title: Libya

text: Libya gained independence in 1951 as the United Libyan Kingdom ( '), changing its name to the Kingdom of Libya ( '), literally "Libyan Kingdom", in 1963. Following a coup d'état led by Muammar Gaddafi in 1969, the name of the state was changed to the Libyan Arab Republic ( '). The official name was "Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya" from 1977 to 1986 (), and "Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya" (, ' ) from 1986 to 2011.


title: Libya

text: The National Transitional Council, established in 2011, referred to the state as simply "Libya". The UN formally recognized the country as "Libya" in September 2011 based on a request from the Permanent Mission of Libya citing the Libyan interim Constitutional Declaration of 3 August 2011. In November 2011, the ISO 3166-1 was altered to reflect the new country name "Libya" in English, ""Libye (la)"" in French.


title: Libya

text: In December 2017 the Permanent Mission of Libya to the United Nations informed the United Nations that the country's official name was henceforth the "State of Libya"; "Libya" remained the official short form, and the country continued to be listed under "L" in alphabetical lists.


title: Libya

text: The coastal plain of Libya was inhabited by Neolithic peoples from as early as 8000 BC. The Afroasiatic ancestors of the Berber people are assumed to have spread into the area by the Late Bronze Age. The earliest known name of such a tribe was the Garamantes, based in Germa. The Phoenicians were the first to establish trading posts in Libya. By the 5th century BC, the greatest of the Phoenician colonies, Carthage, had extended its hegemony across much of North Africa, where a distinctive civilization, known as Punic, came into being.


title: Libya

text: In 630 BC, the ancient Greeks colonized the area around Barca in Eastern Libya and founded the city of Cyrene. Within 200 years, four more important Greek cities were established in the area that became known as Cyrenaica.


title: Libya

text: In 525 BC the Persian army of Cambyses II overran Cyrenaica, which for the next two centuries remained under Persian or Egyptian rule. Alexander the Great was greeted by the Greeks when he entered Cyrenaica in 331 BC, and Eastern Libya again fell under the control of the Greeks, this time as part of the Ptolemaic Kingdom.


title: Libya

text: After the fall of Carthage the Romans did not immediately occupy Tripolitania (the region around Tripoli), but left it instead under control of the kings of Numidia, until the coastal cities asked and obtained its protection. Ptolemy Apion, the last Greek ruler, bequeathed Cyrenaica to Rome, which formally annexed the region in 74 BC and joined it to Crete as a Roman province. As part of the Africa Nova province, Tripolitania was prosperous, and reached a golden age in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, when the city of Leptis Magna, home to the Severan dynasty, was at its height.


title: Libya

text: On the Eastern side, Cyrenaica's first Christian communities were established by the time of the Emperor Claudius. It was heavily devastated during the Kitos War and almost depopulated of Greeks and Jews alike. Although repopulated by Trajan with military colonies, from then started its decline. Libya was early to convert to Nicene Christianity and was the home of Pope Victor I; however, Libya was also home to many non-Nicene varieties of early Christianity, such as Arianism and Donatism.


title: Libya

text: Under the command of 'Amr ibn al-'As, the Rashidun army conquered Cyrenaica. In 647 an army led by Abdullah ibn Saad took Tripoli from the Byzantines definitively. The Fezzan was conquered by Uqba ibn Nafi in 663. The Berber tribes of the hinterland accepted Islam, however they resisted Arab political rule.


title: Libya

text: For the next several decades, Libya was under the purview of the Umayyad Caliph of Damascus until the Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads in 750, and Libya came under the rule of Baghdad. When Caliph Harun al-Rashid appointed Ibrahim ibn al-Aghlab as his governor of Ifriqiya in 800, Libya enjoyed considerable local autonomy under the Aghlabid dynasty. By the 10th century, the Shiite Fatimids controlled Western Libya, and ruled the entire region in 972 and appointed Bologhine ibn Ziri as governor.


title: Libya

text: Ibn Ziri's Berber Zirid dynasty ultimately broke away from the Shiite Fatimids, and recognised the Sunni Abbasids of Baghdad as rightful Caliphs. In retaliation, the Fatimids brought about the migration of thousands from mainly two Arab Qaisi tribes, the Banu Sulaym and Banu Hilal to North Africa. This act drastically altered the fabric of the Libyan countryside, and cemented the cultural and linguistic Arabisation of the region.


title: Libya

text: Zirid rule in Tripolitania was short-lived though, and already in 1001 the Berbers of the Banu Khazrun broke away. Tripolitania remained under their control until 1146, when the region was overtaken by the Normans of Sicily. It was not until 1159 that the Almohad empire reconquered Tripoli from European rule. For the next 50 years, Tripolitania was the scene of numerous battles among Ayyubids, the Almohad rulers and insurgents of the Banu Ghaniya. Later, a general of the Almohads, Muhammad ibn Abu Hafs, ruled Libya from 1207 to 1221 before the later establishment of a Tunisian Hafsid dynasty independent from the Almohads. The Hafsids ruled Tripolitania for nearly 300 years. By the 16th century the Hafsids became increasingly caught up in the power struggle between Spain and the Ottoman Empire.


title: Libya

text: After weakening control of Abbasids, Cyrenaica was under Egypt based states such as Tulunids, Ikhshidids, Ayyubids and Mamluks before Ottoman conquest in 1517. Finally Fezzan acquired independence under Awlad Muhammad dynasty after Kanem rule. Ottomans finally conquered Fezzan between 1556 and 1577.


title: Libya

text: After a successful invasion of Tripoli by Habsburg Spain in 1510, and its handover to the Knights of St. John, the Ottoman admiral Sinan Pasha took control of Libya in 1551. His successor Turgut Reis was named the Bey of Tripoli and later Pasha of Tripoli in 1556. By 1565, administrative authority as regent in Tripoli was vested in a "pasha" appointed directly by the "sultan" in Constantinople/Istanbul. In the 1580s, the rulers of Fezzan gave their allegiance to the sultan, and although Ottoman authority was absent in Cyrenaica, a "bey" was stationed in Benghazi late in the next century to act as agent of the government in Tripoli. European slaves and large numbers of enslaved Blacks transported from Sudan were also a feature of everyday life in Tripoli. In 1551, Turgut Reis enslaved almost the entire population of the Maltese island of Gozo, some 5,000 people, sending them to Libya.


title: Libya

text: In time, real power came to rest with the pasha's corps of janissaries. In 1611 the "deys" staged a coup against the pasha, and Dey Sulayman Safar was appointed as head of government. For the next hundred years, a series of "deys" effectively ruled Tripolitania. The two most important Deys were Mehmed Saqizli (r. 1631–49) and Osman Saqizli (r. 1649–72), both also Pasha, who ruled effectively the region. The latter conquered also Cyrenaica.


title: Libya

text: Lacking direction from the Ottoman government, Tripoli lapsed into a period of military anarchy during which coup followed coup and few deys survived in office more than a year. One such coup was led by Turkish officer Ahmed Karamanli. The Karamanlis ruled from 1711 until 1835 mainly in Tripolitania, and had influence in Cyrenaica and Fezzan as well by the mid-18th century. Ahmed's successors proved to be less capable than himself, however, the region's delicate balance of power allowed the Karamanli. The 1793–95 Tripolitanian civil war occurred in those years. In 1793, Turkish officer Ali Pasha deposed Hamet Karamanli and briefly restored Tripolitania to Ottoman rule. Hamet's brother Yusuf (r. 1795–1832) re-established Tripolitania's independence.


title: Libya

text: In the early 19th century war broke out between the United States and Tripolitania, and a series of battles ensued in what came to be known as the First Barbary War and the Second Barbary War. By 1819, the various treaties of the Napoleonic Wars had forced the Barbary states to give up piracy almost entirely, and Tripolitania's economy began to crumble. As Yusuf weakened, factions sprung up around his three sons. Civil war soon resulted.


title: Libya

text: Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II sent in troops ostensibly to restore order, marking the end of both the Karamanli dynasty and an independent Tripolitania. Order was not recovered easily, and the revolt of the Libyan under Abd-El-Gelil and Gûma ben Khalifa lasted until the death of the latter in 1858. The second period of direct Ottoman rule saw administrative changes, and greater order in the governance of the three provinces of Libya. Ottoman rule finally reasserted to Fezzan between 1850 and 1875 for earning income from Saharan commerce.


title: Libya

text: After the Italo-Turkish War (1911–1912), Italy simultaneously turned the three regions into colonies. From 1912 to 1927, the territory of Libya was known as Italian North Africa. From 1927 to 1934, the territory was split into two colonies, Italian Cyrenaica and Italian Tripolitania, run by Italian governors. Some 150,000 Italians settled in Libya, constituting roughly 20% of the total population.


title: Libya

text: Omar Mukhtar rose to prominence as a resistance leader against Italian colonization and became a national hero despite his capture and execution on 16 September 1931. His face is currently printed on the Libyan ten dinar note in memory and recognition of his patriotism. Another prominent resistance leader, Idris al-Mahdi as-Senussi (later King Idris I), Emir of Cyrenaica, continued to lead the Libyan resistance until the outbreak of the Second World War.


title: Libya

text: The so-called "pacification of Libya" by the Italians resulted in mass deaths of the indigenous people in Cyrenaica, killing approximately one quarter of Cyrenaica's population of 225,000. Ilan Pappé estimates that between 1928 and 1932 the Italian military "killed half the Bedouin population (directly or through disease and starvation in Italian concentration camps in Libya)."


title: Libya

text: In 1934, Italy combined Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Fezzan and adopted the name "Libya" (used by the Ancient Greeks for all of North Africa except Egypt) for the unified colony, with Tripoli as its capital. The Italians emphasized infrastructure improvements and public works. In particular, they greatly expanded Libyan railway and road networks from 1934 to 1940, building hundreds of kilometers of new roads and railways and encouraging the establishment of new industries and dozens of new agricultural villages.


title: Libya

text: In June 1940, Italy entered World War II. Libya became the setting for the hard-fought North African Campaign that ultimately ended in defeat for Italy and its German ally in 1943.


