Production resumes at key Libya oil fields days after protests - Arab News
Production resumes at key Libya oil fields days after protests | Arab News
TRIPOLI: Oil production has resumed at two major Libyan oil fields, the oil ministry said Sunday, after a brief shutdown by demonstrators protesting the arrest of a former minister. “Operations have resumed in the Al-Sharara and Al-Fil oil fields... after they were suspended” Thursday, said the ministry, part of the UN-brokered Government of National Unity based in Tripoli. The ministry made no mention of the cause of closure in its brief Facebook statement. Former finance minister Faraj Abderrahmane Boumtari was among a number of people targeted in what the United Nations has described as a campaign of “continued abductions, arbitrary arrests, and disappearances.” He was arrested and taken to an unknown location on Wednesday upon his arrival at Mitiga international airport in Tripoli by internal security agents. Members of his Zouaya tribe on Thursday threatened to block oil terminals in the east if he was not released. Boumtari was released Saturday upon an order from the prosecutor general, local media reported. Libya sits on Africa’s largest oil reserves but production has been frequently disrupted during over a decade of chaos since a NATO-backed uprising led to the ouster and killing of former dictator Muammar Qaddafi in 2011. Both Al-Sharara, which provides a quarter of Libya’s daily oil output, and Al-Fil have seen frequent interruptions amid clashes between groups loyal to the Tripoli-based GNU and those backed by a rival government in the east.
Sudan violence rages as paramilitaries deny Darfur war crimes
The war between army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, has killed around 3,000 people, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project, but the actual death toll is much higher
Updated 4 sec ago
AFP
WAD MADANI, Sudan: Air strikes pummelled Khartoum on Sunday and fighting raged in Sudan’s western Darfur region, witnesses said, as a three-month war between the army and rival paramilitaries showed no signs of abating. In the capital’s east and northwest, army fighter jets “targeted bases” belonging to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) who “responded with anti-aircraft weapons,” witnesses told AFP. A local neighborhood group said at least five people were killed and 17 others injured in a blast in Ombada, in Khartoum’s northwest, but the toll was likely to increase as “more casualties are pulled from the rubble.” RSF drones targeted Khartoum’s largest military hospital, according to witnesses. A similar attack Saturday on the same facility left five dead and 22 injured, the army said. The war between army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, has killed around 3,000 people, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project, but the actual death toll is believed to be much higher. A further three million people have been displaced internally or fled across borders, according to the International Organization for Migration. Diplomatic efforts to end the violence continue but have failed to bear fruit, and numerous cease-fires have been broken. As the war entered its fourth month on Saturday, a government source told AFP an army delegation had returned to the Saudi city of Jeddah to resume truce talks. The Saudi- and US-brokered talks were adjourned last month after a several truces were systematically violated. There was no comment from either the RSF or the mediators on the reported resumption of the negotiations in Jeddah.
In Darfur, a vast region which has seen some of the worst of the fighting, witnesses on Sunday reported “heavy clashes using various types of weapons” in the town of Kas. Residents of Kas, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) northwest of the South Darfur state capital of Nyala, said houses were broken into and looted by RSF fighters. The paramilitaries in a statement hailed their “major victory” in the town. They also said on Sunday they “welcome” the decision of a police force in East Darfur to “integrate with the RSF,” after heads of local tribes in South Darfur also pledged allegiance to the paramilitaries. A statement by the interior ministry said the police remains “the armed forces’ strongest supporter” in Khartoum, and also praised its “efforts” in the rest of the country. Darfur, home to around a quarter of Sudan’s 48 million people, has seen entire towns razed to the ground, with reports of mass civilian deaths and ethnically charged assassinations blamed on the RSF and allied Arab militias. On Saturday, the RSF said it “categorically refutes” a recent report by Human Rights Watch that detailed the summary execution of “at least 28 ethnic Massalit” — a non-Arab minority group — and the “total destruction of the town of Misterei” in West Darfur state. The RSF blamed the violence on “longstanding tribal conflict” and said it “strictly adheres” to “international humanitarian law.” The paramilitary force stemmed from the Janjaweed militia, which was armed and unleashed against ethnic minority rebels in Darfur in the early 2000s. That conflict killed more than 300,000 people and displaced 2.5 million, the UN estimates. Atrocities committed at the time led the International Criminal Court to charge former dictator Omar Al-Bashir with offenses including genocide. The court’s chief prosecutor has launched a new investigation into suspected war crimes in the current fighting, including sexual violence and civilians being targeted for their ethnicity.
