crisis

Sanchez calls early vote after Parliament rejected housing relief measures proposed by his minority government.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has announced a snap general election after Parliament rejected housing relief measures proposed by his minority government.

Sanchez said on Monday the vote would take place on November 29. “We need to renew people’s support,” he said in a televised address.

“We need to mobilise and win a much larger progressive majority in Parliament, one that will allow us to overcome vested interests, deliver new social advances and continue transforming Spain.”

He also acknowledged having made mistakes and falling short of previous campaign promises.

“I also know that part of that social majority is dissatisfied today,” Sanchez said.

The government’s defeat in Parliament on Friday was the latest in a series of political setbacks for the centre-left leader, followed by mass protests across the country over the housing crisis.

The government said more than 70,000 people took part in a housing protest in the capital, Madrid, on Saturday.

Anger had been building since late last month, when an 87-year-old woman, Marai del Carmen Abascal, was evicted from her home of 70 years in Madrid after an international investment fund bought her building and increased the rent.

Far right gains ground

But facing the electorate is a risky move for Sanchez. Opinion polls suggest that a coalition led by the conservative People’s Party (PP), with support from the far-right Vox party, is the most likely outcome in the election.

If they win, it would be the first time since the death of dictator Francisco Franco that a far-right party has entered central government.

If Sanchez loses the election, it would also mark the end of one of Europe’s last left-leaning governments as the far right continues to gain ground across the continent.

Sanchez has stood out worldwide for his strong stance on progressive ideas, from defending the rights of Palestinian people to defending multilateral institutions and cracking down on tech oligarchs.

The prime minister, who has never won enough votes to form a majority government, has brought together a series of fragile and seemingly impossible coalitions, ranging from the far left to the separatist right, to remain in power for three successive terms, lasting eight years.

The election was due next year before Sanchez brought it forward.

Switzerland’s glaciers are rapidly receding due to a combination of winters with too little snow and record-high temperatures across Europe this summer, scientists say. In all, one of the world’s top ski destinations has lost nearly one-fifth of its glacial ice in just five years.

In a report (PDF) published by the Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network (GLAMOS) and the Swiss Commission for Cryosphere Observation of the Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT) on Thursday, researchers said Swiss glaciers lost 5.5 percent of their ice volume over the hydrologic year ending September 30, 2026, and nearly 20 percent since 2021.

Why is Switzerland, famed for its Alpine terrain and winter sports, losing its glaciers and what does this mean for the country?

Here’s what we know.

What have scientists discovered?

In September, a GLAMOS team visited 23 glaciers in Switzerland to record end-of-summer measurements of ice melt and snow accumulation.

Visiting one glacier named Scex Rouge in the Western Swiss Alps in early September, GLAMOS chief Matthias Huss, one of the report’s researchers, told the Reuters news agency that a measuring pole, about four metres (13 feet) high, was drilled into the ice in July to provide the team with a point of reference.

“Now when we have come back here, we saw the pole was out by three metres [10ft]. So just in August and September of this year, even excluding the heatwaves of June and July, we have lost three metres of ice at an elevation of almost 3,000 metres [9,843ft],” he explained.

“This clearly indicates these conditions that we had this summer, they are just inconsistent with the survival of these small glaciers in the Alps,” he added.

Why are glaciers in Switzerland losing ice?

According to the report, the total mean thickness of individual glaciers in Switzerland has fallen by between 2.5 and four metres in 2026. At glacier tongues – narrow glacial extensions of a glacier which project from land into a body of water – it had decreased by as much as 10 metres in some places over the summer.

“We can clearly attribute the massive ice loss to the warming, and thus anthropogenic [caused by humans] climate change. The summer has been the hottest on record in Switzerland. In addition, there was little snow in winter, and therefore the glaciers were poorly protected when the heat started,” GLAMOS chief Huss told Al Jazeera.

He noted that while their measurements have indicated that the melting has affected all glaciers in Switzerland equally, the effects were most visible on smaller glaciers.

“Those shrink very quickly and sometimes even completely disappeared. Also, large glaciers lost an enormous quantity of ice, but they remain impressive,” he added.

The report’s scientists warned that the glaciers also lost a total of about 2.2 trillion litres of water (581 billion gallons) between July and September alone.