title: Libya

text: From 1943 to 1951, Libya was under Allied occupation. The British military administered the two former Italian Libyan provinces of Tripolitana and Cyrenaïca, while the French administered the province of Fezzan. In 1944, Idris returned from exile in Cairo but declined to resume permanent residence in Cyrenaica until the removal of some aspects of foreign control in 1947. Under the terms of the 1947 peace treaty with the Allies, Italy relinquished all claims to Libya.


title: Libya

text: On 24 December 1951, Libya declared its independence as the United Kingdom of Libya, a constitutional and hereditary monarchy under King Idris, Libya's only monarch. The discovery of significant oil reserves in 1959 and the subsequent income from petroleum sales enabled one of the world's poorest nations to establish an extremely wealthy state. Although oil drastically improved the Libyan government's finances, resentment among some factions began to build over the increased concentration of the nation's wealth in the hands of King Idris.


title: Libya

text: On 1 September 1969, a group of rebel military officers led by Muammar Gaddafi launched a coup d'état against King Idris, which became known as the Al Fateh Revolution. Gaddafi was referred to as the "Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution" in government statements and the official Libyan press. Moving to reduce Italian influence, in October 1970 all Italian-owned assets were expropriated and the 12,000-strong Italian community was expelled from Libya alongside the smaller community of Libyan Jews. The day became a national holiday known as "Vengeance Day". Libya's increase in prosperity was accompanied by increased internal political repression, and political dissent was made illegal under Law 75 of 1973. Widespread surveillance of the population was carried out through Gaddafi's Revolutionary Committees.


title: Libya

text: Gaddafi also wanted to combat the strict social restrictions that had been imposed on women by the previous regime, establishing the Revolutionary Women's Formation to encourage reform. In 1970, a law was introduced affirming equality of the sexes and insisting on wage parity. In 1971, Gaddafi sponsored the creation of a Libyan General Women's Federation. In 1972, a law was passed criminalizing the marriage of any females under the age of sixteen and ensuring that a woman's consent was a necessary prerequisite for a marriage.


title: Libya

text: On 25 October 1975, a coup attempt was launched by some 20 military officers, mostly from the city of Misrata. This resulted in the arrest and executions of the coup plotters. On 2 March 1977, Libya officially became the "Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya". Gaddafi officially passed power to the General People's Committees and henceforth claimed to be no more than a symbolic figurehead. The new "jamahiriya" (Arab for "republic") governance structure he established was officially referred to as "direct democracy".


title: Libya

text: Gaddafi, in his vision of democratic government and political philosophy, published "The Green Book" in 1975. His short book inscribed a representative mix of utopian socialism and Arab nationalism with a streak of Bedouin supremacy.


title: Libya

text: In February 1977, Libya started delivering military supplies to Goukouni Oueddei and the People's Armed Forces in Chad. The Chadian–Libyan conflict began in earnest when Libya's support of rebel forces in northern Chad escalated into an invasion. Later that same year, Libya and Egypt fought a four-day border war that came to be known as the Libyan-Egyptian War. Both nations agreed to a ceasefire under the mediation of the Algerian president Houari Boumediène. Hundreds of Libyans lost their lives in the country's support for Idi Amin's Uganda in its war against Tanzania. Gaddafi financed various other groups from anti-nuclear movements to Australian trade unions.


title: Libya

text: Libya adopted its plain green national flag on 19 November 1977. Before 2011, it became the only plain-coloured flag in the world.


title: Libya

text: From 1977 onward, per capita income in the country rose to more than US$11,000, the fifth-highest in Africa, while the Human Development Index became the highest in Africa and greater than that of Saudi Arabia. This was achieved without borrowing any foreign loans, keeping Libya debt-free. The Great Manmade River was also built to allow free access to fresh water across large parts of the country. In addition, financial support was provided for university scholarships and employment programs.


title: Libya

text: Much of Libya's income from oil, which soared in the 1970s, was spent on arms purchases and on sponsoring dozens of paramilitaries and terrorist groups around the world. An American airstrike intended to kill Gaddafi failed in 1986. Libya was finally put under sanctions by the United Nations after the bombing of a commercial flight at Lockerbie in 1988 killed 270 people. In 2003, Gaddafi renounced that all of his regime's weapons of mass destruction were disassembled and Libya transitioned its shift to nuclear power.


title: Libya

text: The first civil war came during the Arab Spring movements which overturned the rulers of Tunisia and Egypt. Libya first experienced protests against Gaddafi's regime on 15 February 2011, with a full-scale revolt beginning on 17 February. Libya's authoritarian regime led by Muammar Gaddafi put up much more of a resistance compared to the regimes in Egypt and Tunisia. While overthrowing the regimes in Egypt and Tunisia was a relatively quick process, Gaddafi's campaign posed significant stalls on the uprising in Libya. The first announcement of a competing political authority appeared online and declared the Interim Transitional National Council as an alternative government. One of Gaddafi's senior advisors responded by posting a tweet, wherein he resigned, defected, and advised Gaddafi to flee. By 20 February, the unrest had spread to Tripoli. On 27 February 2011, the National Transitional Council was established to administer the areas of Libya under rebel control. On 10 March 2011, the United States and many other nations recognised the council headed by Mahmoud Jibril as acting prime minister and as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people and withdrawing the recognition of Gaddafi's regime.


title: Libya

text: Pro-Gaddafi forces were able to respond militarily to rebel pushes in Western Libya and launched a counterattack along the coast toward Benghazi, the "de facto" centre of the uprising. The town of Zawiya, from Tripoli, was bombarded by air force planes and army tanks and seized by Jamahiriya troops, "exercising a level of brutality not yet seen in the conflict."


title: Libya

text: Organizations of the United Nations, including United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the United Nations Human Rights Council, condemned the crackdown as violating international law, with the latter body expelling Libya outright in an unprecedented action.


title: Libya

text: On 17 March 2011 the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1973, with a 10–0 vote and five abstentions including Russia, China, India, Brazil and Germany. The resolution sanctioned the establishment of a no-fly zone and the use of "all means necessary" to protect civilians within Libya. On 19 March, the first act of NATO allies to secure the no-fly zone began by destroying Libyan air defenses when French military jets entered Libyan airspace on a reconnaissance mission heralding attacks on enemy targets.


title: Libya

text: In the weeks that followed, US American forces were in the forefront of NATO operations against Libya. More than 8,000 US personnel in warships and aircraft were deployed in the area. At least 3,000 targets were struck in 14,202 strike sorties, 716 of them in Tripoli and 492 in Brega. The US air offensive included flights of B-2 Stealth bombers, each bomber armed with sixteen 2000-pound bombs, flying out of and returning to their base in Missouri in the continental United States. The support provided by the NATO air forces contributed to the ultimate success of the revolution.


title: Libya

text: By 22 August 2011, rebel fighters had entered Tripoli and occupied Green Square, which they renamed Martyrs' Square in honour of those killed since 17 February 2011. On 20 October 2011, the last heavy fighting of the uprising came to an end in the city of Sirte. The Battle of Sirte was both the last decisive battle and the last one in general of the First Libyan Civil War where Gaddafi was captured and killed by NATO-backed forces on 20 October 2011. Sirte was the last Gaddafi loyalist stronghold and his place of birth. The defeat of loyalist forces was celebrated on 23 October 2011, three days after the fall of Sirte.


title: Libya

text: At least 30,000 Libyans died in the civil war. In addition, the National Transitional Council estimated 50,000 wounded.


title: Libya

text: Following the defeat of loyalist forces, Libya was torn among numerous rival, armed militias affiliated with distinct regions, cities and tribes, while the central government had been weak and unable to effectively exert its authority over the country. Competing militias pitted themselves against each other in a political struggle between Islamist politicians and their opponents. On 7 July 2012, Libyans held their first parliamentary elections since the end of the former regime. On 8 August, the National Transitional Council officially handed power over to the wholly-elected General National Congress, which was then tasked with the formation of an interim government and the drafting of a new Libyan Constitution to be approved in a general referendum.


title: Libya

text: On 25 August 2012, in what Reuters reported as "the most blatant sectarian attack" since the end of the civil war, unnamed organized assailants bulldozed a Sufi mosque with graves, in broad daylight in the center of the Libyan capital Tripoli. It was the second such razing of a Sufi site in two days. Numerous acts of vandalism and destruction of heritage were carried out by suspected Islamist militias, including the removal of the Nude Gazelle Statue and the destruction and desecration of World War II-era British grave sites near Benghazi. Many other cases of heritage vandalism were reported to be carried out by Islamist-related radical militias and mobs that either destroyed, robbed, or looted a number of historic sites.


title: Libya

text: On 11 September 2012, Islamist militants mounted an attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, killing the U.S. ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, and three others. The incident generated outrage in the United States and Libya. On 7 October 2012, Libya's Prime Minister-elect Mustafa A.G. Abushagur was ousted after failing a second time to win parliamentary approval for a new cabinet. On 14 October 2012, the General National Congress elected former GNC member and human rights lawyer Ali Zeidan as prime minister-designate. Zeidan was sworn in after his cabinet was approved by the GNC. On 11 March 2014, after having been ousted by the GNC for his inability to halt a rogue oil shipment, Prime Minister Zeidan stepped down, and was replaced by Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani.


title: Libya

text: The Second Civil War began in May 2014 following fighting between rival parliaments with tribal militias and jihadist groups soon taking advantage of the power vacuum. Most notably, radical Islamist fighters seized Derna in 2014 and Sirte in 2015 in the name of the Islamic State. In February 2015, neighbouring Egypt launched airstrikes against IS in support of the Tobruk government.


title: Libya

text: In June 2014, elections were held to the House of Representatives, a new legislative body intended to take over from the General National Congress. The elections were marred by violence and low turnout, with voting stations closed in some areas. Secularists and liberals did well in the elections, to the consternation of Islamist lawmakers in the GNC, who reconvened and declared a continuing mandate for the GNC, refusing to recognise the new House of Representatives. Armed supporters of the General National Congress occupied Tripoli, forcing the newly elected parliament to flee to Tobruk.