Journalists, rights activists warn of threat to public freedoms amid move to stiffen financial penalties
Updated 18 min 59 sec ago
Raed Omari
AMMAN: With Jordanian lawmakers scheduled to weigh up changes to the cybercrimes law, journalists and rights activists have warned of a major setback in public freedoms if parliament passes the controversial bill referred from the government.
The government recently referred the 2023 amendments to the law to the lower house of parliament with an “urgency status” note.
The law is on the agenda of the parliament’s current extraordinary session.
Financial penalties stipulated in the law have been stiffened in the amendments with the aim of curbing “rising “criminal acts online, the government said.
In recent remarks to the government-owned Al-Mamlakah TV, Faisal Shboul, minister of government communications, said that the new amendments are a response to rising online crimes.
He added that 16,000 complaints about Internet crimes had been filed in 2022 and another 8,000 during the first six months of 2023.
According to latest statistics on online offenses from the Judicial Council, 22,759 e-crimes were recorded between 2019 and 2023.
Recent figures from the cybercrime unit of the Public Security Department said that the number of cybercrime cases increased almost six-fold over the eight years between 2015 and 2022, “an indication that many use social media platforms without knowing the difference between the freedom of expression and committing offenses, unintentionally or not.”
The unit said it handled 2,305 cases in 2015, which grew to 16,027 in 2022, Jordan’s Petra News Agency reported.
Shboul said that the new amendments to the law address fake accounts on social media platforms and aim at enhancing privacy of online users and curbing misinformation and disinformation pertaining to national security and economy.
Concerning article 11 of the law, which stipulates prison term for publishing, republishing or sharing “hate speech” content, Shboul said that the imprisonment penalty is a “protective and preventive” measure.
On concerns raised over the law’s consequences on curbing press freedoms, the minister, also a long-time journalist, said that Jordanian journalists are protected by press and publication law and other laws.
Under the cybercrimes law, hate speech is defined as “every writing and every speech or action intended to provoke sectarian or racial sedition, advocate violence or foster conflict between followers of different religions and various components of the nation.”
The law stipulates a penalty not exceeding two years’ imprisonment for “hate speech” crimes.
Yahya Shuqair, an expert on media law, said that the new amendments to the cybercrimes law had stiffened penalties for online offenses, including fines and prison terms.
He said that the fine imposed on publishing “fake news” was being increased from JD20,000 ($28,000) to JD40, 000, while the prison term for “defamation crimes” was being raised from three months to three years.
Shuqair said that the 2023 cybercrimes law allows no room for judicial discretion and is alien to the legal principle that a penalty shall be “proportionate.”
“A judge can no longer decide between a fine or prison term for online offenders but both,” he said.
Shuqair expressed hope that MPs revisit the government’s amendments and open dialogue with experts, journalists, rights activists before passing the bill.
“But if the law is passed as referred from the government, it would signal another setback in the status of public freedoms in Jordan,” he said.
Journalist and rights activists Khaled Qudah said that a concize cybercrime law is needed to address rising online offenses, such as phishing, defamation, fraud, scam or blackmail.
However, Qudah said that the line between freedom of expression and cybersecurity is not made clear in the new law, which deals with the two different concepts as if one.
“The fear is the ‘grey zone’ between the definitions of the two concepts which might be interpreted by as being one in nature and degree,” he said.
“What can be interpreted as hate crime can be seen as defamation and this is the dilemma.”
Frankly Speaking: What will it take for Houthis to assist in demining Yemen? Saudi-Iran deal has ‘had no impact’ on Houthi behavior ‘at least when it comes to landmines,’ Masam MD says Program has cleared over 400,000 items, including anti-personnel and anti-tank mines, of which 7,800 were improvised devices Al-Gosaibi says UN funding of opaque Sanaa-led demining work is ‘a waste of time and money’
Updated 24 min 31 sec ago
RIYADH: The normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran has so far failed to improve the behavior of the Houthi militia in relation to its use of landmines in Yemen, Ousama Al-Gosaibi, managing director of Masam, the Saudi Project for Landmine Clearance, has said.