“This is more than four times the annual drinking water consumption of all Swiss households,” the report’s researchers said and warned this could impact the country’s future water supply.

What does this mean for Switzerland?

Switzerland is a country known for winter sports and Alpine tourism, which depends on the glaciers. About 4 percent of the country’s entire workforce is employed in the tourism sector.

“This affects tourism and also how we perceive the mountains – they are no longer white but increasingly grey and black,” he told Al Jazeera.

He added that the water provided by glaciers is also important for the economy. “It is used to fill up hydropower lakes that produce clean energy, and supplies the biggest streams of Europe,” he said.

“We’re not yet seeing the full consequences as glaciers are still around and they contribute water when we need it. But this potential is soon being lost,” he added.

Harry Zekollari, a glaciologist and associate research professor at the Department of Water and Climate at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, shared a similar view.

He stressed that glaciers are important natural water suppliers, as they provide water when people need it most – in summer, when it is hot and dry.

“With climate change, glaciers initially provide more water during summer as they rapidly melt. However, as glaciers become smaller, there is less ice to be melted, and as such the water supply in summer decreases. This peak in water supply has now been passed for glaciers in the European Alps, meaning that we expect glaciers to provide less and less water in the coming years,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Glacier changes can also cause natural hazards, and since most of the ice lost turns into water that reaches the oceans, the consequences of glacier loss [in Switzerland and elsewhere] will be felt for coastlines all around the globe,” he added.

Is there a solution?

Yes. According to Zekollari, in order to save as much glacier ice as possible in Switzerland, the world needs to stabilise rising temperatures as soon as possible.

“Projections for the European Alps and Swiss glaciers show that if we are able to rapidly stop emissions, we may still be able to save about one-third of their ice mass. However, in a case with strong warming, these glaciers are projected to lose more than 90 percent of their volume by 2100,” he said.

He noted that the situation is less grim globally as some glaciers in other regions are more persistent.

“However, even globally, future emissions play a big role and will decide whether we lose about 25 percent of glacier mass by 2100 – that’s the good case, with limited warming – or rather 50 percent – the bad case, with more warming,” he said.

“The losses in the longer term – past 2100 – are even larger due to the long response of glaciers, but also here it is the future warming that decides how much remains. Every 0.1 degree Celsius warming matters.”

Ukraine’s F-16 fleet is facing growing pressure from the demands of the air war, with a shortage of air-to-air missiles now compounded by what appears to be a serious bottleneck in the critical maintenance system supporting the aging aircraft.

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that more than half of Ukraine’s F-16s are currently in what a Western source described as “maintenance limbo.” The same source told the newspaper that, at the current rate of operations and maintenance, Ukraine could exhaust the remainder of its available aircraft by the end of the year.

The Ukrainian Air Force declined to provide the WSJ with figures on the status of the fleet. Open-source analysis suggests that Ukraine may have received around 40-50 F-16s so far. However, a proportion of these are held back for training elsewhere in Europe, while there have been five confirmed losses. Approximately 110 F-16s have now been promised by a coalition comprising Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway.

The report follows TWZ’s recent reporting on a separate constraint affecting the F-16 force: Ukraine is struggling to maintain adequate stocks of air-to-air missiles for its fighters. AIM-9 Sidewinders and AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) have been heavily used against Russian cruise missiles and drones, and Ukrainian F-16 pilots have reportedly had to ration their missile shots. Aircraft have increasingly had to rely on their internal 20mm cannon when suitable missiles are not available. This is a far from ideal substitute, as you can read about here, but Kyiv is reportedly now negotiating for tens of thousands of additional rounds of 20mm ammunition.

Ukrainian F-16s have apparently been carrying laser-guided 70mm Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II (APKWS II) rockets, which should provide an extremely valuable, lower-cost option for engaging long-range drones and subsonic cruise missiles. The exact status of this weapon in Ukrainian hands is unclear, but there is so far limited evidence of extensive use by its F-16s, at least in the public domain.

All these problems are closely related because the same high operational tempo that is consuming Ukraine’s missile stocks is also putting additional hours on the already well-worn F-16 airframes.

