Unleashing tens of billions of investment across Africa, the UAE and Saudi Arabia are buying critical minerals and political influence, The strategy of the oil-fired Gulf States in Africa appears to be modelled on a foreign policy dictum coined by Ghana s founding President, Kwame Nkrumah: We face neither east nor west – we face forwards. Like Nkrumah, the Gulf monarchs alternate between cutting deals in Washington and Beijing and Moscow. Unlike him, they have trillions of dollars in sovereign wealth funds and face no immediate threats of coups d état.
UN envoy Bathily calls for all-party talks to agree roadmap for transition and elections, A missile attack apparently launched from the sea on the residence of Libya s Prime Minister Abdel Hamid Dubaiba in Tripoli s upscale Hay Andalus neighbourhood on 31 March underlines the political impasse and the parlous state of national security. An armed unit, known as the 166 Brigade, closed streets in the areas and called in reinforcements.
Rescue efforts held back by poor infrastructure and administrative dysfunction, The Mediterranean storms that lashed Libya s coastline on 10-11 September have destroyed two major dams and unleashed floods killing over 2,300 people in Derna, one of the biggest cities in Cyrenaica, the country s eastern region. Relief agencies fear that those casualty figures could more than triple.
Accused by the UN of heinous rights abuses, militias tied to Dubaiba and Haftar now run border control, Militias linked to the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU) and its erstwhile rivals in the Libyan National Army (LNA) led by General Khalifa Haftar have taken over national border control and are working with European Union forces in the region.
Rome desperately needs North Africa s gas and is making commercial and political investments in Libya, Italy has already replaced Russia as its main supplier of gas, which is transforming its strategic relationship with North Africa, especially Algeria, Libya and Egypt. Rome intends to invest massively in Libya and act as a gas gatekeeper for the rest of Europe.