He says he is optimistic about the Saudi-Iran deal, but as of yet there has been little impact of the agreement on landmine clearance in Yemen.
“I appreciate that Iran and Saudi Arabia have reached that accord. I think in the long run it should help the whole area and should reshape some of the relationships that exist in this area,” Al-Gosaibi told Katie Jensen in the latest episode of the Arab News “Frankly Speaking” show.
“How is that impacting mine action in Yemen? I don’t think we have seen any improvement on the issue of landmines in Yemen yet.”
Eight years have passed since the Iran-backed Houthis overthrew the internationally recognized government in Yemen, causing a war that has killed hundreds of thousands and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. The country is littered with landmines as a result of the conflict.
Ousama Al-Gosaibi, managing director of Masam, the Saudi Project for Landmine Clearance, speaks to Katie Jensen in the latest episode of the Arab News “Frankly Speaking” show. (AN photo)
Often referred to as the perfect soldiers — never needing to eat, sleep, or ever leave their post — landmines can remain in the earth for years even after the end of hostilities, posing a lasting threat to civilians, particularly children, unless they are painstakingly cleared.
When Saudi Arabia and Iran signed their historic normalization deal, brokered by China, on March 10 this year, there were hopes that the Houthis, long armed and funded by Tehran, would cooperate with demining efforts.
But despite the Houthis being a signatory of the Stockholm Agreement, which requires them to hand over details of what explosives have been planted and detailed maps outlining where they are located, progress has failed to materialize.
“That has not happened to date,” said Al-Gosaibi. “So as far as our work is concerned, I have not seen any improvements.”
For Masam, the battle against landmines has been an uphill one. The movement of the front line over the course of the conflict has meant that areas once liberated by the Yemeni government and cleared by Al-Gosaibi’s teams have since been retaken and re-mined by Houthi forces.
Land-mine clearing experts at work in Yemen's battlefields. (Twitter: @Masam_ENG)
“We have cleared over 400,000 items. That includes mines, both anti-personnel and anti-tank. That includes a huge number of UXOs, unexploded ordnance, and an even huger number of improvised explosive devices,” he said.
“When you talk about the Masam project, (we) have cleared to date over 7,800 improvised devices such as rock mines in Yemen. This number did not exist anywhere else in the world. This number is mind-boggling. This has never ever happened anywhere else in the world.”
According to some estimates, Yemen is awash with more landmines than were used during the Second World War. Asked how many landmines have been planted in Yemen, Al-Gosaibi could offer only a ballpark figure, such is the paucity of data provided by the Houthis.
“I would say anywhere between 1 and 2 million mines. These are newly laid mines. I’m not taking into account mines that existed in Yemen prior to the Houthi problem.”
Yesterday, Masam carried out the bulk demolition of 1,878 #landmines, unexploded ordnance and improvised explosive devices #IEDs in Bab al-Mandab in #Yemen's south coast. The items were cleared in the past week by teams in Taiz and the West Coast in #schools, farms and roads. pic.twitter.com/aI3TWsYBaJ
The Ottawa Treaty of 1997, often referred to as the Mine Ban Treaty, relates to anti-personnel mines, but does not refer to anti-tank mines. Al-Gosaibi says the Houthis have taken advantage of this grey area to create improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, using anti-tank mines.
“Instead of having an anti-tank (mine) that would explode at a weight of about over 120 or over 150 kilograms, they reduced it to less than 10 kilograms. That, if a child walks over those pressure plates, you won’t find anything left of him. So, you can imagine what would happen to a human if an anti-tank mine explodes next to him.
“But the problem is, to date, these improvised mines, the improvised IEDs, are not within the international community terminology. They have not found a terminology, but they have not come up with any rules or regulations that talk about them.”
Al-Gosaibi estimates that the number of people maimed and killed by landmines in Yemen over the course of the conflict is in the thousands. As there are several mine action groups working in different parts of Yemen, there is no single database on victims.