title: Libya

text: In January 2015, meetings were held with the aim to find a peaceful agreement between the rival parties in Libya. The so-called Geneva-Ghadames talks were supposed to bring the GNC and the Tobruk government together at one table to find a solution of the internal conflict. However, the GNC actually never participated, a sign that internal division not only affected the "Tobruk Camp", but also the "Tripoli Camp". Meanwhile, terrorism within Libya steadily increased, also affecting neighbouring countries. The terrorist attack against the Bardo Museum in Tunisia on 18 March 2015 was reportedly carried out by two Libyan-trained militants.


title: Libya

text: During 2015 an extended series of diplomatic meetings and peace negotiations were supported by the United Nations, as conducted by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG), Spanish diplomat Bernardino León. UN support for the SRSG-led process of dialogue carried on in addition to the usual work of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL).


title: Libya

text: In July 2015 SRSG Leon reported to the UN Security Council on the progress of the negotiations, which at that point had just achieved a political agreement on 11 July setting out "a comprehensive framework... includ[ing] guiding principles... institutions and decision-making mechanisms to guide the transition until the adoption of a permanent constitution." The stated purpose of that process was "...intended to culminate in the creation of a modern, democratic state based on the principle of inclusion, the rule of law, separation of powers and respect for human rights." The SRSG praised the participants for achieving agreement, stating that "The Libyan people have unequivocally expressed themselves in favour of peace." The SRSG then informed the Security Council that "Libya is at a critical stage" and urging "all parties in Libya to continue to engage constructively in the dialogue process", stating that "only through dialogue and political compromise, can a peaceful resolution of the conflict be achieved. A peaceful transition will only succeed in Libya through a significant and coordinated effort in supporting a future Government of National Accord...".


title: Libya

text: Talks, negotiations and dialogue continued on during mid-2015 at various international locations, culminating at Skhirat in Morocco in early September.


title: Libya

text: Also in 2015, as part of the ongoing support from the international community, the UN Human Rights Council requested a report about the Libyan situation and the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, established an investigative body (OIOL) to report on human rights and rebuilding the Libyan justice system. Chaos-ridden Libya emerged as a major transit point for people trying to reach Europe. Between 2013 and 2018, nearly 700,000 migrants reached Italy by boat, many of them from Libya.


title: Libya

text: In May 2018 Libya's rival leaders agreed to hold parliamentary and presidential elections following a meeting in Paris. In April 2019, Khalifa Haftar launched Operation Flood of Dignity, in an offensive by the Libyan National Army aimed to seize Western territories from the Government of National Accord (GNA). In June 2019, forces allied to Libya's UN-recognized Government of National Accord successfully captured Gharyan, a strategic town where military commander Khalifa Haftar and his fighters were based. According to a spokesman for GNA forces, Mustafa al-Mejii, dozens of LNA fighters under Haftar were killed, while at least 18 were taken prisoner.


title: Libya

text: In March 2020, UN-backed government of Fayez Al-Sarraj commenced Operation Peace Storm. The government initiated the bid in response to the state of assaults carried by Haftar’s LNA. “We are a legitimate, civilian government that respects its obligations to the international community, but is committed primarily to its people and has an obligation to protect its citizens,” Sarraj said in line with his decision. On 28 August 2020, the "BBC Africa Eye" and "BBC Arabic Documentaries" revealed that a drone operated by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) killed 26 young cadets at a military academy in Tripoli, on 4 January. Most of the cadets were teenagers and none of them were armed. The Chinese-made drone Wing Loong II fired Blue Arrow 7 missile, which was operated from UAE-run Al-Khadim Libyan air base. In February, these drones stationed in Libya were moved to an air base near Siwa in the western Egyptian desert. "The Guardian" probed and discovered the blatant violation of UN arms embargo by the UAE and Turkey on 7 October 2020. As per the reporting, both the nations sent large-scale military cargo planes to Libya in support of their respective parties.


title: Libya

text: In December 2021, the country's first presidential election was scheduled, but was delayed to June 2022 and later postponed further.


title: Libya

text: Fathi Bashagha was appointed prime minister by the parliament in February 2022 to lead a transitional administration, but standing prime minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh refused to hand over power as of April 2022. In protest against the Dbeibah government, tribal leaders from the desert town of Ubari shut down the El Sharara oil field, Libya's largest oil field, on 18 April 2022. The shut down threatened to cause oil shortages domestically in Libya, and preclude the state-run National Oil Corp. from exploiting the high oil prices on the international market resulting from the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. On 2 July, the House of Representatives was burned down by protesters.


title: Libya

text: Libya extends over , making it the 16th largest nation in the world by size. Libya is bound to the north by the Mediterranean Sea, the west by Tunisia and Algeria, the southwest by Niger, the south by Chad, the southeast by Sudan, and the east by Egypt. Libya lies between latitudes 19° and 34°N, and longitudes 9° and 26°E.


title: Libya

text: At , Libya's coastline is the longest of any African country bordering the Mediterranean. The portion of the Mediterranean Sea north of Libya is often called the Libyan Sea. The climate is mostly extremely dry and desertlike in nature. However, the northern regions enjoy a milder Mediterranean climate.


title: Libya

text: Six ecoregions lie within Libya's borders: Saharan halophytics, Mediterranean dry woodlands and steppe, Mediterranean woodlands and forests, North Saharan steppe and woodlands, Tibesti-Jebel Uweinat montane xeric woodlands, and West Saharan montane xeric woodlands.


title: Libya

text: Natural hazards come in the form of hot, dry, dust-laden sirocco (known in Libya as the "gibli"). This is a southern wind blowing from one to four days in spring and autumn. There are also dust storms and sandstorms. Oases can also be found scattered throughout Libya, the most important of which are Ghadames and Kufra. Libya is one of the sunniest and driest countries in the world due to prevailing presence of desert environment.


title: Libya

text: Libya was a pioneer state in North Africa in species protection, with the creation in 1975 of the El Kouf protected area. The fall of Muammar Gaddafi's regime favoured intense poaching: "Before the fall of Gaddafi even hunting rifles were forbidden. But since 2011, poaching has been carried out with weapons of war and sophisticated vehicles in which one can find up to 200 gazelle heads killed by militiamen who hunt to pass the time. We are also witnessing the emergence of hunters with no connection to the tribes that traditionally practice hunting. They shoot everything they find, even during the breeding season. More than 500,000 birds are killed in this way each year, when protected areas have been seized by tribal chiefs who have appropriated them. The animals that used to live there have all disappeared, hunted when they are edible or released when they are not," explains zoologist Khaled Ettaieb.


title: Libya

text: The Libyan Desert, which covers much of Libya, is one of the most arid and sun-baked places on earth. In places, decades may pass without seeing any rainfall at all, and even in the highlands rainfall seldom happens, once every 5–10 years. At Uweinat, the last recorded rainfall was in September 1998.


title: Libya

text: Likewise, the temperature in the Libyan Desert can be extreme; on 13 September 1922, the town of 'Aziziya, which is located southwest of Tripoli, recorded an air temperature of , considered to be a world record. In September 2012, however, the world record figure of 58 °C was determined to be invalid by the World Meteorological Organization.


title: Libya

text: There are a few scattered uninhabited small oases, usually linked to the major depressions, where water can be found by digging to a few feet in depth. In the west there is a widely dispersed group of oases in unconnected shallow depressions, the Kufra group, consisting of Tazerbo, Rebianae and Kufra. Aside from the scarps, the general flatness is only interrupted by a series of plateaus and massifs near the centre of the Libyan Desert, around the convergence of the Egyptian-Sudanese-Libyan borders.


title: Libya

text: Slightly further to the south are the massifs of Arkenu, Uweinat, and Kissu. These granite mountains are ancient, having formed long before the sandstones surrounding them. Arkenu and Western Uweinat are ring complexes very similar to those in the Aïr Mountains. Eastern Uweinat (the highest point in the Libyan Desert) is a raised sandstone plateau adjacent to the granite part further west.


title: Libya

text: The plain to the north of Uweinat is dotted with eroded volcanic features. With the discovery of oil in the 1950s also came the discovery of a massive aquifer underneath much of Libya. The water in the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System pre-dates the last Ice ages and the Sahara Desert itself. This area also contains the Arkenu structures, which were once thought to be two impact craters.


title: Libya

text: The politics of Libya has been in a tumultuous state since the start of the Arab Spring and the NATO intervention related Libyan Crisis in 2011; the crisis resulted in the collapse of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and the killing of Muammar Gaddafi, amidst the First Civil War and the foreign military intervention.


title: Libya

text: The crisis was deepened by the factional violence in the aftermath of the First Civil War, resulting in the outbreak of the Second Civil War in 2014. The control over the country is currently split between the House of Representatives (HoR) in Tobruk and the Government of National Unity (GNU) in Tripoli and their respective supporters, as well as various and tribal elements controlling parts of the country.


title: Libya

text: The former legislature was the General National Congress, which had 200 seats. The General National Congress (2014), a largely unrecognised rival parliament based in the "de jure" capital of Tripoli, claims to be a legal continuation of the GNC.


title: Libya

text: On 7 July 2012, Libyans voted in parliamentary elections, the first free elections in almost 40 years. Around thirty women were elected to become members of parliament. Early results of the vote showed the National Forces Alliance, led by former interim Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril, as front runner. The Justice and Construction Party, affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood, has done less well than similar parties in Egypt and Tunisia. It won 17 out of 80 seats that were contested by parties, but about 60 independents have since joined its caucus.


title: Libya

text: As of January 2013, there was mounting public pressure on the National Congress to set up a drafting body to create a new constitution. Congress had not yet decided whether the members of the body would be elected or appointed.


title: Libya

text: On 30 March 2014, the General National Congress voted to replace itself with a new House of Representatives. The new legislature allocates 30 seats for women, will have 200 seats overall (with individuals able to run as members of political parties) and allows Libyans of foreign nationalities to run for office.


title: Libya

text: Following the 2012 elections, Freedom House improved Libya's rating from Not Free to Partly Free, and now considers the country to be an electoral democracy.


title: Libya

text: Gaddafi merged civil and sharia courts in 1973. Civil courts now employ sharia judges who sit in regular courts of appeal and specialise in sharia appellate cases. Laws regarding personal status are derived from Islamic law.


