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Bashaga discusses the issue of illegal immigration

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The Minister for Interior, Fathi Bashaga, along with other officials, met with an Italian delegation on Wednesday in order to discuss the issue of illegal immigration.

Bashaga highlighted the need to pay proper attention to the illegal immigration, as it is one of the more important issues facing the Libyan state, particularly in light of the present crisis the country is going through.

He also referred to the previous agreements reached between Libya and Italy regarding combating and minimizing illegal immigration, as it is a problematic issue which threatens the national security of all countries affected by it.

For his part, the head of the Illegal Immigration Agency, Mabrouk Abdel Hafeez, explained that the holding centers for immigrants need financial and logistical support, adding that these holding facilities should not be situated within the confines of residential areas.

WHO: Covid-19 may never go away

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The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 could become endemic like HIV, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, warning against any attempt to predict how long it would keep circulating and calling for a “massive effort” to counter it.

“It is important to put this on the table: this virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities, and this virus may never go away,” WHO emergencies expert Mike Ryan told an online briefing.

“I think it is important we are realistic and I don’t think anyone can predict when this disease will disappear,” he added. “I think there are no promises in this and there are no dates. This disease may settle into a long problem, or it may not be.”

However, he said the world had some control over how it coped with the disease, although this would take a “massive effort” even if a vaccine was found — a prospect he described as a “massive moonshot”.

More than 100 potential vaccines are being developed, including several in clinical trials, but experts have underscored the difficulties of finding vaccines that are effective against coronaviruses.

Ryan noted that vaccines exist for other illnesses, such as measles, that have not been eliminated.

As a result of political unrest, Libya struggling with maintaining its oil at full capacity

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Libya saw LYD 1.98 billion in oil export revenues year-to-date through April, an amount equivalent to roughly USD 1.4 billion.

Libya’s National Oil Company (NOC) recently said that a blockade of oil-producing areas as a result of fighting since January has trimmed daily oil output down to between 92,000 and 72,000 barrels per day, from a prior 1.2 million bpd.

NOC has called out to all parties in conflict to end the blockade on its facilities, enabling oil and gas production to resume, and thereby helping the economy move forward and ensuring the availability of supplies.

The Central Bank of Libya said that out of total oil revenue year-to-date through April, only LYD 72 million (USD 50 million) concern the month of April.

Shut down oil facilities and seaports caused oil exports to drop by over 90% in the first three months of the year, recent NOC numbers show.

Parallel CBL Reveals Oil Revenue Gap

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The Central Bank of Libya Headquarters in al-Bayda issued a statement concerning revenues and expenditures, including the gap between oil revenues for the first quarter of 2019, 2020.

The Bank stated that its oil revenues for January 2019 were more than US$ 1.602 bn. However, in January 2020, oil revenues were up to US$ 1.768 bn.

 Oil revenues for February 2019 were US$ 1.264 bn, while oil revenues for February 2020 crashed to just LD 555 million.

Central Bank of Libya Headquarters in al-Bayda said that shutting down oil facilities since January 17 caused oil revenues to drop to more than US$ 982 bn.

The difference between oil revenues for March 2019 and March 2020 has witnessed a huge gap estimated at more than $440 million.

In March 2019, oil revenues recorded more than US$ 1.533 bn, while in March 2020 it decreased to more than US$ 1.93 bn.

The Central Bank of Libya Headquarters in al-Bayda stressed that 2019 and 2020 total losses in the same months were more than US$982 million.

Low oil prices, political instability and pandemic affecting the Libyan economy

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Cereal crop production in 2020 is forecast at 209 000 tonnes, about 5 percent less than in the previous year, but about 12 percent below the average.

Libya relies heavily on imports (up to 90 percent) to cover its cereal consumption requirements, mostly wheat and barley, therefore, changes in the domestic cereal production have very little impact on the import requirement. In the 2019/20 marketing year (July/June), the actual import requirement is projected at 3.2 million tonnes, about the same as in the previous year.

Low oil prices, political instability and pandemic affecting the Libyan economy.

The GDP growth in the country is dependent on changes in oil and gas output. In 2020, the GDP is forecast to contract by 12 percent, driven by low global oil prices and internal fights over oil between governing parties. In the first three months of 2020, the country produced about 120 000 barrels of oil per day, down from 1.06 million barrels of oil per day in the first eight months of 2020.

Most Libyans are employed in the public sector where salaries have not been paid for months. Government workers in eastern part of the country received their 2020 wages for the first time at the end of March 2020.