The aircraft have become a critical important component of Ukraine’s air-defense effort, particularly as Russia has expanded its use of increasingly sophisticated one-way attack drones, as we wrote about only yesterday. WSJ reports that Russia has launched around 2,000 jet-powered drones against Ukraine this month, compared with approximately 350 in June. The newer, jet-powered drones can reportedly reach speeds of up to 375 miles per hour, making them more difficult for Ukraine’s interceptor drones to engage and increasing the importance of conventional fighters. At the same time, the stocks of effectors for ground-based air defense systems are being reduced, in some cases to a critical level, increasing the reliance on crewed fighters to take up the slack.

F-16s are well-suited to the counter-drone and counter-cruise missile mission, but using them extensively against large numbers of relatively inexpensive targets presents a difficult sustainment problem. In fact, the lower speed and altitude differential between the F-16 and a jet-powered drone, compared to a propeller-driven one, makes the higher-performance weapon an easier target for the crewed fighter in most scenarios.

However, every sortie adds flight hours to the aircraft, while each missile engagement draws from an inventory that Ukraine and its Western partners have to replenish. As the aircraft accumulate hours, they reach scheduled inspection and maintenance intervals, increasing demand on a maintenance network that is already supporting a fleet operating under wartime conditions.

The United States has established a substantial support arrangement for that purpose. In January, the Pentagon awarded Belgian company Sabena Aerospace Engineering a contract with a ceiling of approximately $235.5 million for intermediate- and depot-level maintenance of Ukrainian F-16 aircraft and engines, together with associated material-management support. The contract runs through January 2029, with approximately $69.7 million initially obligated.

The contract provides an indication of the scale of the infrastructure required to keep the Ukrainian F-16 fleet operational. It also highlights why the reported turnaround times in Belgium are significant. A typical phase-inspection that would normally take approximately two to six weeks in the United States is reportedly taking as long as 40 weeks in Belgium.

A 40-week turnaround does not necessarily mean that an aircraft spends 40 weeks continuously undergoing a phase inspection. The overall period an aircraft is unavailable can also include waiting for parts, additional repairs, scheduling, and other work. It is unclear exactly how many Ukrainian F-16s are currently affected by these various factors.

At the same time, the reported turnaround times do point to a substantial capacity problem. Ukraine operates a relatively small F-16 fleet, so aircraft that remain unavailable for extended periods have a disproportionate effect on the number of fighters that can actually be generated for combat missions. Its mission spectrum also includes air-to-ground sorties, putting more demand on the hard-pressed F-16 fleet.

F-16 fighters are the best way to counter new Russian jet-powered drones.

Ukrainian F-16 aces have shot down about 2,500 drones of all types and about 650 cruise missiles.

Jet drones are exactly the kind of target F-16s shoot down very well, and it usually costs $25,000 or… pic.twitter.com/ajxYN9K0yK

— Slava 🇺🇦 (@Heroiam_Slava) September 30, 2026

The F-16s have finite airframe lives, require increasingly substantial inspections as they accumulate hours, and depend on a supply chain for engines, components and other parts. The missiles used to destroy the targets are another finite resource. It should also be recalled that the jets supplied to Ukraine are among the oldest still in operational service. Although upgraded to F-16AM/BM standard, the airframes have accumulated a lot of hours and fatigue.

There is an additional complication with the air-to-air missile inventory, too. AMRAAM is not used only by Ukrainian F-16s, but also employed by its NASAMS ground-based air-defense systems. Sidewinders, too, have both air-launched and surface-launched applications. The same broader Western supply chain therefore has to support both fighter operations and some of Ukraine’s surface-to-air missile systems. Stocks of both AMRAAM and Sidewinder have been eroded by Ukraine, as well as by combat actions in the Middle East.

Southern Ukraine, a Ukrainian NASAMS surface to air missile system intercepts a Russian drone with an (SL)AIM-120B AMRAAM. pic.twitter.com/LTeDDHaECp

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) May 22, 2025

At the same time, Ukraine is continuing to receive additional F-16s. Belgium has said it will transfer three more aircraft to Ukraine before the end of this year. More aircraft will increase the potential size of the force, but they will also add to the requirement for spare parts, engines, technicians and depot capacity.

“There is an important agreement ​with Belgium on the transfer of three F-16 ​fighter jets by the end of this year,” ⁠Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on X. “We will work to receive ​these aircraft through an accelerated procedure.”

