Archive: libya

17th September 2022
By: Brian Whitaker
A man has been sentenced to death in Libya after converting from Islam to Christianity, according to local news reports.  Details are scarce, but Dhiaa al-Din Ahmed Miftah Balao – described as an information technology graduate – appears to have previously been a devoted Muslim and is said to… Read more
17th December 2021
Daniel Kawczynski is the member of parliament for Shrewsbury in England, though he is jokingly known as the member for Riyadh. "I feel passionately about Saudi Arabia," he told the House of Commons during a debate in 2011. "I have been battling against extraordinary ignorance about – and… Read more
10th June 2020
The UN's latest report on the coronavirus situation in Libya makes grim reading. Just about everything that could go wrong is going wrong. None of it is helped by the ongoing conflict between the UN-backed Government of National Unity (GNA) in Tripoli and Field Marshall Haftar's forces based in… Read more
15th May 2020
Unidentified militiamen entered the intensive care unit at al-Jala hospital in the Libyan city of Benghazi on Sunday and opened fire. Medical staff escaped with their lives but seven respirators were badly damaged, along with an ultrasound machine and several monitors. In Libya's internal… Read more
25th April 2020
By: Brian Whitaker
So far, Libya has only 61 confirmed cases of Covid-19 but limited capacity for testing means an unknown number of infections are going undetected. At the same time, Libya faces a series of additional problems that make tackling the virus more difficult. The country is now in its ninth year of… Read more
19th October 2018
By: Brian Whitaker
A lobbyist who has received at least $120,000 for PR activities on behalf of Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar is one of the scheduled speakers at a controversial meeting to be held in the House of Lords later this month. The meeting, billed as a discussion on postwar "reconstruction and… Read more
1st April 2016
By: Brian Whitaker
As efforts continue to establish a single national government in Libya, a report by a UN panel of experts which was circulated last month provides some illuminating background: Throughout most of 2015, conflicting regional interests further polarised the political scene. Support and statements by… Read more
4th September 2014
By: Brian Whitaker
Libya's Constitutional Drafting Assembly has set up an online poll asking people what system of government they would prefer – monarchical, presidential or parliamentary – and the results, if they reflect public opinion at all accurately, are rather alarming. With more than 23,000 votes cast so far… Read more
2nd August 2014
By: Brian Whitaker
The "bitter truth", according to a headline in the Daily Mail this week, is that Iraq and Libya "were better off under the tyrants toppled by an arrogant and naive west". In the article below, columnist Stephen Glover asked: "Where would you prefer to try to live a half-normal life – in Gaddafi’s… Read more
18th November 2013
By: Brian Whitaker
All militias from the Libyan city of Misrata have been told to leave the capital, Tripoli, within 72 hours, and "without exception", the BBC reports this morning. The Libya Herald says the withdrawal call came from members of Misrata’s shura council, local elders and commanders of the city’s… Read more