title: Libya

text: At a meeting of the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs on 2 December 2014, UN Special Representative Bernardino León described Libya as a non-state.


title: Libya

text: An agreement to form a national unity government was signed on 17 December 2015. Under the terms of the agreement, a nine-member Presidency Council and a seventeen-member interim Government of National Accord would be formed, with a view to holding new elections within two years. The House of Representatives would continue to exist as a legislature and an advisory body, to be known as the State Council, will be formed with members nominated by the General National Congress (2014).


title: Libya

text: The formation of an interim unity government was announced on 5 February 2021, after its members were elected by the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF). Seventy four members of the LPDF cast ballots for four-member slates which would fill positions including the Prime Minister and the head of the Presidential Council. After no slates reached a 60% vote threshold, the two leading teams competed in a run-off election. Mohamed al-Menfi, a former ambassador to Greece, became head of the Presidential Council. Meanwhile, the LPDF confirmed that Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, a businessman, would be the transitional Prime Minister. All of the candidates who ran in this election, including the members of the winning slate, promised to appoint women to 30% of all senior government positions. The politicians elected to lead the interim government initially agreed not to stand in the national elections scheduled for 24 December 2021. However, Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh announced his candidature for president despite the ban in November 2021. The Appeals Court in Tripoli rejected appeals for his disqualification, and allowed Dbeibeh back on the candidates' list, along with a number of other disqualified candidates, originally scheduled for December 24. Even more controversially, the court also reinstated Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, a son of the former dictator, as a presidential candidate. On 22 December 2021, Libya's Election Commission called for the postponement of the election until 24 January 2022. Earlier, a parliamentary commission said it would be "impossible" to hold the election on 24 December 2021. The UN called on Libya's interim leaders to "expeditiously address all legal and political obstacles to hold elections, including finalising the list of presidential candidates". However, at the last minute, the election was postponed indefinitely and the international community agreed to continue its support and recognition of the interim government headed by Mr Dbeibeh.


title: Libya

text: According to new election rules, a new prime minister has 21 days to form a cabinet that must be endorsed by the various governing bodies within Libya. After this cabinet is agreed upon, the unity government will replace all "parallel authorities" within Libya, including the Government of National Accord in Tripoli and the administration led by General Haftar.


title: Libya

text: Libya's foreign policies have fluctuated since 1951. As a Kingdom, Libya maintained a definitively pro-Western stance, and was recognized as belonging to the conservative traditionalist bloc in the League of Arab States (the present-day Arab League), of which it became a member in 1953. The government was also friendly towards Western countries such as the United Kingdom, United States, France, Italy, Greece, and established full diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in 1955.


title: Libya

text: Although the government supported Arab causes, including the Moroccan and Algerian independence movements, it took little active part in the Arab-Israeli dispute or the tumultuous inter-Arab politics of the 1950s and early 1960s. The Kingdom was noted for its close association with the West, while it steered a conservative course at home.


title: Libya

text: After the 1969 coup, Muammar Gaddafi closed American and British bases and partly nationalized foreign oil and commercial interests in Libya.


title: Libya

text: Gaddafi was known for backing a number of leaders viewed as anathema to Westernization and political liberalism, including Ugandan President Idi Amin, Central African Emperor Jean-Bédel Bokassa, Ethiopian strongman Haile Mariam Mengistu, Liberian President Charles Taylor, and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević.


title: Libya

text: Relations with the West were strained by a series of incidents for most of Gaddafi's rule, including the killing of London policewoman Yvonne Fletcher, the bombing of a West Berlin nightclub frequented by U.S. servicemen, and the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which led to UN sanctions in the 1990s, though by the late 2000s, the United States and other Western powers had normalised relations with Libya.


title: Libya

text: Gaddafi's decision to abandon the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction after the Iraq War saw Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein overthrown and put on trial led to Libya being hailed as a success for Western soft power initiatives in the War on Terror. In October 2010, Gaddafi apologized to African leaders on behalf of Arab nations for their involvement in the trans-Saharan slave trade.


title: Libya

text: Libya is included in the European Union's European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) which aims at bringing the EU and its neighbours closer. Libyan authorities rejected European Union's plans aimed at stopping migration from Libya. In 2017, Libya signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.


title: Libya

text: Libya's previous national army was defeated in the Libyan Civil War and disbanded. The Tobruk based House of Representatives who claim to be the legitimate government of Libya have attempted to reestablish a military known as the Libyan National Army. Led by Khalifa Haftar, they control much of eastern Libya. In May 2012, an estimated 35,000 personnel had joined its ranks. The internationally recognised Government of National Accord established in 2015 has its own army that replaced the LNA, but it consists largely of undisciplined and disorganised militia groups.


title: Libya

text: As of November 2012, it was deemed to be still in the embryonic stage of development. President Mohammed el-Megarif promised that empowering the army and police force is the government's biggest priority. President el-Megarif also ordered that all of the country's militias must come under government authority or disband.


title: Libya

text: Militias have so far refused to be integrated into a central security force. Many of these militias are disciplined, but the most powerful of them answer only to the executive councils of various Libyan cities. These militias make up the so-called Libyan Shield, a parallel national force, which operates at the request, rather than at the order, of the defence ministry.


title: Libya

text: Historically, the area of Libya was considered three provinces (or states), Tripolitania in the northwest, Barka (Cyrenaica) in the east, and Fezzan in the southwest. It was the conquest by Italy in the Italo-Turkish War that united them in a single political unit.


title: Libya

text: In 2022, 18 provinces were declared by the Libyan Government of National Unity (Observer): the eastern coast, Jabal Al-Akhdar, Al-Hizam, Benghazi, Al-Wahat, Al-Kufra, Al-Khaleej, Al-Margab, Tripoli, Al-Jafara, Al-Zawiya, West Coast, Gheryan, Zintan, Nalut, Sabha, Al-Wadi, and Murzuq Basin.


title: Libya

text: According to Human Rights Watch annual report 2016, journalists are still being targeted by the armed groups in Libya. The organization added that Libya ranked very low in the 2015 Press Freedom Index, 154th out of 180 countries. For the 2021 Press Freedom Index its score dropped to 165th out of 180 countries. Homosexuality is illegal in Libya.


title: Libya

text: The Libyan economy depends primarily upon revenues from the oil sector, which account for over half of GDP and 97% of exports. Libya holds the largest proven oil reserves in Africa and is an important contributor to the global supply of light, sweet crude. During 2010, when oil averaged at $80 a barrel, oil production accounted for 54% of GDP. Apart from petroleum, the other natural resources are natural gas and gypsum. The International Monetary Fund estimated Libya's real GDP growth at 122% in 2012 and 16.7% in 2013, after a 60% plunge in 2011.


title: Libya

text: The World Bank defines Libya as an 'Upper Middle Income Economy', along with only seven other African countries. Substantial revenues from the energy sector, coupled with a small population, give Libya one of the highest per capita GDPs in Africa. This allowed the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya state to provide an extensive level of social security, particularly in the fields of housing and education.


title: Libya

text: Libya faces many structural problems including a lack of institutions, weak governance, and chronic structural unemployment. The economy displays a lack of economic diversification and significant reliance on immigrant labour. Libya has traditionally relied on unsustainably high levels of public sector hiring to create employment. In the mid-2000s, the government employed about 70% of all national employees.


title: Libya

text: Unemployment rose from 8% in 2008 to 21% in 2009, according to the census figures. According to an Arab League report, based on data from 2010, unemployment for women stands at 18% while for the figure for men is 21%, making Libya the only Arab country where there are more unemployed men than women. Libya has high levels of social inequality, high rates of youth unemployment and regional economic disparities. Water supply is also a problem, with some 28% of the population not having access to safe drinking water in 2000.


title: Libya

text: Libya imports up to 90% of its cereal consumption requirements, and imports of wheat in 2012/13 was estimated at 1 million tonnes. The 2012 wheat production was estimated at 200,000 tonnes. The government hopes to increase food production to 800,000 tonnes of cereals by 2020. However, natural and environmental conditions limit Libya's agricultural production potential. Before 1958, agriculture was the country's main source of revenue, making up about 30% of GDP. With the discovery of oil in 1958, the size of the agriculture sector declined rapidly, comprising less than 5% GDP by 2005.


title: Libya

text: The country joined OPEC in 1962. Libya is not a WTO member, but negotiations for its accession started in 2004.


title: Libya

text: In the early 1980s, Libya was one of the wealthiest countries in the world; its GDP per capita was higher than some developed countries.


title: Libya

text: In the early 2000s officials of the Jamahiriya era carried out economic reforms to reintegrate Libya into the global economy. UN sanctions were lifted in September 2003, and Libya announced in December 2003 that it would abandon programs to build weapons of mass destruction. Other steps have included applying for membership of the World Trade Organization, reducing subsidies, and announcing plans for privatization.


title: Libya

text: Authorities privatized more than 100 government owned companies after 2003 in industries including oil refining, tourism and real estate, of which 29 were 100% foreign owned. Many international oil companies returned to the country, including oil giants Shell and ExxonMobil. After sanctions were lifted there was a gradual increase of air traffic, and by 2005 there were 1.5 million yearly air travellers. Libya had long been a notoriously difficult country for Western tourists to visit due to stringent visa requirements.


title: Libya

text: In 2007 Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the second-eldest son of Muammar Gaddafi, was involved in a green development project called the Green Mountain Sustainable Development Area, which sought to bring tourism to Cyrene and to preserve Greek ruins in the area.


title: Libya

text: In August 2011 it was estimated that it would take at least 10 years to rebuild Libya's infrastructure. Even before the 2011 war, Libya's infrastructure was in a poor state due to "utter neglect" by Gaddafi's administration, according to the NTC. By October 2012, the economy had recovered from the 2011 conflict, with oil production returning to near normal levels. Oil production was more than 1.6 million barrels per day before the war. By October 2012, the average oil production has surpassed 1.4 million bpd. The resumption of production was made possible due to the quick return of major Western companies, like TotalEnergies, Eni, Repsol, Wintershall and Occidental. In 2016, an announcement from the company said the company aims 900,000 barrel per day in the next year. Oil production has fallen from 1.6 million barrel per day to 900,000 in four years of war.