According to the Libya Joint Market Monitoring Initiative, in the first week of April 2020, the cost of the Minimum Expenditure Basket (MEB) increased on average by almost 30 percent, driven mostly by increases in cooking fuel.

The largest price increases were reported in the south where Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) cylinders are available only on the parallel market. Some markets reported shortages of food supplies, such as eggs, vegetables and wheat products.

The median price for wheat flour increased by 50 percent. The Ministry of Economy has indicated that the country has sufficient stocks of wheat flour for three months.

The increases were due to stockpiling of food due to COVID‑19, depreciation of Libyan Dinar on the parallel exchange rate between December 2019 and April 2020, and the decision of the Central Bank of Libya to halt foreign currency transactions in March 2020, thus limiting the flow of goods to the country. Officially USD 1 sells for LYD 1 412, while on the parallel market USD 1 sells for LYD 4 950.

Oil prices remain low with virus-related low demand

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Crude oil prices remained low on Wednesday despite Saudi Arabia’s plan to make deeper cuts against low global oil demand caused by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).

International benchmark Brent crude was trading at $29.59 per barrel at 06:39 GMT for a 1.3% decline after closing Tuesday at $29.98 a barrel.

American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was at $25.69 a barrel at the same time for a 0.35% loss after ending the previous day at $25.78 per barrel.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude exporter, announced Tuesday that it will cut its oil production by an additional 1 million barrels per day (bpd) to 7.5 million bpd starting in June, from the 8.5 million bpd previously agreed as part of the OPEC+ deal in April.

Under the deal, a total of 23 oil-producing nations have begun lowering their collective output by 9.7 million bpd from May 1 to June 30.

However, crude prices continue to remain low, as air and land transportation around the world have come almost to a complete halt while global oil demand remains weak.

Global oil consumption is expected to increase, and to raise crude prices higher, once countries in Asia, Europe and North America soften quarantine measures against COVID-19 over the following months.

Global tally of coronavirus recoveries surpasses 1.5M

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The global coronavirus recoveries exceeded the 1.5 million mark on Wednesday, according to a running tally by the US-based Johns Hopkins University.

The university’s data showed a total of 1,502,620 people won their battle against the pandemic. The number of cases reached 4,278,180 while 292,316 deaths were recorded.

The US has the highest number of recoveries with 230,287, followed by Germany with 148,700 and Spain with 138,980.

But the US continues to be the worst-hit country, with the highest numbers of infections and deaths — over 1.37 million cases and over 82,389 fatalities.

While the UK has the second highest death toll with 32,769, Russia is the second country recording the highest cases with 242,271.

China, where the virus emerged in December, has registered over 84,018 cases with a death toll of 4,637. Those figures continue to raise questions in and outside China.

Overall, the virus has spread to 187 countries since it first emerged in China in December.

Despite the rising number of cases, most who contract the virus suffer mild symptoms before making a recovery.

More than 300 lawmakers urge IMF, World Bank to cancel poor countries’ debt

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Over 300 lawmakers from around the world on Wednesday urged the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to cancel the debt of the poorest countries in response to the coronavirus pandemic, and to boost funding to avert a global economic meltdown.

The initiative, led by former U.S. presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Ilham Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, comes amid growing concern that developing countries and emerging economies will be devastated by the pandemic.

It will be reminded that the virus has infected more than 4.2 million people globally and killed 287,349.

Widespread shutdowns aimed at containing the virus are taking a huge toll on the global economy, and especially poor countries with weak health systems, high debt levels and few resources to manage the dual health and economic crises.

Coronavirus hits economic data hard, growth forecast cuts “very likely”

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International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Tuesday that it was “very likely” that the Fund will cut global growth forecasts further as the coronavirus is hitting many economies harder than previously projected.

“Incoming data from many countries is worse than our already pessimistic projections,” Georgieva said during a webcast conference sponsored by the Financial Times.

“Very likely we are going to come up with the update to our projections sometime in June, and at that point (…) our expectation is that there would be a bit more bad news in terms of how we see 2020.”

‘Irini’ to prevent illegal arms flow into Libya

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The spokesman for EU diplomatic chief Josep Borrell, Peter Stano said that the main task of the EU’s IRINI operation is to prevent illegal arms flow into the country.

He said the EU enforcing the UN arms embargo helps create conditions for a cease-fire and a political solution in Libya.

The Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) said that Operation Irini aims at banning arms flow to Libya, halting violence, and creating a climate adequate for negotiations to reach a political solution for the crisis.

It also stressed that the ships won’t be present at the Libyan territorial waters, but in the international waters facing the Libyan shore.