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The western region plunged into total blackout on Friday, the General Electricity Company (GECOL) reported, adding that work is underway to restore the electric grid.

GECOL sources said the blackout affected the region from Sirte in central Libya to Ras Ajdir near the border with Tunisia. Fezzan region in southwestern Libya was also affected.

The blackout started at 6:00 am. It ended at 4:00 pm in some cities, while power is yet to be restored to others.

GECOL said the blackout was due to a fault in Khomis power station, which resulted in the loss of 225 MW, bringing the entire western region to total darkness as an extremeheatwave continues to sweep across the region with temperature reaching 46 C in Tripoli on Friday.

GECOL it is going through critical situations due to overloads, which obliged the company to schedule load shedding. But certain cities and towns refused to endure power cuts with armed attacks on power control rooms.

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Total blackout hits western region of Libya - The Libya Observer

By Ayman al-Warfalli | BENGHAZI, Libya

BENGHAZI, Libya

A team of foreign doctors has arrived the war-torn Libyan city of Benghazi to carry out heart surgery on at least 30 young children during a month-long flying visit to a country where healthcare is in tatters.

The treatment is almost impossible for Libyan families to obtain due to the collapse of the health system and an economic crisis that makes sending patients abroad unaffordable.

The doctors have been visiting eastern Libya since 2012, but did not go to Benghazi for two years because of fighting that has destroyed parts of the city and is still raging in one downtown neighborhood.

This time they hope to operate on 30 to 40 children, though the final number will depend on the complexity of children's' defects. Most are under three years old. Some could die within weeks without the treatment.

Khaled al-Fellah's 19-month old daughter Zahra was among the first to receive the surgery.

"Her heart problem was discovered the day of her birth . . . We received basic treatment to maintain the condition as there were no possibilities (for medical care)," he said.

"The diagnosis was wrong many times. When the diagnosis was correct a surgery had to be performed. We should have had this surgery 10 months ago."

The team is led by William Novick, an American doctor who set up a foundation that has treated children with heart disease in more than 30 developing countries. They train local staff as they work.

Initially the trips to Libya were paid for by Libyan public funds, but these dried up and they now depend on private donations.

For the past three years rival alliances have been battling for power in Libya, setting up competing governments in Tripoli and the east. Benghazi, where forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar have been fighting Islamists and other opponents, has seen some of the heaviest violence.

A U.N.-backed government has been trying to establish itself in Tripoli since last March, but Haftar and the eastern government have rejected it. Across the country, public services have continued a slow decline.

The health sector, which was heavily dependent on foreign staff before Libya's 2011 revolution, has been crippled by their departure in the turmoil that followed. Medical supplies and equipment are in short supply, and many hospitals are shut or barely functional.

Conditions at the Benghazi Medical Center have got worse, Novick said.

"The staff is gone. The maintenance of the hospital is low," he said. "I've found that the situation has very much deteriorated since 2012."

Reida El Oakley, the health minister for the eastern government, said a private clinic in Tripoli is the only medical facility in the country that offers heart operations.

The 28,000 Libyan dinar ($20,000) cost is prohibitive for Libyans who "go bankrupt to treat their children" but struggle to withdraw even a few hundred dinars from the bank because of a liquidity crisis.

Trips by Novick's teams have been delayed because of funding shortages. Lives have been lost because of a lack of treatment, said Oakley.

"We have more than 300 kids waiting for open heart surgery, maybe 400," he said. "(The doctors) need to be here full time."

LONDON Cigarette maker Philip Morris International thinks its iQOS smokeless tobacco product can make Britain a country of non-smokers in coming years, an executive said on Friday.

(Reuters Health) - Breastfeeding at age 2 or older increases a childs risk of severe dental caries by the time theyre 5, independently of how much sugar they get from foods, researchers say.

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Foreign medics give children life-saving surgery in Libya's Benghazi - Reuters

LONDON Libyan oil production is fluctuating between 950,000 barrels per day (bpd) and "close to" 1 million bpd, rising from around 935,000 bpd earlier this week, a Libyan oil source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Thursday.

Production has been fluctuating mainly due to technical and power generation problems, the source said, declining to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

At near one million bpd, Libya has succeeded in beating a production target the National Oil Corp (NOC) announced recently by a month, the source added.

The source said that production should stabilize at the higher end of the range "very soon".

Also on Thursday, oil began to be pumped from storage tanks at Al-Majid field, which has been closed for eight months because of power problems, said Omran al-Zwai, a spokesman for Arabian Gulf Oil Company (AGOCO), an NOC subsidiary that operates the field.

The field, with an output of about 5,000 bpd, is expected to reopen fully on Saturday, Zwai said. Oil from Al-Majid is pumped to Zueitina, one of three eastern terminals that was blockaded until September last year.

Libya, a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, has been exempted from OPEC-led supply cuts as it tries revive its battered oil industry.

It had produced more than 1.6 million bpd before a 2011 uprising, and average production has not exceeded 1 million bpd since July 2013.

