BAGHDAD: More than $60 million dollars in public funds were embezzled by Mosul officials close to the province’s sacked governor in the wake of last month’s ferry sinking, Iraqi officials said Monday.
Iraq’s anti-corruption Integrity Commission said officials from the Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital, had embezzled a total of $64 million in public funds.
They included nearly $40 million set aside to rebuild the city, which was ravaged by three years of Daesh group rule followed by months of fierce fighting to oust the jihadists.
The money was stolen in the aftermath of a tragic ferry sinking in March that left more than 100 people dead and prompted parliament to unanimously fire governor Nawfel Akoub, who has since gone on the run.
In its Monday statement, the Integrity Commission said officials “close to Akoub” had stolen the funds but did not accuse him personally.
It said 14 officials were detained earlier this month after its probe found that “cheques and wire transfers of public funds had been made out to the personal accounts of senior officials.”
Of the missing money, “just six million dollars” were recovered by the government, a commission member told AFP.
Parliament had been investigating accusations of profound corruption among Nineveh officials, and their results came to light amid outrage over the Mother’s Day ferry sinking.
Some officials have been arrested but Akoub remains at large, thought to be hiding out in Irbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region.
Graft is endemic across Iraq, which ranks among the world’s worst offenders in Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perceptions Index.
Since 2004, a year after the US-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein, a total of $228 billion has vanished into the pockets of shady politicians and businessmen, according to parliament.
Iraq says more than $60 mn stolen from Mosul after governor sacked
Iraq says more than $60 mn stolen from Mosul after governor sacked
- Officials from the Nineveh province had embezzled a total of $64 million in public funds
15 killed in an explosion and fire at a gas station in central Yemen
- The province of Bayda where the explosion occurred is controlled by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, who have been at war with Yemen’s internationally recognized government for more than a decade
The explosion occurred Saturday at the Zaher district in the province of Bayda, the Houthi rebel-run Health Ministry said in a statement. At least 67 others were injured, including 40 in critical condition.
The ministry said rescue teams were searching for those reported missing. It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the explosion.
Footage circulated online showing a massive fire that sent columns of smoke into the sky and left vehicles charred and burning.
Bayda is controlled by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, who have been at war with Yemen’s internationally recognized government for more than a decade.
Yemen’s civil war began in 2014, when the rebels took control of the capital, Sanaa, and much of the country’s north, forcing the government to flee to the south, then to Saudi Arabia. A Saudi-led coalition entered the war in March 2015, backed at the time by the US, in an effort to restore the internationally recognized government.
The war has killed more than 150,000 people including civilians and combatants, and in recent years deteriorated largely into a stalemate and caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Malala Yousafzai says ‘Israel has decimated the entire education system’ in Gaza
- Nobel Peace laureate Malala Yousafzai on Sunday said she would continue to call out Israel’s violations of international law and human rights in Gaza
ISLAMABAD: Nobel Peace laureate Malala Yousafzai on Sunday said she would continue to call out Israel’s violations of international law and human rights in Gaza.
The education advocate was speaking at a global summit on girls’ education in Muslim nations hosted by Pakistan and attended by representatives from dozens of countries.
“In Gaza, Israel has decimated the entire education system,” she said in an address to the conference.
“They have bombed all universities, destroyed more than 90 percent of schools, and indiscriminately attacked civilians sheltering in school buildings.
“I will continue to call out Israel’s violations of international law and human rights.”
Yousafzai was shot when she was a 15-year-old schoolgirl by Pakistani militants enraged by her education activism.
She made a remarkable recovery after being evacuated to the United Kingdom and went on to become the youngest ever Nobel Prize winner at the age of 17.
“Palestinian children have lost their lives and future. A Palestinian girl cannot have the future she deserves if her school is bombed and her family is killed,” she added.
The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
During the attack, Palestinian militants took 251 people hostage, of whom 94 remain in the Gaza Strip, including 34 the Israeli military has declared dead.
Israel’s attack on Gaza has killed 46,537 people, the majority civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory considered reliable by the United Nations.
