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A GECOL official in Al-Jufra, Mohammed Enkam, said the five electric towers (66 k.v) are being repaired after they fell down during the sand storm few days ago and led to a blackout in Zillah. He added that the electricity will return to the district once the repairing works end in the coming days.

Libyan coastguards rescued 215 migrants including 47 women en route to Italy. A spokesperson for the Libyan Coast Guard said the migrants were on two boats inside Libyan waters. Eyewitnesses said as many as 30 migrants who were on the second boat are missing in the sea. Libyan coastguards added that they recovered three women's bodies from the sea.

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TheNational Commission for Human Rights in Libya warned of the growing of hate speech as well as violence, extremism and radical religious ideologies as well as tribal and regional fanaticism via media outlets and social media platforms. It said this could lead to more division among Libyans. It called for adopting a speech that advocates for tolerance, reconciliation, peace and forgiveness, and a speech that respect the right of citizenship and political pluralism.

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Sirte is undergoing a water shortage crisis as water supplies have been cut from the main sources of Al-Sarir and Tazerbo fields that pump into Ajdabiya reservoir, besides the outage from Omar Al-Mukhtar pipeline from Benghazi and Gerdabiya reservoir. The officials at the Man-Made River said power outage at the two fields led to this bad situation as water stopped pumping out of the wells.

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Aman Bank will soon open a branch in Tarhouna city, according to an agreement between the administration and Tarhouna mayor, Ayyad Albey. The head of the media office at Tarhouna municipality said a committee from Aman Bank will visit the lot allocated for the building of the bank in the coming days, adding that this will help take some banking work off the shoulders of the city's banks and create a competitive atmosphere.

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A patrol nearby Kalinja mountains in southeastern Libya intercepted several trucks smuggling Libyan fuel to Chad. Local media reported the patrol's personnel as saying that the truck drivers are Chadian nationals, who have entered Libya illegally. They added that Kufra military zone warned earlier of smuggling fuel, humans, and foods as well as other commodities as it is very harmful to Libya's sovereignty.

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News Roundup - Mon, Mar 20, 2017 - The Libya Observer

The Islamic Research and Studies Council (IRSC) of the Fatwa House in Libya has said that the action taken by certain armed groups in Tripoli to "deter" outlaws is in itself an act of outlawry because of the panic it caused for the people, the damage it did to personal and public properties and the burning of some TV channels that oppose their ideologies.

The IRSC added in a statement Sunday that the armed groups that clashed in Tripoli had violated the laws as they attacked public institutions such as Hadba Prison, where several Gaddafi henchmen, including his son Al-Saadi, are being held, and killed a number of its guards.

"Not to mention the attack they conducted on the Guest Palaces in Rixos and the building of the General Intelligence Department." The IRC indicated.

The council also denounced the protests that were staged with slogans against the February revolution igniting revenge from certain cities, which were named by those men who organized the protest, and hailing the crimes committed in Benghazi with all the inhumane atrocities done by the coup plotters in there.

"We support the right of peaceful demonstrating and protesting for all Libyans as long as they commit to the moral and sharia ethics." The IRSC remarked.

The IRSC of the Fatwa House also slammed the so-called Dignity Operation crime gangs as inhuman after they had killed the women and entire families who tried to break out of the siege laid on Ganfouda.

"Digging up tombs and parading the bodies of the dead as well as burning the corpses are acts of brutality and can only be described as bestial behavior of nonhuman creatures." The IRSC explained, saying that the perpetrators and the silence voices among their tribes must await the wrath of Allah for such atrocities.

The IRSC remarked that the damage done by the latest incidents and violations in the country would not be healed by apologies or ornamented statements full of wordplay to silence the damaged people and the families of the martyrs by giving them compensations or the like.

"Libya has the right to put a decisive end to the growing threat of the coup plotters who are messing with the safety and security of the country." The Islamic Research and Studies Council concluded.

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Islamic Research and Studies Council: Time to protect Libya against inhumane atrocities committed by Dignity Operation - The Libya Observer

TUNIS Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) has been coordinating with military forces from eastern Libya and has "no reason to believe" it will not regain control of the Es Sider and Ras Lanuf oil ports, NOC's chairman said.

The loss and recapture of the ports this month by the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) had raised doubts over its willingness to let the Tripoli-based NOC manage the ports.

Revenue from the sites is controlled by a central bank and U.N.-backed government in the capital which pro-LNA factions oppose.

Eastern officials accuse rivals in Tripoli and the western city of Misrata of supporting a March 3 attack on the ports by a faction known as the Benghazi Defense Brigades (BDB).

An oil guard commander appointed by the U.N.-backed government was deployed to secure them.

