Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni finalised a tour of North African countries by sealing an $8bn gas production deal between the Italian energy company Eni and Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) on Sunday.

In its obsession to keep migrants and asylum seekers away from its shores, Italy is paying for tens of thousands of people to be intercepted and returned to Libya, where they face abuses that the UN describes as possible crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on Wednesday.

The Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah said the gas agreement between the National Oil Corporation (NOC) and Italy’s Eni was signed in 2008 and his Government of National Unity (GNU) has only activated it after all these years.

American diplomatic sources in Cairo revealed the details of the two-day visit of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, during which he met his Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Shoukry, and President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, Al-Araby newspaper said.

The UN special envoy to Libya said on Monday that stability and institutional legitimacy in the North African country will not come through elections alone.

The High Council of State (HCS) approved on Tuesday the proposed mechanism for selecting certain incumbents of sovereign state positions, and permitted the start of publishing the presentations of the candidates.

In the past few weeks, there have been several new developments in Libya’s long-lasting political crisis following a series of high-profile visits to the country.

Libyan authorities must take decisive steps to provide justice and redress to the vast number of victims suffering from longstanding violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, the UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) on Libya said Sunday after its final visit to the country.

Mohamed Aoun, the Minister of Oil and Gas in the current Tripoli-based government led by Prime Minister Abd Alhamid Aldabaiba, rejected on Saturday the Eni deal signed on the same day with Libya. He said it bypassed his Oil Ministry and cabinet approval and changed the deal signed in 2008.

A group of graduates of oil colleges from the western region closed the gas pipeline linking (Mellitah to Italy) on Saturday because the recent employment lists issued by the National Oil Corporation (NOC) did not include them.