Tens of thousands of people flocked to Tripoli’s Martyrs’ Square on Friday (the 3rd week in a row) to protest warlord Khalifa Haftar’s war on the capital and show utter rejection to the military dictatorship.
Minister of Economy, Ali Al-Issawi said Government of National Accord (GNA) plans to collect 30 billion dinars by the end of 2019 from the fees levied on the purchasing of hard currency, which amount to 183%.
Al-Issawi told Reuters that around 17 billion dinars have been collected since September 2018 and that the issuance of the letters of credit is processing smoothly without any delay, pointing out that the extra fees charged on currency trading helped the government to avoid a deficit in the 2019 budget.
Spokesman of the former Gaddafi regime during the uprise in 2011, Moussa Ibrahim said it was time for the Dignity Operation to break up with 17 February Revolution and join hands with "September" for the sake of Libya, as he put it.
Ibrahim called via his Facebook page all supporters of the so-called Dignity Operation in the eastern cities of Libya to establish a movement that combines all those who are in support of this process.
Khalifa Haftar has funded his "eastern state" with a mix of unofficial bonds, Russia-printed cash and deposits from eastern banks, building up a debt worth around 35 billion Libyan dinars ($25.18 billion) outside the official banking system in Libya, Reuters said in a report on Thursday.
Reuters added that according to diplomats and banking sources, Haftar's sources of support could be closing, as the Tripoli-based Central Bank of Libya (CBL) has taken steps to curtail the operations of banks in the east.
The Libyan Interior Ministry of the Presidential Council's government said Thursday its central investigation apparatus had arrested an ISIS senior leader by the name Yaser Saleh Al-Majiri, A.K.A. Abu Dujana.
The Tunisian Foreign Minister Khemaies Jhinaoui called on his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian to push the five permanent countries at the UN Security Council to have a unified stance toward the ongoing fighting in Libya.
Speaking on the phone with Jhinaoui on Wednesday, Le Drian said his country insists on realizing the agreement reached in Abu Dhabi between Khalifa Haftar and the Head of the Presidential Council Fayez Al-Sarraj in last February.
