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Author:Mustafa Fetouri Posted June 30, 2017

United Nations Secretary-GeneralAntonio Guterreshas appointedGhassan Salame as his new special envoy to Libya and as the head of the UN mission in the country known as the UNSupport Mission in Libya. His appointment came after months of searching for the right candidate.

In February, Guterres attempted to appoint Salam Fayyad, the former Palestinian prime minister. But the United States, a veto-holding UN Security Council member, objected to the appointment, accusing the internationalbody of being unfairly biased in favor of the Palestinian Authorityto the detriment of our allies in Israel, as the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, saw the matter then.

Salames task is not easy, and four of his predecessors have so far failed to deliver peace and reconciliation to the war-ravaged country.

Right after his first meeting with a group of Libyan politicians,before his appointment, Salame tweeted May 19,Three days of meetings with Libyan leaders has been exhausting but I hope it will help the national reconciliation process indicating that he knows the difficulties facing him.

Salame is the second Lebanese to take the post after Tarek Mitri who tried his luck with the Libyansin 2012-14, before he was replaced byBernardino Leon.

Salames predecessor, Martin Kobler, had failed to make the warring Libyan factions accept the UN-brokered peace agreement signed in Skhirat, Morocco, in December 2015. It was during Leons tenure that the breakthrough took place and the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA) was signed. That agreement gave birth to the Government of National Accord (GNA), headed by Fayez al-Sarraj. Since then and despite the shuttle diplomacy, nothing has been achieved and much remains to be done.

Since the toppling of its longtime leader, Moammar Gadhafi, on Oct. 20, 2011, Libya has been divided between two quarreling governments and dominated by dozens of armed militias. The country has seen little progress in terms of peace, national reconciliationand economic stability.

What Salame brings to the post is probably his experience being a former Lebanese minister who knows how difficult it is to make quarreling factions agree in the absence of serious national dialogue. In addition, he is a well-known Arab intellectual, academicand author. Before the UN job, he was founding dean of the School of International Affairs, part of the French prestigious Sciences Po think tank and university in Paris.

As the new UN envoy, he should carefully review previous UN efforts in Libya and identify what mistakes were made in tackling the Libyan crisis to avoid repeating them. One major error made by all previous UN diplomats has been the marginalization of two important potential political players: the supporters of the former regime who are a sizeable number in the tribally divided country,and the tribal fabric of the Libyan society, which cant be sidelined for peace to have a chance.

Supporters of the former regime in exile are now organizing themselves to have Seif al-Islam, Gadhafis son, lead them as one group after the young Gadhafi was released from prisonJune 11. This brings a new dimension to the conflict, since it will be the first time a son of Gadhafi enters the political scene.

As for the tribal fabric of Libya, the majority of Libyan tribes are represented by a broad umbrella groupcalled The Supreme Council of Libyan Tribes and Cities thatoperatesfrom neighboring Egypt. In the past, tribes have been overlooked by all former UN envoys, a mistake Salame should not repeat.

Another major problem Salame must try to tackle is the outside interference in the Libyan affairs, particularly by regional countries. Such meddling in the internal affairs only contributed to heightened tensions, making the local smallsporadic wars more of a proxy war between the United Arab Emiratesand Egypt supporting the Tobruk-based governmentwhile Turkey, Sudan and Qatar support other factions in western Libya. With Qatar on retreat, the new envoy might have more room to maneuver.

Salame should not attempt to open up the LPA for renegotiations as many parties call for the UN deal to be rewritten. In fact, what could be renegotiated is only a couple of articles related to the role of the military and downsizing the number of the Presidential Council from its current nine members to maybe three representing each of the countrys three regions:Tripolitania in the west, Cyrenaica in the eastand Fezzan in the south.

Salame has good ties with France, which played a leading military role in bringing down Gadhafis regime in 2011 and has ever since been puzzled by the complicated mess Libya is in.He is well-known to French politicians and well-connected to decision-makers, which will help him align whatever plans he has hatched to the larger European Union ideas when it comes to tackling the Libya crisis.

He must make good use of the French veto power in the UN Security Council by making sure that those who disrupt the political process can and will be held accountable before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. A kind of carrot-and-stick tactic will certainly deter many negative moves.

UN Resolution 1973 of March 2011 still applies to Libya calling for the ICC to investigate suspected human rights violations and possible crimes against humanity. However, since 2011, no one has been investigated despite all the small wars and violence Libya has been through.

No UN envoy or mediator has any magic solution and Salame can only do so much. In the end, it is the quarreling Libyan factions that must chose peace if they care about their country and its people as much as they care about their own political interests.

Read More: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/06/libya-new-un-envoy-mission-mistakes-peace.html

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New UN Libya envoy faces long road to peace - Al-Monitor

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