“There’s a stigma that’s always associated with mine accidents in Yemen,” said Al-Gosaibi. “You have women who’ve got divorced because they’ve lost a limb. A man who’s lost the ability to support a family of seven or eight because of a mine accident.
“The UN announced last week that more than half of the accidents that happened to children in Yemen are directly related to mines. That’s a huge number. Mines affect the education system, the medical system, water supplies, farmland, (grazing) land.”
And civilians are not the only ones in danger. Several members of Al-Gosaibi’s staff have been wounded or even killed while clearing landmines and explosive remnants.
“As far as Masam (is concerned), we have lost 30 of our comrades in Yemen, 47 injured, 30 fatalities. Some of them are extremely close friends that I’ve worked with for the past 18 years. So yes, we paid a high price in Yemen.”
Despite the international community’s efforts to ban the use of landmines, they remain in wide use in conflicts across the world owing to their powerful psychological impact and low cost to produce.
“To plant a mine is cheap. You’re talking tens of dollars,” said Al-Gosaibi. “(The) UN estimates that in clearing mines, each mine could cost anywhere between $500 to $1,000 to clear.
“So, there is no comparison between the cost of actually planting it and clearing it. The Houthis today are using locally manufactured mines. They are not importing mines. They have (received) assistance in creating their own factories.”
The UN has attempted to take a balanced approach to funding landmine clearance operations, not only in areas controlled by the internationally recognized government in Aden, but also within the Houthi administration in Sanaa.
Al-Gosaibi believes this approach is a waste of time and money, because the mine action work in Houthi-controlled areas lacks transparency and accountability.
“I don’t believe in holding the stick from the middle,” he said. “I don’t see the benefit of supporting a Sanaa-based mine action program when we know that the Houthis are behind planting, manufacturing all those mines and IEDs in Yemen.
“The UN has this policy that: ‘We need to hold the stick from the middle. We need to support Sanaa. We need to support Aden and Marib.’ I think it’s a waste of time and money.
“If you want to assist Yemenis, I don’t care who they are, who they belong to, north, south, Houthi, non-Houthi. I’m talking about if you want to assist the local population, there are proper ways of doing it.
“You can supervise proper mine action, demining teams under the Houthi-controlled areas, under your supervision. Like we are doing in our areas. We have a very close working relationship with the Yemeni Mine Action program. And it’s working.
Land-mine clearing is a tedious and dangerous job and and a never-ending one in Yemen's battlefields. (Twitter: @Masam_ENG)
“You should (see) over there. You know, that’s if you actually want to clear mines, not only pay and talk about (and say): ‘Oh, we have funded this and we’ve funded that.’
“Where’s the money going? I have not seen (where). Masam is the only project or entity in Yemen that announces their figures every Sunday morning. And those figures have been reviewed, rectified, notarized, you name it, whatever, by the Yemen Mine Action Center, by our own operational team before they are published every Sunday morning.”
Until the supply of components to the Houthis is halted, Al-Gosaibi believes landmines will only continue to proliferate in Yemen. That means Iran and its proxies in the region must cease arms trafficking.
“We know the chain is coming, financed by Iran, even though they’re coming from some other countries,” said Al-Gosaibi.
“Drones in Yemen had German-made engines in them. Who’s going to get German-made engines smuggled into Yemen? It cannot be a small organization. It has to be a proper government who has a lot of hands around the areas who can get that smuggled into Yemen.”
Masam landmine workers preparing to explode landmines cleared from a battlefield in Yemen. (Twitter: @Masam_ENG))
Six years since the Saudi Project for Landmine Clearance began work in Yemen, and despite remarkable progress, Al-Gosaibi feels there are still many years of work ahead before his team can declare “mission accomplished.”
He said: “I can only say that if there’s an absolute proper truce in Yemen and all the fronts are open and we are working there, then you could give an estimate (on how long). No one knows what’s on those fronts at the moment since we are not working on an active front.”
He hopes the Houthis will provide detailed maps of their minefields to assist with clearance efforts, as failing to do so would only prolong the threat posed to Yemeni civilians and mine clearers.