(Reporting by Ahmad Ghaddar and Ayman al-Warfalli, editing by David Evans and editing by John Stonestreet)

SYDNEY BHP Billiton and Vale have won a four-month extension from a Brazilian court to negotiate a settlement to a $47 billion claim stemming from the Samarco mine disaster in 2015, BHP said on Friday.

BEIJING China's top online retailers and U.S. superstore giant Walmart are scrambling to satisfy the voracious appetites of consumers excited about the first American beef to arrive in the world's most populous nation in 14 years.

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Libya's oil output nears 1 million bpd, highest in four years: source - Reuters

Barron's

Oil Stuck at $47: Blame Nigeria, Libya & Frackers, Goldman Says Barron's The fast ramp-up in U.S. shale drilling and the unexpectedly large rebound in oil production in Libya and Nigeria means oil is likely to hover at $45 per barrel in the near term, Goldman Sachs analysts says. Oil prices were up 0.8% per barrel in recent ... Goldman Sachs slashes oil price projection amid US shale surgeCNBC Oil prices edge up to two-week high on dip in US outputNew York Daily News Oil prices rise to two-week high on dip in US outputNasdaq Reuters -ETEnergyworld.com all 550 news articles »

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Oil Stuck at $47: Blame Nigeria, Libya & Frackers, Goldman Says - Barron's

A Libyan coast guardsman during the rescue of 147 illegal immigrants attempting to reach Europe off the coastal town of Zawiyah, west of the capital Tripoli, on Tuesday. Photograph: Taha Jawashi/AFP/Getty Images

The Italian government is considering banning ships from Libya from landing at its ports after the arrival of nearly 11,000 refugees from there in the past five days.

It has been reported that the government has given its ambassador to the EU, Maurizio Massari, a mandate to raise the issue formally with the European commission to seek permission for a drastic revision of EU asylum procedures.

One idea being discussed is denying docking privileges to ships not carrying Italian flags that seek to land in Italian ports, mainly in Sicily or Calabria.

The surge in the number of refugees reaching Italy prompted the interior minister, Marco Minniti, to fly back en route to Washington to address the crisis. An intense debate has raged in Italy about whether NGOs waiting to rescue people off Libyan coastal waters act as an incentive for people-smugglers.

The centre-right fared well in local government elections at the weekend, placing pressure on the left coalition government ahead of elections due by next year.

Both Germany and France have said Italy, after the closure of the Turkey route, has been left alone to fend with the refugee crisis for too long. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, is proposing a Compact for Africa at the G20 designed to boost private sector investment in the continent, and reduce the incentive for Africans to try to migrate to Europe to escape poverty.

Mattia Toaldo, a Libyan expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations said: This is a panic measure and I would very much be surprised if it is legal. The law requires the rescue of people in distress on the high seas, and this self-blockade of Italian ports would leave migrants floating in the Mediterranean, including those in most NGO rescue ships.

It is most likely designed to force Europe to take some kind of other action. It also shows that the ideas tried so far have failed. It was first proposed that the Libyan coastguard take more action to push the boats back. It was then suggested the tribes in southern Libya act as detention guards and then it was proposed to take action in Niger. Nothing has worked.

The dramatic rise in numbers, prompted by good weather and a well-organised trafficking route also draws greater scrutiny to the plans prepared by Merkel for a long-term solution. Efforts to strengthen the Libyan coastguard by providing extra boats and training appears to have had little impact.

In the four days between 24 and 27 June, 8,863 migrants arrived, including more than 5,000 on Monday alone, according to the International Office for Migration. A further 2,000 people were reported arriving on Tuesday.

The June surge means comes after the arrival of 60,228 migrants in Italy by sea in the first five months of 2017, with 1,562 reported to have died on the central Mediterranean. The number of migrants from Libya this year is on course to exceed the 200,000 recorded last year.

There were 22,993 arrivals in May. Since the beginning of 2016, only in July and October last year were higher numbers of arrivals by sea recorded.

Nigerian is the first declared nationality of about 15 per cent of those arriving in 2017, followed by Bangladeshi (12 per cent), Guinean (10 per cent) and Ivorian (9 per cent).

Renato Brunetta of Forza Italia has pressed Minniti to block ships with migrants heading to Italy and ask the EU to allow them to be diverted to other Mediterranean ports.

Dr Merkel fears that long-term demographic trends mean 100 million Africans could be driven to Europe by climate change and poverty, and that European governments are unprepared.

Her guiding idea is to stem migration by combating poverty in Africa. Her specific initiative is to team up African nations committed to economic reforms with private investors who would then bring jobs and businesses.

Under the G20 compacts plan, an initial seven African nations would pledge reforms to attract more private sector investment. Leaders from these countries have been to Berlin to discuss the plan, meet investors and identify the practical reasons global finance shuns Africa.

Guardian service

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Italy considers closing its ports to ships from Libya - Irish Times