There is an important agreement with Belgium on the transfer of three F-16 fighter jets by the end of this year. We will work to receive these aircraft through an accelerated procedure. We have already received urgent deliveries of F-16 ammunition from Belgium and other…

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) September 29, 2026

Zelensky said Ukraine had ​already received “urgent deliveries” of F-16 weapons from Belgium and Spain, among other countries.

The alternatives to the F-16 are also limited in the near term. Ukraine continues to operate the Soviet-era MiG-29 Fulcrum and a small number of Su-27 Flankers, but these aircraft are themselves aging and are also required for strike missions. In their favor, the Soviet types were designed around a different concept of operations, making them easier to maintain in the field, and Ukraine has its own support infrastructure to sustain them.

The French Mirage 2000-5F force provides another Western option, but deliveries have been relatively limited, and additional aircraft are arriving incrementally rather than in numbers that can quickly compensate for a major reduction in F-16 availability. The longer-term fighter replacement plan is more ambitious. Sweden has agreed to provide 16 Gripen C/D fighters, with the first aircraft expected in early 2027, while a separate agreement covers the purchase of 16 new Gripen E fighters whose deliveries are not scheduled to begin until early 2029.

🇫🇷🇺🇦 French-delivered Dassault Mirage 2000-5F fighter jet in service of the Ukrainian Air Force during flight somewhere over Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/eBCjtx2Gjc

— Status-6 (@Archer83Able) May 17, 2026

That leaves the F-16 as the principal Western fighter capability available to Ukraine for the immediate future, increasing the significance of any prolonged disruption to its maintenance pipeline or its supply of air-to-air weapons. Ukraine needs enough aircraft to maintain a meaningful combat presence, enough missiles to arm them for the missions they are being asked to fly, and enough maintenance capacity to keep those aircraft available as their flight hours accumulate.

All this is becoming more important as Russia’s aerial campaign evolves. If the increase in faster jet-powered drones continues, Ukraine may have to devote still more fighter sorties to countering them at the very same time that a large portion of its existing F-16 fleet is reportedly unavailable and its stocks of air-to-air missiles are under serious pressure.

Contact the autjor: thomas@thewarzone.com

Siegfried Muresan’s loss of the confidence motion increases the prospect for snap elections.

Romania’s pro-European Prime Minister-designate Siegfried Muresan has failed to win a parliamentary vote of confidence, prolonging a political crisis seen as a boost for the rising far right.

Muresan, a liberal European Parliament member who was the latest of three designated prime ministers, secured only 182 votes out of the 233 required to secure the confidence motion on Wednesday, according to the official count.

The far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) largely boycotted the vote.

The 45-year-old had proposed what he described as a “reform-oriented” governing programme under his centre-right National Liberal Party (PNL), which teamed up with the Save Romania Union party, or USR, and the small ethnic Hungarian UDMR party.

President Nicusor Dan said he would nominate a new prime minister candidate on Monday afternoon, after holding talks with the leaders of the parliamentary parties, to avoid snap elections.

Romania saw the collapse of a pro-European coalition government in May, when governing social democrats, together with the opposition far right, ousted liberal Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan in a no-confidence motion at that time.

The far right, which comprises about a third of Parliament, threatened to impeach the president if he does not call early elections once the conditions are met.

Romania, a member of the EU and NATO that borders Ukraine, has not held snap elections since the fall of communism in 1989.

Political analyst Cristian Pirvulescu told the AFP news agency that snap elections would lead to another fragmented Parliament, but with an emboldened far right.

“Early elections mean that, from the moment they are called, it would take four months before a new government could be formed,” Pirvulescu told AFP. “Due to political instability, Romania finds itself in a very complicated economic situation. Four months is already a very long time.”

The country of 19 million has been struggling for months with the highest public deficit and inflation in the European Union.

Beef prices are soaring in China. Across the Pacific Ocean in the United States, cattle farmers are complaining that their businesses are becoming increasingly unsustainable. And in India, poultry rearers are slashing their production targets because they cannot afford feed.

More than 90 percent of the world’s population eats meat in one form or another — and a looming meat crisis threatens to affect what they buy at the market, what they cook at home, and what’s served on the table.

