year, included a thorough analysis of the project’s potential impacts on surrounding environments, including ecology, archaeology, water bodies and geology. “Through this environmental impact assessment, we wanted to make sure that the project will safeguard our environment even during its construction,” the CEO further stated. Interconnector 2 will be a 118-kilometre, 225 MW HVAC electrical cable interconnection including a 99-kilometre submarine cable operating at 220 kV between Malta (Maghtab) and Italy (Ragusa, Sicily).

Humanitarian groups are rushing to Lampedusa after more than 750 people arrived on the island in 25 separate landings between the night of Thursday and Friday. Italian media reported that later on Friday, five more boats arrived carrying 80 people from Morocco, Tunisia, Syria, Sudan, Chad, Gambia, Ghana and Guinea. International media also reported that the Italian government will be transferring some people off the island to Porto Empedocle in Sicily. Once leaving Lampedusa, migrants are then transferred to other parts of the country. The number of arrivals has increased compared with the period before the memorandum was signed.

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy will face a trial in 2025 on charges of corruption and receiving illegal funding from former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi for his successful 2007 presidential campaign, according to France’s financial prosecutors. An initial hearing is set for March 7, 2024, the prosecutor's office said, with the trial itself scheduled to take place between Jan.6, 2025 and April 10, 2025. The 68-year-old is also fighting various other charges, including "concealment of embezzlement of public funds, passive corruption, and illegal campaign financing, the prosecutor’s office said. Sarkozy could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted in the case, while he has repeatedly denied the accusations. Sarkozy has already been convicted twice for corruption and influence-peddling in separate cases involving attempts to influence a judge and campaign financing.

The French Embassy in Libya on Saturday denied media reports about participation in military operations in Libya. The denial came one day after forces of East Libya-based warlord Khalifa Haftar launched a military offensive near the border with Chad. “The French Embassy in Libya denies the false information circulated by some media outlets and social media networks about France’s involvement in military operations in Libya,” it said in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter. On Friday, Haftar’s forces launched a military operation against “foreign armed groups” near Libya’s border with Chad. In a statement, Haftar’s spokesman Ahmad Mismari said his forces carried out airstrikes against positions of Chadian rebel groups inside Libyan territory.