title: Libya

text: The Great Man-Made River is the world's largest irrigation project. The project utilizes a pipeline system that pumps fossil water from the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System from down south in Libya to cities in the populous Libyan northern Mediterranean coast including Tripoli and Benghazi. The water provides 70% of all freshwater used in Libya. During the second Libyan civil war, lasting from 2014 to 2020, the water infrastructure suffered neglect and occasional breakdowns.


title: Libya

text: By 2017, 60% of the Libyan population were malnourished. Since then, 1.3 million people are waiting for emergency humanitarian aid, out of a total population of 6.4 million.


title: Libya

text: On 3 October 2022, Libya's Tripoli government signed economic deals with Turkey. The memorandums of understanding were signed by both the countries in Tripoli, paving the way for further bilateral cooperation in the hydrocarbon and oil sectors.


title: Libya

text: Libya is a large country with a relatively small population, and the population is concentrated very narrowly along the coast. Population density is about in the two northern regions of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, but falls to less than elsewhere. Ninety percent of the people live in less than 10% of the area, primarily along the coast.


title: Libya

text: About 88% of the population is urban, mostly concentrated in the three largest cities, Tripoli, Benghazi and Misrata. Libya has a population of about /1e6 round 1 million, 27.7% of whom are under the age of 15. In 1984 the population was 3.6 million, an increase from the 1.54 million reported in 1964.


title: Libya

text: The majority of the Libyan population today identifies as Arab, that is, Arabic-speaking and Arab-cultured. Berber Libyans, those who retain Berber language and Berber culture, represent the second largest ethnic group and are found primarily in Nafusa Mountains and Zuwarah. Additionally, the South of Libya, primarily Sebha, Kufra, Ghat, Ghadamis and Murzuk, are also inhabited by two additional Libyan ethnicities: the Tuareg and Toubou. There are about 140 tribes and clans in Libya.


title: Libya

text: Family life is important for Libyan families, the majority of which live in apartment blocks and other independent housing units, with precise modes of housing depending on their income and wealth. Although the Arab Libyans traditionally lived nomadic lifestyles in tents, they have now settled in various towns and cities.


title: Libya

text: Because of this, their old ways of life are gradually fading out. An unknown small number of Libyans still live in the desert as their families have done for centuries. Most of the population has occupations in industry and services, and a small percentage is in agriculture.


title: Libya

text: According to the UNHCR, there were around 8,000 registered refugees, 5,500 unregistered refugees, and 7,000 asylum seekers of various origins in Libya in January 2013. Additionally, 47,000 Libyan nationals were internally displaced and 46,570 were internally displaced returnees.


title: Libya

text: In 2010, spending on healthcare accounted for 3.88% of the country's GDP. In 2009, there were 18.71 physicians and 66.95 nurses per 10,000 inhabitants. The life expectancy at birth was 74.95 years in 2011, or 72.44 years for males and 77.59 years for females.


title: Libya

text: Libya's population includes 1.7 million students, over 270,000 of whom study at the tertiary level. Basic education in Libya is free for all citizens, and is compulsory up to the secondary level. The adult literacy rate in 2010 was 89.2%.


title: Libya

text: After Libya's independence in 1951, its first university – the University of Libya – was established in Benghazi by royal decree. In the 1975–76 academic year the number of university students was estimated to be 13,418. , this number has increased to more than 200,000, with an extra 70,000 enrolled in the higher technical and vocational sector. The rapid increase in the number of students in the higher education sector has been mirrored by an increase in the number of institutions of higher education.


title: Libya

text: Since 1975 the number of universities has grown from two to nine and after their introduction in 1980, the number of higher technical and vocational institutes currently stands at 84 (with 12 public universities). Since 2007 some new private universities such as the Libyan International Medical University have been established. Although before 2011 a small number of private institutions were given accreditation, the majority of Libya's higher education has always been financed by the public budget. In 1998 the budget allocation for education represented 38.2% of Libya's total national budget.


title: Libya

text: The original inhabitants of Libya belonged predominantly to various Berber ethnic groups; however, the long series of foreign invasions and migrations – particularly by Arabs and Turks – have had a profound and lasting linguistic, cultural, and identity influence on Libya's demographics.


title: Libya

text: Today, the great majority of Libya's inhabitants are Arabic-speaking Muslims of mixed descent, with many claiming ancestry tracing to Bedouin Arab tribes like Banu Sulaym and Banu Hilal, beside Turkish and Berber ethnicities. The Turkish minority are often called "Kouloughlis" and are concentrated in and around villages and towns. Additionally, there are some Libyan ethnic minorities, such as the Berber Tuareg and the Black African Tebou.


title: Libya

text: Most Italian settlers, at their height numbering over half a million, left after Italian Libya's independence in 1947. More repatriated in 1970 after the accession of Muammar Gaddafi, but a few hundred of them returned in the 2000s.


title: Libya

text: , the UN estimates that around 12% of Libya's population (upwards of 740,000 people) was made up of foreign migrants. Prior to the 2011 revolution official and unofficial figures of migrant labour range from 25% to 40% of the population (between 1.5 and 2.4 million people). Historically, Libya has been a host state for millions of low- and high-skilled Egyptian migrants, in particular.


title: Libya

text: It is difficult to estimate the total number of immigrants in Libya as there are often differences between census figures, official counts and usually more accurate unofficial estimates. In the 2006 census, around 359,540 foreign nationals were resident in Libya out of a population of over 5.5 million (6.35% of the population). Almost half of these were Egyptians, followed by Sudanese and Palestinian immigrants.


title: Libya

text: During the 2011 revolution, 768,362 immigrants fled Libya as calculated by the IOM, around 13% of the population at the time, although many more stayed on in the country.


title: Libya

text: If consular records prior to the revolution are used to estimate the immigrant population, as many as 2 million Egyptian migrants were recorded by the Egyptian embassy in Tripoli in 2009, followed by 87,200 Tunisians, and 68,200 Moroccans by their respective embassies. Turkey recorded the evacuation of 25,000 workers during the 2011 uprising. The number of Asian migrants before the revolution were just over 100,000 (60,000 Bangladeshis, 20,000 Filipinos, 18,000 Indians, 10,000 Pakistanis, as well as Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai and other workers). This would put the immigrant population at almost 40% before the revolution and is a figure more consistent with government estimates in 2004 which put the regular and irregular migrant numbers at 1.35 to 1.8 million (25–33% of the population at the time).


title: Libya

text: Libya's native population of Arabs-Berbers as well as Arab migrants of various nationalities collectively make up 97% of the population .


title: Libya

text: According to the CIA, the official language of Libya is Arabic. The local Libyan Arabic variety is spoken alongside Modern Standard Arabic. Various Berber languages are also spoken, including Tamasheq, Ghadamis, Nafusi, Suknah and Awjilah. The Libyan Amazigh High Council (LAHC) has declared the Amazigh (Berber or Tamazight) language as an official language in the cities and districts inhabited by the Berbers in Libya.


title: Libya

text: In addition, English is widely understood in the major cities, while the former colonial language of Italian is also used in commerce and by remaining Italian population.


title: Libya

text: About 97% of the population in Libya are Muslims, most of whom belong to the Sunni branch. Small numbers of Ibadi Muslims live in the country.


title: Libya

text: Before the 1930s, the Senussi Sunni Sufi movement was the primary Islamic movement in Libya. This was a religious revival adapted to desert life. Its "zawaaya" (lodges) were found in Tripolitania and Fezzan, but Senussi influence was strongest in Cyrenaica. Rescuing the region from unrest and anarchy, the Senussi movement gave the Cyrenaican tribal people a religious attachment and feelings of unity and purpose. This Islamic movement was eventually destroyed by the Italian invasion. Gaddafi asserted that he was a devout Muslim, and his government was taking a role in supporting Islamic institutions and in worldwide proselytising on behalf of Islam.


title: Libya

text: Since the fall of Gaddafi, ultra-conservative strains of Islam have reasserted themselves in places. Derna in eastern Libya, historically a hotbed of jihadist thought, came under the control of militants aligned with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in 2014. Jihadist elements have also spread to Sirte and Benghazi, among other areas, as a result of the Second Libyan Civil War.


title: Libya

text: There are small foreign communities of Christians. Coptic Orthodox Christianity, which is the Christian Church of Egypt, is the largest and most historical Christian denomination in Libya. There are about 60,000 Egyptian Copts in Libya. There are three Coptic Churches in Libya, one in Tripoli, one in Benghazi, and one in Misurata.


title: Libya

text: The Coptic Church has grown in recent years in Libya, due to the growing immigration of Egyptian Copts to Libya. There are an estimated 40,000 Roman Catholics in Libya who are served by two Bishops, one in Tripoli (serving the Italian community) and one in Benghazi (serving the Maltese community). There is also a small Anglican community, made up mostly of African immigrant workers in Tripoli; it is part of the Anglican Diocese of Egypt. People have been arrested on suspicion of being Christian missionaries, as proselytising is illegal. Christians have also faced the threat of violence from radical Islamists in some parts of the country, with a well-publicised video released by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in February 2015 depicting the mass beheading of Christian Copts. Libya is number four on Open Doors’ 2022 World Watch List, an annual ranking of the 50 countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution.


title: Libya

text: Libya was once the home of one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world, dating back to at least 300 BC. In 1942, the Italian Fascist authorities set up forced labor camps south of Tripoli for the Jews, including Giado (about 3,000 Jews), Gharyan, Jeren, and Tigrinna. In Giado some 500 Jews died of weakness, hunger, and disease. In 1942, Jews who were not in the concentration camps were heavily restricted in their economic activity and all men between 18 and 45 years were drafted for forced labor. In August 1942, Jews from Tripolitania were interned in a concentration camp at Sidi Azaz. In the three years after November 1945, more than 140 Jews were murdered, and hundreds more wounded, in a series of pogroms. By 1948, about 38,000 Jews remained in the country. Upon Libya's independence in 1951, most of the Jewish community emigrated.