At the heart of this is a chain of decisions and uncertainties that consumers rarely see. A cow has to be raised for years before it can become beef. Chickens need feed, much of it tied to global grain and soya bean markets. Farmers need land, water and weather conditions that allow them to keep animals alive and productive.

When any link in this chain is disrupted, a spiralling crisis ensues.

So what is putting the pressure on meat production, and what does it mean for billions of people around the world?

Declining cattle stocks in Brazil, US and China

Brazil, the US and China are the world’s three biggest beef producers, together supplying more than half of the world’s beef. But their cattle herds are shrinking at the same time.

According to a March estimate by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), Brazil’s total herd this year is estimated at 177.4 million cattle — a nearly 8 percent drop from 192.5 million in 2024.

Over in the US, cattle numbers are at a historic low.

The USDA counted 86.2 million cattle and calves on farms on January 1, 2026. The number of beef cows — the females needed to produce future calves — was 27.6 million, down 1 percent from a year earlier. The 2025 calf crop was also down 2 percent.

In China, the USDA estimated a cattle head count of 94 million in January 2026, down 14 percent from 105 million in January 2024.

In all three cases, beef production is also projected to be down in 2026.

The USDA predicts a 2 percent decline in Brazil’s beef production and a 5 percent fall in exports. As for the US, beef production in 2026 is likely to be 4 percent lower than last year. China’s total beef supply this year is projected to be 12 percent lower than 2024.

The decline in domestic production, coupled with shrinking supplies that can be imported, has sent prices soaring in China — the world’s largest beef consumer and importer.

What’s driving down cattle herds and beef production?

The reasons are many, and they vary from country to country.

Brazil counts China and the European Union as two major markets for its beef exports. But both have imposed import restrictions that have disincentivised Brazilian beef manufacturers. That is partly responsible for the country’s decreased cattle head count, according to an analysis by Augusto Neto at S&P Global, the market intelligence firm.

Additionally, Brazil is currently in what is known as a cattle reversion cycle — when rearers reduce the slaughter of animals and instead try to preserve their female stock to help rebuild their herd — according to the USDA.

In the US, droughts have hit 60 percent of the country’s cattle-rearing area, according to a report by Sampad Nandy of S&P Global. With grazing areas decreasing, feed costs have risen.

Three major organisations, representing breeders in the states of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, issued a joint statement this week arguing that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids were disrupting their already strained operations. The meat industry depends heavily on immigrant workers.

If beef prices are rising, shouldn’t rearers want to produce more beef?

In theory, yes. But in practice, high prices do not automatically mean that more cattle can be produced quickly.

Cattle production is constrained by biological supply cycles, Kenneth Foster, professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University, told Al Jazeera. It can take a couple of years for a producer who receives a signal from the market to expand production and actually see the resulting animals enter the beef supply. The quickest way to rebuild a herd is to keep female cattle that might otherwise have been sold and use them for breeding. That is what Brazil is now doing.

But that creates a difficult economic calculation. A producer can sell an animal today at a high price, or keep it for breeding and wait for the next generation. That means carrying the costs and risks of keeping the animal while waiting for it to reproduce.

The result is a market in which strong demand and limited supply can persist even when prices are already high.

The USDA expects the cattle herd to begin rebuilding in the US, but the process is gradual.

The US and Brazil cases illustrate one of the central problems facing meat production: sometimes the constraint is not technology, land or money.

It is time.

Europe’s move from beef to poultry

Meanwhile, Europe presents a different picture. The continent is witnessing a structural change in what consumers are eating.

The EU produced about 42.7 million tonnes of meat in 2025. But EU meat production is projected to decline by about 3 percent between 2025 and 2035, with beef production projected to fall by 10 percent and pork by 7 percent. Poultry is the exception: production is projected to rise by 5 percent.

This shift is also visible in consumption.

Consumption of EU beef and pigmeat is projected to decline through 2035, while poultry consumption is expected to increase by 9 percent.

Beef and pork require longer production cycles and face different economic and environmental pressures. Poultry, by contrast, can respond much more quickly to changes in demand because chickens reach market weight within weeks rather than years.

That difference is becoming increasingly important. The OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook expects poultry to be the fastest-growing major meat category globally over the next decade, helped by its relatively low cost and short production cycle.