“It will just delay the problem, increase the number of victims, increase the number of mine action personnel (harmed) over the years to come.
“(Even) if you have proper funding, proper number of teams and proper information ... I would give it another 10 years.”
GCC, Japan agree to resume talks on free-trade agreement
GCC Secretary-General lauded Japan for its significant regional and international roles
Updated 25 min 20 sec ago
Arab News
RIYADH: The Gulf Cooperation Council and Japan signed on Sunday an agreement to resume negotiations on a free-trade deal between both sides. The signing took place on the sidelines of a meeting between GCC Secretary-General Jassem Mohamed Albudaiwi and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio in Jeddah, Kuwait News Agency reported. The two officials discussed relations between the GCC and Japan, and ways to enhance them in line with their common interests. Albudaiwi lauded Japan for its significant regional and international roles, as well as its support for GCC member states on a variety of issues.
Libya border guards rescue migrants in desert near Tunisia
The group were in an uninhabited area close to Al-Assah, a town near the Tunisia-Libya border, nearly 150 kilometers (93 miles) west of Tripoli
Updated 16 July 2023
AFP
AL-ASSAH, Libya: Libyan border guards have rescued dozens of migrants who have been left in the desert by Tunisian authorities without water and food, and their numbers are “rising,” an officer said Sunday. Hundreds of migrants from sub-Saharan African countries were forcibly taken to desert and hostile areas bordering Libya and Algeria after racial unrest in early July in Sfax, Tunisia’s second-largest city. An AFP team at the Libyan-Tunisian border saw migrants who were visibly exhausted and dehydrated, sitting or lying on the sand and using shrubs to try and shield themselves from the scorching summer heat that topped 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).
Migrants from sub-Saharan African countries who claim to have been abandoned in the desert by Tunisian authorities without water or shelter, sit in an uninhabited area near Libya's border town of Al-Assah on July 16, 2023. (AFP)
The group were in an uninhabited area close to Al-Assah, a town near the Tunisia-Libya border, nearly 150 kilometers (93 miles) west of Tripoli. “The number of migrants keep rising every day,” said Mohamad Abou Snenah of the border patrol unit, telling AFP they have rescued “50 to 70 migrants.” “We offer them medical attention, first aid, considering the journey they have made through the desert.” At a reception center, AFP correspondents saw a group of women and children, including toddlers, lying on mattresses and eating yogurt. Ivorian migrant Abou Kouni, who arrived in Tunisia seven years ago, said he was apprehended on the street last week and put on a truck along with his wife. He told AFP he was “hit” in the torso and back and that policemen had threatened to kill him. Tunisia police, according to Abou Kouni, “said they are going to throw us in Libya” and told him: “We don’t need you in Tunisia.”
In a video posted online, one officer can be heard saying: “Do you see them? It’s sad. They are being expelled from Tunisia to Libya.” The video also shows a migrant rescued from the border area on Saturday, saying that “Tunisian police deported us to Libya.” Ibrahim, a Congolese migrant who used to live in the Tunisian city of Zarzis, told AFP he was stopped on the street on his way back from work. “They dropped us in the desert,” he said. “We’ve been in the desert for many days. We saw a shepherd who gave us bread and water.” Hundreds of migrants fled or were forced out of Tunisia’s Sfax after racial tensions flared following the July 3 killing of a Tunisian man in an altercation between locals and migrants. The port of Sfax is a departure point for many migrants from impoverished and violence-torn countries seeking a better life in Europe by making a perilous Mediterranean crossing, often in makeshift boats. In Libya, human traffickers have long profited from the chaos since the 2011 overthrow of strongman Muammar Qaddafi, and the country has faced accusations over migrant abuse. Tunisian rights groups said on Friday that between 100 and 150 migrants, including women and children, were still stuck on the border with Libya. The Tunisian Red Crescent said it has provided shelter to more than 600 migrants who had been taken after July 3 to the militarised zone of Ras Jedir north of Al-Assah on the Mediterranean coast. In Tunisia’s west, near the Algerian border, about 165 migrants abandoned near the border with Algeria had been picked up, the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES) said on Friday, without specifying by whom or where they were taken.