title: Libya

text: Many Arabic speaking Libyans consider themselves as part of a wider Arab community. This was strengthened by the spread of Pan-Arabism in the mid-20th century, and their reach to power in Libya where they instituted Arabic as the only official language of the state. Under Gaddafi's rule, the teaching and even use of indigenous Berber language was strictly forbidden. In addition to banning foreign languages previously taught in academic institutions, leaving entire generations of Libyans with limitations in their comprehension of the English language. Both the spoken Arabic dialects and Berber, still retain words from Italian, that were acquired before and during the "Libia Italiana" period.


title: Libya

text: Libyans have a heritage in the traditions of the previously nomadic Bedouin Arabic speakers and sedentary Berber tribes. Most Libyans associate themselves with a particular family name originating from tribal or conquest based heritage.


title: Libya

text: Reflecting the "nature of giving" ( "", Berber languages: ⴰⵏⴰⴽⴽⴰⴼ Anakkaf ), amongst the Libyan people as well as the sense of hospitality, recently the state of Libya made it to the top 20 on the world giving index in 2013. According to CAF, in a typical month, almost three-quarters (72%) of all Libyans helped somebody they did not know – the third highest level across all 135 countries surveyed.


title: Libya

text: There are few theaters or art galleries due to the decades of cultural repression under the Qaddafi regime and lack of infrastructure development under the regime of dictatorship. For many years there have been no public theaters, and only very few cinemas showing foreign films. The tradition of folk culture is still alive and well, with troupes performing music and dance at frequent festivals, both in Libya and abroad.


title: Libya

text: A large number of Libyan television stations are devoted to political review, Islamic topics and cultural phenomena. A number of TV stations air various styles of traditional Libyan music. Tuareg music and dance are popular in Ghadames and the south. Libyan television broadcasts air programs mostly in Arabic though usually have time slots for English and French programs. A 1996 analysis by the Committee to Protect Journalists found Libya's media was the most tightly controlled in the Arab world during the country's dictatorship. hundreds of TV stations have begun to air due to the collapse of censorship from the old regime and the initiation of "free media".


title: Libya

text: Many Libyans frequent the country's beach and they also visit Libya's archaeological sites—especially Leptis Magna, which is widely considered to be one of the best preserved Roman archaeological sites in the world. The most common form of public transport between cities is the bus, though many people travel by automobile. There are no railway services in Libya, but these are planned for construction in the near future (see rail transport in Libya).


title: Libya

text: Libya's capital, Tripoli, has many museums and archives. These include the Government Library, the Ethnographic Museum, the Archaeological Museum, the National Archives, the Epigraphy Museum and the Islamic Museum. The Red Castle Museum located in the capital near the coast and right in the city center, built in consultation with UNESCO, may be the country's most famous.


title: Libya

text: Libyan cuisine is a mixture of the different Italian, Bedouin and traditional Arab culinary influences. Pasta is the staple food in the Western side of Libya, whereas rice is generally the staple food in the east.


title: Libya

text: Common Libyan foods include several variations of red (tomato) sauce based pasta dishes (similar to the Italian Sugo all'arrabbiata dish); rice, usually served with lamb or chicken (typically stewed, fried, grilled, or boiled in-sauce); and couscous, which is steam cooked whilst held over boiling red (tomato) sauce and meat (sometimes also containing courgettes/zucchini and chickpeas), which is typically served along with cucumber slices, lettuce and olives.


title: Libya

text: Bazeen, a dish made from barley flour and served with red tomato sauce, is customarily eaten communally, with several people sharing the same dish, usually by hand. This dish is commonly served at traditional weddings or festivities. Asida is a sweet version of Bazeen, made from white flour and served with a mix of honey, ghee or butter. Another favorite way to serve Asida is with rub (fresh date syrup) and olive oil. Usban is animal tripe stitched and stuffed with rice and vegetables cooked in tomato based soup or steamed. Shurba is a red tomato sauce-based soup, usually served with small grains of pasta.


title: Libya

text: A very common snack eaten by Libyans is known as "khubs bi' tun", literally meaning "bread with tuna fish", usually served as a baked baguette or pita bread stuffed with tuna fish that has been mixed with harissa (chili sauce) and olive oil. Many snack vendors prepare these sandwiches and they can be found all over Libya. Libyan restaurants may serve international cuisine, or may serve simpler fare such as lamb, chicken, vegetable stew, potatoes and macaroni. Due to severe lack of infrastructure, many under-developed areas and small towns do not have restaurants and instead food stores may be the only source to obtain food products. Alcohol consumption is illegal in the entire country.


title: Libya

text: There are four main ingredients of traditional Libyan food: olives (and olive oil), dates, grains and milk. Grains are roasted, ground, sieved and used for making bread, cakes, soups and bazeen. Dates are harvested, dried and can be eaten as they are, made into syrup or slightly fried and eaten with bsisa and milk. After eating, Libyans often drink black tea. This is normally repeated a second time (for the second glass of tea), and in the third round of tea, it is served with roasted peanuts or roasted almonds known as "shay bi'l-luz" (mixed with the tea in the same glass).


title: Libya

text: Football is the most popular sport in Libya. The country hosted the 1982 African Cup of Nations and almost qualified for the 1986 FIFA World Cup. The national team almost won the 1982 AFCON; they lost to Ghana on penalties 7–6. In 2014, Libya won the African Nations Championship after beating Ghana in the finals. Although the national team has never won a major competition or qualified for a World Cup, there is still lots of passion for the sport and the quality of football is improving.