Europe is therefore becoming an example of how a meat system can adapt without simply producing more of everything. Some forms of meat become harder or more expensive to produce, while others expand to fill part of the space.

Poultry has problems too — as India shows

Yet the poultry industry faces its own challenges, with India offering an example.

In June, a large section of India’s poultry industry announced plans to cut production by 25 percent after soya meal prices rose by more than 40 percent in a month.

The decision was announced by the All India Poultry Breeders’ Association after producers faced sharply higher feed costs and a seasonal decline in demand. Producers also began culling parent breeder stocks — birds needed to produce future generations of poultry.

Soya meal is an important protein source in animal feed. When its price rises sharply, poultry producers face a choice: absorb higher costs, raise prices, or reduce the number of birds they produce.

In India’s case, producers chose to cut production.

The consequences extended beyond individual farms. The Reuters news agency reported in May that Indian soya meal prices had risen 41 percent in one month to a four-year high of 66,000 rupees ($687.5) per tonne. India subsequently cancelled 25,000 tonnes of soya meal export contracts and began turning to soya bean imports from African countries.

The takeaway: a shock in one part of the agricultural system can move quickly through the meat supply chain globally.

As farmers try to protect their livelihoods and families try to keep food on the table, changing climates, rising prices, shifting dietary preferences and growing trade barriers are together reshaping the future of meat — and what we eat.

Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate says Africa is paying a high price for a crisis it did not create. She has taken her fight for climate justice from the streets of Kampala to the halls of power. She has been front and centre in the global climate movement, urging world leaders to act, taking part in protests and speaking at international conferences about the dangers of global warming.

However, Nakate admits progress has been slow. As a UNICEF goodwill ambassador, she has seen firsthand how communities are affected, and insists the major polluters should be held accountable. She is determined to raise awareness about how global warming is affecting African countries in particular. She says the continent is often left out of discussions.

Nakate admits she sometimes feels hopeless about the state of the world, but she is encouraged by grassroots initiatives that are bringing about change.

Amid the worsening global energy crisis triggered by the US-Israel war on Iran, European countries, desperate for alternative energy supplies, trade routes and partnerships, have looked across the Mediterranean for solutions.

As a result, governments across North Africa have started to reassess their strategic value. Algeria is in an especially strong position as an established gas supplier, while Egypt can offer infrastructure, refining capacity and access through the Suez Canal.

Libya has also seen its strategic value increase. It has around 48 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, the largest in Africa, and produces 1.5 million barrels of oil per day. It also has substantial natural gas reserves.

Its oil reaches international markets through the Mediterranean, while the Greenstream gas pipeline connects its Mellitah complex directly to Europe.

Libya cannot replace the Gulf in terms of oil and gas exports, but it can become a major player in diversification efforts not just in Europe but elsewhere in the world. The challenge the country faces is how to take full advantage amid structural constraints and insecurity.

Energy insecurity at home

Libya is simultaneously a major energy exporter and an energy-insecure state. Although the country possesses vast oil and gas resources, Libyans experience regular electricity blackouts due to an inefficient domestic energy system.

More than 70 percent of Libyan gas production is consumed domestically, mostly for electricity generation. Production has struggled to meet both domestic needs and export commitments. Gas exports consequently fell year on year from around 200 billion cubic feet in 2019 to 35 billion in 2025, the lowest export levels in 22 years.

At the same time, the country is flaring at least 200 billion cubic feet of gas annually due to underdeveloped infrastructure. Gas that could generate electricity, support industry or increase exports is instead being wasted.

The International Monetary Fund has estimated Libya’s total energy subsidy burden at around $17bn, equivalent to roughly 35 percent of GDP – one of the largest in the world.

Much of these funds go into subsidising imported refined fuels, as domestic refining capacity is largely underdeveloped and cannot meet demand.

The domestic energy situation is compounded by political fragmentation, institutional disputes and periodic disruptions to production due to conflict.

Increasing exports without addressing these problems risks improving energy security abroad while neglecting it at home, and that is a recipe for more instability in an already fragile nation.

Opportunity or trap?

The global energy crisis triggered by the Iran war is surely a major opportunity for Libya to increase its revenues from hydrocarbons. But it also carries a risk.