After they were retaken, the head of a Benghazi NOC office appointed by Libya's eastern government said he was pulling out of an NOC unification deal signed in July and an LNA spokesman said there would be no immediate decision on a handover.

But in written responses provided to Reuters, Mustafa Sanalla, the Tripoli-based NOC chairman, said his staff had already been working with the LNA.

"We have been coordinating our assessment of the facilities with them," Sanalla said, in his first public comments since the ports were retaken.

"We have no reason to believe control of the ports will not be handed back to NOC."

Es Sider and Ras Lanuf have a combined potential capacity of 600,000 barrels per day (bpd).

Operations there and at two other ports southwest of Benghazi are crucial to the NOC's efforts to revive Libya's output, which has been crippled by years of conflict and political chaos.

The LNA took over the ports in September, ending a two-year blockade at three of them and quickly inviting the NOC to resume exports.

Es Sider and Ras Lanuf were badly damaged in previous rounds of fighting and have been operating well below normal levels. The latest clashes, which included ground battles and more than a week of LNA air strikes, had dented the LNA's claim it could defend the ports and led to fears that facilities would suffer further damage.

But Waha Oil Company resumed pumping to Es Sider on Saturday and Sanalla said the NOC had decided to restart operations at the ports based on technical assessments and a review by military engineers.

"For the most part, the facilities are not damaged. In one or two locations, some work needs to be done by the military engineers. Our workers are returning to their terminals gradually."

Reuters journalists observed little apparent additional damage to the ports during a visit on Thursday.

An engineer at the Waha oil field said on Sunday it was pumping 25,000 bpd to Es Sider as it restarted production, which stood at 75,000 bpd before the clashes.

Sanalla said the NOC was hoping to raise overall production to 800,000 bpd by the end of April from 611,000 bpd currently.

Libya along with Nigeria has been exempted from production cuts recently agreed by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

However, any gains in Libya remain fragile as long as the political turmoil that has fractured the country since its 2011 uprising continues.

Oil accounts for nearly all of Libya's income and pipelines and ports have been repeatedly blockaded by local groups seeking political and financial gain.

Eastern authorities have attempted to sell oil independently, but have been blocked by international sanctions which remain in place.

Oil facilities are protected by the Petroleum Facilities Guard (PFG) but PFG units often operate independently or for a particular political faction.

Sanalla said a neutral PFG should have a role, "but under the authority and real management of NOC".

"Putting the PFG under the NOC would, we think, go a long way to removing Libya's oil assets as an object of military competition," he said.

"Unless oil assets are taken off the table as an object of conflict, unless the oil industry is ring-fenced from our political conflict, then the possibility of more fighting remains."

(Additional reporting by Ayman al-Warfalli in Benghazi; editing by Jason Neely)

BEIJING China should not be singled out in a fight against excess steel capacity that requires stronger global cooperation, Wang Shouwen, a vice commerce minister, said on Saturday.

LONDON/NEW YORK Oil prices were largely steady on Friday, and looked set to finish the week with modest gains after losing almost 10 percent last week on concerns that an OPEC production cut was failing to reduce a global supply overhang.

MUMBAI India's Adani Enterprises said it would finalize an investment decision by June for its Carmichael coal project in Australia, which has been delayed due to protests from environmental groups.

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Exclusive: Libya's NOC says expects to regain Es Sider, Ras Lanuf oil ports - Reuters

africanews

UN calls for a unified Libyan army before lifting arms embargo africanews U.N. special envoy to Libya ,Martin Kobler, told a news conference during an Arab league meeting on Libya's crisis, in Cairo on Saturday, that the international body calls for a unified army with a clear chain of command represented by the UN-backed ...

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UN calls for a unified Libyan army before lifting arms embargo - africanews

Summary

Reuters is reporting that Russia, according to anonymous Egyptian and US sources, deployed military advisers and drones to an Egyptian air base near the border with Libya. There was no official confirmation of the reports. Russia, for its part, has denied it, but doubts remain. For the past few months, Russias official stance has been to establish ever closer relations to General Khalifa Haftar, who has played a leading role in fighting ISIS and other Islamists in Libyas eastern region of Cyrenaica. The general has even secured French and British support. However, Haftars rising influence represents a challenge to the UN-recognized government led by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj in Tripoli.

Whether there are actually Russian troops at the Libyan border or not, Russia has long had interests in Libya. Their bilateral relationship has been centered on security and military sales; it began decades ago, involving the supply of Soviet-era weaponry to the North African country, from MiG jets to tanks. In the 1970s and 80s, Libyan officers received training from Russian instructors. That Moscow would seek to revive this relationship now should come as a surprise to no one.

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Libya: The Next Piece in Russia's Geopolitical Chess Match - Geopoliticalmonitor.com