title: Libya

text: Horse racing is also a popular sport in Libya. It is a tradition of many special occasions and holiday, Libyan horse riders always win first places in horse and equestrian races worldwide.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (or simply El Camino) is a 2019 American crime thriller film. Part of the "Breaking Bad" franchise, it serves as a sequel and epilogue to the television series "Breaking Bad". It continues the story of Jesse Pinkman, who partnered with former teacher Walter White throughout the series to build a crystal meth empire based in Albuquerque. Series creator Vince Gilligan wrote, directed, and produced "El Camino"; Aaron Paul reprised his role as Jesse Pinkman. Several "Breaking Bad" actors also reprised their roles, including Jesse Plemons, Krysten Ritter, Charles Baker, Matt Jones, Robert Forster, Jonathan Banks, and Bryan Cranston. Forster died on the day of "El Camino"s release, making the film one of his final on-screen appearances.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: Gilligan began considering the story of "El Camino" while writing "Breaking Bad"s series finale. He approached Paul with the idea for the film in 2017, near the tenth anniversary of the show's premiere, and completed the script several months later. Principal photography began in secret in New Mexico in November 2018, lasting nearly 50 days. The project remained unconfirmed until Netflix released a trailer on August 24, 2019.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: "El Camino" received a digital release on Netflix and a limited theatrical run on October 11, 2019, with an AMC television premiere on February 16, 2020. It drew positive reviews from critics, who praised the performances of Paul and Plemons, as well as Gilligan's direction. The film garnered several award nominations, winning Best Movie Made for Television at the Critics' Choice Television Awards and Best Motion Picture Made for Television at the Satellite Awards. "El Camino" additionally gained four nominations at the Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards for Outstanding Television Movie and other technical categories.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: In a flashback to shortly before they leave Walter White's meth business, Jesse Pinkman asks Mike Ehrmantraut where he would go to start over. Mike says if he were younger, he would go to Alaska, which appeals to Jesse. Jesse expresses the desire to make amends for past wrongdoing, but Mike cautions that starting over would make that impossible.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: In the present, Jesse flees the Brotherhood compound in Todd Alquist's El Camino. He goes to the Albuquerque home of Skinny Pete and Badger, who hide the car and give Jesse a place to sleep. The next morning, Jesse calls Old Joe to dispose of the El Camino, but Joe leaves after discovering its LoJack. Pete devises a plan to make it appear Jesse fled after trading the El Camino for Pete's Ford Thunderbird. Pete and Badger give Jesse the money Walter gave them, and Badger drives south in the Thunderbird so it appears Jesse is headed to Mexico. Pete stays with the El Camino and waits for the police to respond to the LoJack. Jesse departs in Badger's Pontiac Fiero. He learns from the radio news of Walter's potentially fatal poisoning of a woman, and of Walter's death.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: In a flashback to Jesse's captivity, Todd takes Jesse to Todd's apartment to help dispose of his cleaning lady, whom he killed after she discovered his hidden money. They sidestep Lou Schanzer, Todd's busybody neighbor, and bury the corpse in the Painted Desert. Jesse briefly holds the pistol Todd left unsecured, but Todd talks him into returning it.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: In the present, Jesse sneaks into Todd's apartment and searches for Todd's new hiding place. Moments after Jesse finds it, policemen Neil Kandy and Casey enter and begin searching. Jesse hides but holds Casey at gunpoint after Casey finds him. Neil disarms Jesse, who realizes they are not police but thugs also looking for Todd's money. To save himself, Jesse reveals he found the cash. Lou reports finding an old note from Todd, and Casey distracts him by feigning interest. Neil and Jesse bargain over the cash and Neil lets Jesse take a third. As they depart, Jesse recognizes Neil as the welder who built the tether that held him while he was forced to cook meth for the Brotherhood.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: Jesse finds Ed Galbraith, the "disappearer", who wants US$125,000 to aid Jesse, plus $125,000 for the previous occasion when Jesse hired him but failed to commit. Jesse is $1,800 short and Ed refuses to help. Knowing they are being surveilled, Jesse calls his parents and feigns willingness to surrender. After his parents and the police depart, Jesse sneaks into the Pinkman home and takes two pistols from his father's safe, a Colt Woodsman and an Iver Johnson Hammerless.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: Jesse drives to Neil's shop, where Neil, Casey, and three friends celebrate with escorts and cocaine. After the escorts leave, he asks for $1,800, and Neil refuses. Seeing the Woodsman in Jesse's waistband, Neil challenges Jesse to a duel for his share of the cash. Jesse agrees, and when Neil reaches for his gun, Jesse shoots him with the Hammerless, which was concealed in his jacket pocket. Casey fires at Jesse, but Jesse kills him with Neil's gun. Jesse collects the driver's licenses of the remaining men and lets them leave after threatening to return and kill them if they tell the police. He recovers Neil's cash and departs after setting an explosion to cover his tracks.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: In a flashback, Walter and Jesse have breakfast after a multi-day meth cook. Estimating they will make more than $1 million, Walter laments having waited his entire life to do something special and calls Jesse lucky since he will not have to wait.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: In the present, Ed drops Jesse off at a car parked near Haines, Alaska. Jesse gives Ed a letter for Brock Cantillo and acknowledges he does not want to say goodbye to anyone else. Driving off, Jesse has a flashback to his time with Jane Margolis. He tells her he admires what she said about going wherever the universe takes her, but she dismisses it as metaphorical and encourages him to make his own decisions. Jesse drives on, smiling at the prospect of a new life.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: While "El Camino"s plot focuses on Jesse Pinkman escaping to Alaska, writer and director Vince Gilligan stated that thematically, the film centers on Jesse's transformation from a boy to a man. As Jesse spent the entirety of "Breaking Bad" as Walter White's partner, "El Camino" in contrast shows Jesse coming to terms with his past and making his own decisions, free of White's influence. This theme is prevalent in the flashbacks that bookend "El Camino", with Mike Ehrmantraut at the beginning, and Walter White and Jane Margolis at the end. Alan Sepinwall of "Rolling Stone" detailed that while these scenes serve as a reminder of who Jesse used to be and all that he lost, "all three flashbacks are also about the way that Jesse has been forced by tragic circumstance to grow up and think more about his place in the universe and the impact he has on others. And they're about setting him on the road where Ed [Galbraith] leaves him at the film's conclusion". Aaron Paul described his character Jesse as someone who went through "hell and back multiple times" and is still "paying for those sins", but Donna Bowman of "The A.V. Club" remarked that in freeing his ambitions from Walter White's manipulations, Jesse found his own redemption and avoided his mentor's fate, finally giving himself a chance for a future.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: The opening flashback with Jesse and Mike also sets the theme of Jesse wanting to start over while also making things right with his past. Though Mike warned that starting over would make it impossible to make amends, Jesse repays several emotional debts from the series with rectifying gestures throughout the film: giving a proper goodbye to his friends Badger and Skinny Pete, apologizing to his parents one last time, getting revenge against Neil Kandy and Casey, paying back his (literal) debt to Ed Galbraith, and sending his farewell letter of apology to Brock Cantillo. Placing his own analysis on Jesse's final duel with Neil, Gilligan interpreted the scene as more than just Jesse getting the cash he needed for his escape, but also as a way of "exorcising demons" that plagued him from the events of the series. Both Gilligan and Paul speculated Jesse would still be haunted by these demons, even in his new life in Alaska, but he at least achieved some form of vengeance for his past by ridding the world of an evil person.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: "Breaking Bad" was often categorized as a contemporary Western; this theme is also present in "El Camino". Gilligan expressed his admiration for director Sergio Leone and his love for the Western genrehe originally wanted to film "Breaking Bad" in the CinemaScope format Leone used for the "Dollars Trilogy" and got his wish in "El Camino". Critics noted the duel between Jesse and Neil as being directly in the style of Western films. Gilligan referenced "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" and other classic gunfights to sequence the scene with comparable camera coverage techniques, likewise composer Dave Porter used Western elements in the scene's score. Ben Travers of "IndieWire" traced the film's Western influences to its "sweeping landscapes, lone survivor, and final stand-off", while Matt Zoller Seitz of "Vulture" called "El Camino"s title "unabashedly Western-tinged" and cited the final shot's lack of overt sentimentality as being true to the spirit of classic Westerns.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: Vince Gilligan, the creator and showrunner of "Breaking Bad", had the idea for "El Camino" while writing the series finale "Felina". He asked himself what happened to Jesse Pinkman after the events of the episode when Jesse escaped from the neo-Nazis' compound after being rescued by Walter White. Though he kept Jesse's fate ambiguous in the finale's script, during interviews Gilligan offered two possible futures: a more realistic one where the police caught him a few miles from the compound, and a second, more optimistic one where Jesse got away but still had to cope with the terrible things he witnessed throughout the series.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: In the intervening years, Gilligan toyed with both approaches. One early idea involved Jesse hiding close to the Canadian border, getting lured back into crime to help a young woman in the town. This version ended with Jesse in a jail cell in the concluding scene, imprisoned yet at peace for the first time. Gilligan's girlfriend Holly Rice advised against this ending, saying fans would not appreciate seeing Jesse incarcerated after all he had been through. He received similar feedback when separately pitching ideas for the film with the writing staff of "Better Call Saul", a "Breaking Bad" spin-off also created by Gilligan that still aired at the time. The staff featured many writers from the original series; Gilligan originally served as co-showrunner during the early seasons before leaving the writers room to focus on other projects. They also objected to this ending because they planned on using a similar idea for the series finale of "Better Call Saul", which was still to come many years later, and felt this conclusion fit their story better than Jesse's. After the negative reception to the concept of Jesse getting caught by authorities, Gilligan subsequently went with the storyline of Jesse escaping to Alaska.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: The original idea for continuing Jesse Pinkman's story began as a short film or "mini-episode" of about 15 to 20 minutes. Realizing a short would not be cost-effective, Gilligan opted to make a full-length feature film. Early on, Gilligan received a suggestion to alter his proposed titlehe initially thought about calling the project "'63", referring to its unofficial status as the 63rd episode of "Breaking Bad". During the meeting when Gilligan pitched story ideas with the "Better Call Saul" staff, writer and executive producer Thomas Schnauz advised him to change the title to let the film stand on its own from the original series. Schnauz reasoned that "Breaking Bad" essentially focused on Walter White's story, whereas the film and its title should be unique to reflect that they centered on Jesse Pinkman. Gilligan agreed and eventually settled on the title "El Camino", referring to the car Jesse drives away with in "Felina".


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: Near the tenth anniversary of "Breaking Bad"s premiere, Gilligan started sharing the idea with former cast and crew members as a means to celebrate the milestone. Aaron Paul, who portrayed Jesse in the series, affirmed that around this time, he received a phone call from Gilligan, who hinted at a return for his character. Paul initially believed this meant a cameo on "Better Call Saul", which was a prequel to "Breaking Bad". Gilligan then revealed his intentions to continue Jesse's story after the events of the series, much to Paul's excitement. Though he thought "Breaking Bad" concluded satisfyingly, Paul still felt attached to the character of Jesse Pinkman; fans regularly asked him of Jesse's whereabouts and he occasionally wondered about Jesse's fate himself. At the end of the conversation, Paul showed eagerness to be involved with any idea Gilligan had for a "Breaking Bad" continuation.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: Gilligan presented Paul with a completed screenplay seven months after proposing his idea. Paul spent three hours in Gilligan's office going over the script and almost instantly felt able to pick up on Jesse's mindset and emotional beats. Following his initial read-through, Paul said he was so impressed with the screenplay that he felt speechless. He likened his reaction from his first reading of "El Camino" to his response from his first reading of "Felina", and lauded Gilligan for approaching the script with caution and care. Once he was finished with the screenplay, Paul continued to express happiness and excitement for the film, which he called a "love letter" to Jesse and "Breaking Bad"s fans.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: Though Gilligan had been involved with feature-length films before, "El Camino" would be the first he directed and produced. While he considered the concept of a sequel film for an extended period after "Breaking Bad"s conclusion, Gilligan stated he likely would not have been able to make it had "Better Call Saul" been unsuccessful. When Gilligan made his initial film pitch to Sony Pictures Television, the studio behind both "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul", the executives in the room quickly agreed to come on board. With his script in hand, Gilligan then selectively shopped the film to a few potential distributors, settling on Netflix and AMC due to their history with the show. Gilligan intended for "El Camino" to have a theatrical release, which Netflix previously provided for some of "Breaking Bad"s season premieres. "El Camino"s unspecified budget surpassed the $6 million budget per episode by the end of the show's final season.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: Unlike most of his work from "The X-Files", "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul", where he collaborated with a writers room to develop his scripts and meet his deadlines, Gilligan wrote the film's screenplay alone until he felt it was ready to present. Regarding "El Camino" as a coda to "Breaking Bad", Gilligan believed the film would primarily appeal to fans and would not be as enjoyable to those who had not watched the series. This influenced his decision to write it as a direct continuation rather than inserting exposition scenes to try to attract new viewers. He felt "El Camino" could be seen independently from both "Breaking Bad" and its spinoff "Better Call Saul", similarly to how the two series could be seen independently from one another. However, he also believed the three works existed together in a larger framework, and that viewers needed to watch all of them together to receive the full experience.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: When thinking of which "Breaking Bad" characters to use for "El Camino", Gilligan considered bringing back Skyler White, Walter Jr., Hank and Marie Schrader, Gus Fring, and Saul Goodman but could not find a way to incorporate them into Jesse's story. An early concept included bringing back Uncle Jack as a ghost that goaded Jesse throughout his journey, but Gilligan discarded this idea as too dreary as he felt Jesse already suffered enough. Of the characters he ended up using, Gilligan felt most excited to bring back the sociopathic Todd Alquist, as he maintained fascination with the character and wished he could have been further explored on the series. Jesse Plemons, who portrayed Todd, expressed surprise at his deceased character's sizable role upon first reading the script, and described his portion of the film as Todd, free from supervision of his elders, having his best day. He also likened his scenes with Jesse to a dark buddy comedy.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: With Todd and the rest of the neo-Nazi gang canonically dead at the end of "Felina", Gilligan felt the film needed a new villain to introduce conflict for Jesse in the present storyline. For this reason, Gilligan created the character Neil Kandy, who he labeled "Nazi-adjacent" due to his prior business dealings with the gang. He also described Neil as being more sociopathic than Todd, saying it would take someone of Neil's caliber to create the dog run that physically tethered Jesse without asking too many questions or even caring about Jesse's condition. Gilligan worried about introducing a new character not seen in "Breaking Bad", but also called it "Drama 101" to include Neil as he gave Jesse a villain he could prevail against and provided the film with more visceral flair.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: Gilligan would keep the "Better Call Saul" writers room involved throughout "El Camino"s production, including during the writing process. This was to not only ensure the two projects' continuity did not interfere with one another but to also take in suggestions to improve his screenplay. Upon completion of his first draft, Gilligan immediately sought the advice of Peter Gould, who developed "Better Call Saul" with Gilligan and became its sole showrunner after Gilligan reduced his own role in the series. The decision to bring Jane Margolis into the story resulted from this consultation, as the initial script did not include the character. After Gould read the first draft, he advised that Jane could appear in the ending, "where it would mean the most to the audience". Gilligan thought about the suggestion for a couple of weeks and eventually agreed. He incorporated the idea into his script, and Jane ultimately delivered the final lines of "El Camino". Krysten Ritter, who reprised the role in the film, called the ending with her character "so beautiful" as it "sent Jesse off into the sunset with Jane riding shotgun ... He was going to be okay, and she was there with him".