As I pointed out during the 5th meeting of the Mediterranean Energy Experts Circle earlier this month, greater demand for Libyan oil and gas could reinforce the economic model the country has struggled to escape from for decades: producing hydrocarbons, exporting them, distributing the revenues and postponing structural reform.

This model does not allow Libya to capture the full economic potential of its resource wealth. It keeps the Libyan state stuck in the all too familiar “resource curse”, which promotes economic stagnation and inefficiency.

That is why when taking advantage of heightened demand for energy, it is crucial that Libya uses the proceeds to transform its energy system.

That means capturing flared gas, modernising electricity generation and transmission, expanding domestic refining where economically viable, reforming subsidies, investing seriously in renewable energy and participating in sustainable regional energy cooperation.

Libya’s National Sustainable Energy Strategy aims to have 22 percent of electricity generation from renewable sources by 2035, an ambitious target that requires major positive shifts in security and governance conditions. Increased revenue flows can help jump-start the process.

Another important consideration is how the country should approach heightened foreign interest. Libya’s first major oil and gas licensing round since 2007 was concluded in February, with the US’s Chevron, Italy’s Eni, QatarEnergy, Spain’s Repsol, Hungary’s MOL, Nigeria’s Aiteo, and Türkiye’s TPAO securing new licences.

Commercial and geopolitical interests are rarely completely separate in energy. For Libya, this creates bargaining power—if managed coherently by the Libyans. Rather than becoming an arena in which external actors compete for individual assets and relationships, Libya could use diversified partnerships to attract investment and technology while reducing dependence on any single partner.

From energy exporter to Mediterranean energy hub

The transformation Libya seeks should not be confined to its borders. Its strategic objective should be to become an integral player in a Mediterranean energy hub by expanding cooperation with neighbouring states and leveraging existing production capacities and infrastructure.

To Libya’s east, Egypt has a large electricity system and significant refining and processing capacity. To its west, Tunisia provides access towards the wider Maghreb and increasingly towards European markets. Libya sits between them with enormous hydrocarbon resources, considerable solar potential and existing energy connections with both neighbours.

Important steps have already been taken to deepen regional energy integration. In January, Egypt and Libya signed an energy cooperation agreement covering exploration and the development of crude-oil refining. The two countries are also discussing the construction of an 800km pipeline connecting Tobruk to Alexandria. The project is worth $1bn and would carry Libyan crude directly to Egyptian refineries.

Libya and Tunisia are also expanding cooperation. Earlier this month, the Libyan-Tunisian company Joint Oil opened an international licensing round covering around 3,000 square kilometres of shared offshore acreage and development of the cross-border Zarat oil and gas discovery. Formal awards are expected by the end of April 2027.

The risk here is that expanded cooperation could develop into dependence. How to avoid that is the lesson Libya can learn from the Strait of Hormuz crisis. The country still needs sufficient domestic electricity, refining and production capacity to protect itself. Regional integration should add alternatives rather than create new vulnerabilities: more markets, more electricity connections, more processing options and more export routes.

The objective should therefore be specialisation, connectivity and redundancy all achieved in the right sequence depending on needs and conditions.

A moment for strategic redesign

The Iran war has given Libya something potentially more valuable than temporarily higher hydrocarbon prices: renewed strategic relevance. But greater strategic relevance does not automatically make the country a more reliable energy partner.

Converting the former into the latter requires a radically different approach not just to the domestic oil and gas industry, but also to overall economic development and regional geopolitics.

Libya must use this moment to pursue strategic redesign: to increase production while recovering wasted gas, improve electricity infrastructure, develop refining and renewables, strengthen regional connections and cooperation, and use competition among international partners to attract investment.

Libya already has the resources and the geography to become an even bigger player in the energy market. The question is whether it can build the rest.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Demonstrators are demanding early elections and accuse Pedro Sanchez’s government of negligence.

Thousands of people have rallied in the Spanish capital to protest the government’s policy on irregular migration and its handling of a recent migrant influx into the North African enclave of Ceuta.

Saturday’s protest in Madrid was organised by right-wing civil society group Sociedad Civil Espanola and backed by the mainstream conservative People’s Party (PP) and far-right Vox.

According to the government, 20,000 people attended, while protest organisers put the turnout at 180,000.

