Libya

By Maja Zivanovic and Jean Fernand Koena ( RFE/RL ) – Russia is reducing its military footprint in Syria and shifting some of its assets from the Middle Eastern country to Africa, flight data and satellite imagery analyzed by RFE/RL appear to show. Moscow seems to have withdrawn a significant amount of military equipment from its […]

Algeria

The Middle East Ranks at the Bottom of Gallup’s Happiness Index, except for Rich Oil States; is the US to Blame?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The annual Gallup report on happiness by country came out this week. It is based on a three-year average of polling. What struck me in their report is how unhappy the Middle East is. The only Middle Eastern country in the top twenty is Kuwait (for the first time in […]

Climate Crisis

Libyan Dam Collapse and Flooding that Killed 20,000 was made 50 Times more likely by Climate Change

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The World Weather Attribution site, run by professional European climate scientists, estimated that “An event as extreme as the one observed over Libya has become up to 50 times more likely and up to 50% more intense compared to a 1.2C cooler climate.” They mean that in the eighteenth century, […]

Climate Crisis

Libya’s Climate Disaster Shows we Can’t afford Erratic leaders Like Trump and Haftar any More

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – For the past two weeks the Mediterranean has been reeling from the massive devastation wrought regionally by Hurricane Daniel, the “Medicane” that has visited more damage on this region than any storm in recorded history. In the east thirteen days ago, Daniel struck Greece, flooding the fertile valleys where a […]

Climate Crisis

Climate Crisis: UN Launches Flash Appeal to Aid 250,000 Libyans hit by Devastating Floods

UN News

( UN News ) – Disaster struck on Sunday when torrential rains from Storm Daniel led two dams close to the now devastated port city of Derna to burst, pushing entire neighbourhoods into the sea. “The situation is quite terrible as you can imagine”, UN Children’s Fund UNICEF’s Libya Representative, Michele Servadei, told UN News. […]

Climate Crisis

Climate Crisis: Flood Death Toll in Libya’s Derna may reach 20,000

Middle East Monitor

( Middle East Monitor ) – The death toll in Derna as a result of the catastrophic flooding in Libya may reach 20,000, the city’s mayor has said. Abdulmenam Al-Ghaithi based his estimate on the number of districts destroyed by the floodwater. The interior ministry of the government in eastern Libya said yesterday that the […]

Israel

Dismissal of “Scapegoat” Libyan Foreign Minister for Meeting with Israel shows Limits of US “Abraham Accords”

Gilbert Achcar

The United States pressured Libya to meet with Israel in order to prepare the way for recognizing it and joining the Abraham Accords. After the secret meeting of Libyan Foreign Minister Najla El-Mangoush in Rome with Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen last week, Cohen publicly announced the meeting. A firestorm of protest followed, as a […]

Featured

Putin’s Assassination of Prigozhin Decapitates Wagner’s Empire in Libya, Sudan, Syria and E. Europe, and Puts Oligarchs on Notice

Dan Dinello

Chicago (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Russia confirmed Tuesday that Yevgeny Prigozhin, ex-convict oligarch and leader of Russia’s Wagner mercenaries, died in a plane crash last week. Prigozhin had, in fact, been a dead man walking ever since he masterminded an aborted mutiny against Russia’s military leadership on June 23 of this year. His […]

Colonialism

Fascist Italy’s forgotten Concentration Camps in Libya

Middle East Monitor

Mustafa Fetouri MFetouri ( Middle East Monitor ) – On 30 August 2008, Italy and Libya signed their Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership, ending their awkward past of feuding and diplomatic tensions over Italy’s colonisation of Libya from 1911 to 1943. Libya was seeking compensation, recognition of suffering of its people and, above […]