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: One of the biggest elements removed in later drafts was the very first thing Gilligan wrote for the script: the contents of Jesse's letter to Brock. Gilligan planned on having it read in voice-over while Jesse drove through Alaska in the final scene; Paul described it as "the most honest, beautiful, caring letter imaginablereally, just pouring his heart out and saying he's sorry". While the "Better Call Saul" staff praised the letter's contents, Gould and several others felt it would be better left to the audience's imagination to determine what Jesse wrote. Gilligan subsequently decided not to use the letter to conclude Jesse's story, and the voice-over would never end up being recorded. Paul agreed with Gilligan's decision but mentioned he felt "crushed" it did not appear in the final cut. He retained possession of the letter after filming finished and shared his hopes that the letter's contents will eventually be revealed to the public.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: Gilligan wrote the scene of Walter and Jesse sitting in the diner in a light-hearted tone, with the intention of providing one last chance to see the two characters together as a final treat for the fans. Producer Melissa Bernstein suggested adding a bit more poignancy to the scene to let it resonate further with the audience. Gilligan left most of the scene from the original script intact, but he and Bernstein came up with the line "You're really lucky, you know that? That you didn't have to wait your whole life to do something special", tying the scene to "El Camino"s theme of Jesse finally taking control of his life.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: Under the working title "Greenbrier", a majority of the filming occurred in Albuquerque, New Mexico from November 2018 to February 2019, with the overall shoot lasting 50 days. "El Camino" had a more relaxed shooting pace than "Breaking Bad", with only one-and-a-half to three pages of script filmed per day as opposed to six to eight. This less-pressured schedule gave the actors more opportunities to improvise on set while providing the crew members additional time to film a wider variety of shots and further camera coverage. Gilligan felt the slower pace allowed him to reflect and feel a greater sense of finality for his creation whilst filming.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: Despite not portraying their characters since the show's ending several years prior, cast members felt at ease reprising their former roles. Paul filmed his scenes without any rehearsals, as he felt he could easily access Jesse's emotions the same way he could on the series. He likened his reprisal as Jesse to zipping on an old friend. "El Camino" also used many of the same crew members who held their roles since the pilot of "Breaking Bad", as several carried over to "Better Call Saul" when the show concluded. The first thing filmed for "El Camino" was the scene where Jesse shows up at Badger and Skinny Pete's house and collapses into bed; Paul compared his first day of shooting with Gilligan, Matt Jones, Charles Baker and the show's former crew members to a family reunion.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: During principal photography, production nearly decided to forgo filming the shot of Jesse picking up a beetle outside of Neil Kandy's office, citing scheduling constraints. Paul remained adamant in capturing the moment, citing it as a key insight into Jesse's frame of mind. The crew relented and filmed the scene in one take.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: "El Camino" used a 2.39 widescreen aspect ratio on the Arri Alexa 65 camera to capture the work in a cinematic manner. Gilligan and cinematographer Marshall Adams specifically chose the Alexa 65 for its quality in low-light filming, which the film heavily featured. Using this camera also meant "El Camino" would be shot digitally, as opposed to "Breaking Bad" which shot on 35 mm movie film. Production designer Judy Rhee noted that Gilligan took advantage of his lens and wider aspect ratio to create a more visually luxurious experience than the series, letting the wide vista shots help meet "El Camino"s plot beats rather than employing more economic options commonly used for television. Adams agreed with this opinion, citing as an example the vast and empty space of the Painted Desert underscoring Jesse's lonely and hopeless state in Todd's captivity.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: Gilligan wanted "El Camino"s cinematography to maintain the naturalistic look used on "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul" while also expanding it. Adams specified this as the "realistic, practical-driven looks for night exteriors and low-light interiors that embraced all the colors and looks of Albuquerque" that he used on "Better Call Saul". By combining the Alexa 65 with Arri Prime DNA lenses, Adams could capture low-light efficiently, control depth of field, and also maintain color contrast and balance. Adams graded "El Camino"s color palette with DaVinci Resolve; he did not let "Breaking Bad" dictate which colors he used and opted to make a palette specific to the film. To help receive dailies, production used FotoKem, who did the same work on both "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul". The crew delivered footage with requested color changes to on-site FotoKem members, who then applied the changes to get the dailies out fairly quickly for Adams' review.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: Adams saw "El Camino" as a way to pay homage to original "Breaking Bad" cinematographer Michael Slovis. Though Adams took over as director of photography during the third season of "Better Call Saul", he previously filmed pick-ups with Slovis during the end of "Breaking Bad"s fourth season and served as cinematographer during the show's fifth season premiere. For "El Camino", Adams took great lengths to match Slovis' lensing from the series while modifying it for the film's digital format and larger aspect ratio. He specified the opening of Jesse driving out of the compound as one scene he updated using this approach, likening it to a "direct cut" from Jesse's last appearance in "Breaking Bad"s finale. Adams applied the same principle for other scenes which used locations from the series, such as the compound and the vacuum store.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: To distinguish the flashback scenes from the ones set in the present, Gilligan decided against using different color saturation. He instead chose to have flashbacks filmed in a "handheld" look while having the present-day scenes more anchored and locked down. The fact that much of "Breaking Bad" used handheld filming inspired this decision. With the Alexa 65 camera too large to carry while filming, Gilligan achieved the "wiggling" effect by placing the camera on top of a truck airbag, which could be inflated and deflated easily between two plastic plates.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: Filming primarily occurred at Albuquerque Studios, where both "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul" were shot, along with other locations throughout the city. Wireless microphones would be planted throughout the sets and on the actors to record natural ambient noise and dialogue while shooting, as Gilligan preferred using organic sounds over applying ADR during post-production.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: Notable new sets built in the studio included Todd's apartment and the welding shop where Jesse's final confrontation with Neil Kandy and Casey took place. For the first, Rhee, who worked as the production designer on "Better Call Saul"s fourth season, arranged the set to reflect the duality of Todd's character. The initial living room seemed sunny, meticulous, and clean, reflective of Todd's exterior "Boy Scout" personality, and appeared decorated with a childlike Easter egg palette to give a sense of his arrested development. However, the set's palette became darker going further into his bedroom, indicative of Todd's sociopathic tendencies. Plemons likened the apartment set to looking inside Todd's brain, describing absolute chaos beneath the apparent order on the surface. Rhee also designed the dimensions of the apartment set to fit "El Camino"s aspect ratio when shooting overhead. In doing this, Gilligan could create the shot of Jesse searching for Todd's money in several different rooms simultaneously. For the welding shop, Rhee wanted to maintain the accuracy of how a welding business appeared and match its exterior location, but also designed the set for the scene's stunt choreography and necessary camera blocking. Rhee incorporated the glass office in the back of the set to include breakage during the climax and enhance the scene's action beats.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: Several "Breaking Bad" locations were reused for "El Camino", such as the Pinkman residence, the strip mall that contained Saul Goodman's office, and Ed Galbraith's vacuum repair shop. The original vacuum store had sold and become a furniture store since the series ended, so production had to recreate the set from scratch and use a special buyer to locate identical props from flea markets and salvage areas. Having a restored vacuum repair store set provided an added convenience for the fifth season premiere of "Better Call Saul", which aired several months later. Initially, the episode included Ed Galbraith simply as a voice-over, as the episode's budget could not cover the cost of flying actor Robert Forster to Albuquerque and rebuilding the vacuum shop set. However, Bernstein recognized that both Forster and the rebuilt set would be available as part of "El Camino". She then arranged for Gilligan to shoot the "Better Call Saul" scene with Forster in person during the film's production, months before filming began for any other episodes.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: One major "Breaking Bad" location that had to be rebuilt primarily on stage was the compound that held Jesse prisoner, as many of the original structures had been torn down. The new set recreated the interior of Jesse's cage for the initial scenes of Jesse in captivity and seeing Todd through the steel grate. Filming for the subsequent exterior sequence of Todd letting Jesse out of his confinement happened on location; production found an existing Quonset hut in downtown Albuquerque and built a slightly smaller scale cage next to it in order to match the original site from the series. For the rebuilt compound laboratory, the set reused a majority of the original props, notably the cooking vessel Walter White touched shortly before he died in "Breaking Bad"s final scene. Despite resulting in a continuity error, Gilligan said he did not have the heart to clean Walt's bloody handprint from the prop and instead left it in as an intentional Easter egg for fans.


title: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

text: The enhanced budget and filming schedule provided Gilligan a chance to capture scenes outside of New Mexico, something he wanted but could not do during "Breaking Bad". One such location included the Painted Desert in Arizona, where filming occurred for the scene of Jesse and Todd burying Todd's housekeeper. Gilligan had the idea of shooting in the region after multiple helicopter trips between California and Albuquerque, noting the landscape for its natural beauty. As backroad travel in the Painted Desert required a permit, Gilligan received special permission from the Navajo Nation for filming. Cast members Paul and Plemons reached the Painted Desert set by a helicopter flown by Gilligan himself, who was a licensed pilot. The scene where Todd sings "Sharing the Night Together" in his El Camino was also shot in the area; Gilligan noted that Plemons improvised the gesture Todd gives to the truck driver. Gilligan later referred to his time filming in the Painted Desert as the single best day of directing in his career.