At the end of July, more than 70,000 migrants stormed into the autonomous Spanish city of Ceuta from neighbouring Morocco, before most of them were returned. However, thousands remain stranded.

Demonstrators accused Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his government of failing to protect the borders of Ceuta.

They are calling for an early election to be held by mid-November, with Vox demanding Sanchez be tried for treason. Spain’s next general election is not due until August 2027.

PP’s secretary-general Miguel Tellado said there was a “widespread feeling that the government has not acted responsibly; there has been a dereliction of duty, extreme negligence”.

“Spanish society has to take to the streets to ask the government to defend our territorial integrity,” he added.

The July 30 and 31 surge of people into Ceuta led to unprecedented scenes and the deaths of dozens of migrants.

Sanchez said on Tuesday that Moroccan border control failed to adequately handle the incident and that an investigation was still under way, adding that Rabat had been asked for answers.

The Spanish government estimates that between 6,000 and 10,000 stranded migrants remain in Ceuta.

Vox leader Santiago Abascal is demanding that everyone who arrived in late July be deported to their country of origin.

Abascal said Ceuta remained “invaded because Sanchez continues to be Morocco’s servant”.

Spanish newspaper El Pais reported on Saturday that the government is planning to approve a decree on Tuesday to accelerate the return of migrants from Ceuta to Morocco.

The protest is the second under the March for Dignity banner. That demonstration was held in late May before the incident in Ceuta and attracted 40,000 protesters, according to the government.

Melissa Nathan, the crisis management public relations pro hired by actor-director Justin Baldoni amid his lengthy legal feud with actor Blake Lively, is in the hot seat after Baldoni’s former publicist claimed that Nathan played a key role in operating a network of anonymous “smear” websites.

The publicist, Stephanie Jones, filed an initial complaint in New York Supreme Court in December 2024, accusing Baldoni’s crisis PR team of waging a coordinated effort to undermine her and deflect blame for what she called a retaliatory smear campaign targeting Lively.

But new documents filed last week brought front and center a “key question from the outset of this case”: Who was behind the creation of anonymous websites that popped up in May 2024 and accused Jones of “holding clients hostage” and leaking their secrets?

Nathan did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment Friday. But in a deposition, she said she was absolutely not the mastermind behind the now-defunct stephaniejonesleaks.com.

In the recent filing, Jones claims she repeatedly sought communications that could support her suspicions about the website’s origin, and last week received documents from Katherine Case, a former employee of Jones’ PR firm, Jonesworks, who subsequently worked for Nathan’s crisis management firm, the Agency Group.

Those documents, the filing alleges, show Nathan repeatedly testified falsely about the websites, and confirm that “Melissa Nathan was directly involved in a scheme to utilize untraceable websites to destroy the reputation of her competitors and those adverse to her clients. Stephanie Jones and Jonesworks were among her victims.”

In alleged text messages between Nathan and Case included in court documents, Nathan appears to have offered Case “three or four grand” to make the website copy tarnishing Jones’ reputation “a lot more meaty” — “good enough for us to be able to point a journalist towards.”

Nathan also appears to direct Case to discuss “holding clients hostage” and detail how people are “scared of” Jones, the documents allege.

Nathan is alleged to have instructed Case to write copy that would “follow along the lines of a purported ‘whistleblower’ narrative.” In Case’s notes from a subsequent phone call, she allegedly wrote, “Copy for the website along the lines of — I can’t sit and watch this woman continue to do this, this is what she does … it’s now a time where I can speak my truth about what I saw there.”

The filing claims that a record from Zelle, a money-transferring service, shows a subsequent payment to Case in the amount of $4,000 from “Melissa E. Nathan.”

The websites weren’t a one-off, according to the filing. They were allegedly one of Nathan’s specialties, and a hot commodity among embattled celebrities.

Three months after the Jones website went live, Nathan allegedly texted “Pitch Perfect” star Rebel Wilson, who was involved in a dispute with producer Amanda Ghost over Wilson’s directorial debut, the 2024 musical “The Deb.”

“Nathan quoted Wilson $110,000 for an untraceable site with a satellite, ghost server, ghost hosting, full build, maintaining, and full algorithmic push across all platforms … for 3 months,” the filing alleges. “The next day Nathan texted Case, ‘Rebel wants a one of those sites.’ ”