Israel’s Netanyahu sends Mossad director to Gaza ceasefire talks in Qatar
- His presence means high-level Israeli officials who would need to sign off on any agreement are now involved
- Just one brief ceasefire has been achieved in 15 months of Israel's war on Gaza which has killed over 44,000
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved sending the director of the Mossad foreign intelligence agency to ceasefire negotiations in Qatar in a sign of progress in talks on the war in Gaza.
Netanyahu’s office announced the decision Saturday. It was not immediately clear when David Barnea would travel to Qatar’s capital, Doha, site of the latest round of indirect talks between Israel and the Hamas militant group. His presence means high-level Israeli officials who would need to sign off on any agreement are now involved.
Just one brief ceasefire has been achieved in 15 months of war, and that occurred in the earliest weeks of fighting. The talks mediated by the United States, Egypt and Qatar have repeatedly stalled since then.
Netanyahu has insisted on destroying Hamas’ ability to fight in Gaza. Hamas has insisted on a full Israeli troop withdrawal from the largely devastated territory. On Thursday, Gaza’s Health Ministry said over 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war.
Syria de facto leader Al-Sharaa phones congratulations to Lebanon’s newly elected President Aoun
- Call followed talks between Al-Sharaa and Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati in Damascus
- Al-Sharaa said he hoped Joseph Aoun’s presidency would usher in an era of stability in Lebanon
DAMASCUS: Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa called newly elected Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on the phone and congratulated him for assuming the presidency, Syria’s ruling general command reported on Sunday.
The phone call followed talks between Al-Sharaa and Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who was in the Syrian capital on Saturday with a mission to restore ties between the two neighbors.
Mikati’s visit was the first by a Lebanese head of government to Damascus since the Syrian civil war started in 2011.
Previous Lebanese governments refrained from visits to Syria amid tensions at home over militant group Hezbollah’s support for then ruler Bashar Assad during the conflict.
Syria’s new leader Al-Sharaa said he hoped to turn over a new leaf in relations, days after crisis-hit Lebanon finally elected a president this week following two years of deadlock.
“There will be long-term strategic relations between us and Lebanon. We and Lebanon have great shared interests,” Sharaa said in a joint press conference with Mikati.
It was time to “give the Syrian and Lebanese people a chance to build a positive relationship,” he said, adding he hoped Joseph Aoun’s presidency would usher in an era of stability in Lebanon.
Sharaa said the new Syria would “stay at equal distance from all” in Lebanon, and “try to solve problems through negotiations and dialogue.”
Mikati said ties should be based on “mutual respect, equality and national sovereignty.”
Syria was the dominant power in Lebanon for three decades under the Assad family, with president Hafez Assad intervening in its 1975-1990 civil war and his son Bashar Assad only withdrawing Syria’s troops in 2005 following mass protests triggered by the assassination of Lebanese ex-prime minister Rafic Hariri.
After mending ties with Damascus, his son Saad Hariri was the last Lebanese premier to visit the Syrian capital in 2010 before the civil war.
Taking office on Thursday, Aoun swore he would seize the “historic opportunity to start serious... dialogue with the Syrian state.”
With Hezbollah weakened after two months of full-scale war with Israel late last year and Assad now gone, Syrian and Lebanese leaders seem eager to work to solve long-pending issues.
Among them is the presence of some two million Syrian refugees Lebanon says have sought shelter there since Syria’s war started.
Their return to Syria had become “an urgent matter in the interest of both countries,” Mikati said.
Lebanese authorities have long complained that hosting so many Syrians has become a burden for the tiny Mediterranean country which since 2019 has been wracked by its worst-ever economic crisis.
Mikati also said it was a priority “to draw up the land and sea borders between Lebanon and Syria,” calling for creation of a joint committee to discuss the matter.
Under Assad, Syria repeatedly refused to delimit its borders with its neighbor.
Lebanon has hoped to draw the maritime border so it can begin offshore gas extraction after reaching a similar agreement with Israel in 2022.
The Lebanese premier said both sides had stressed the need for “complete control of (land) borders, especially over illicit border points, to stem smuggling.”
Syria shares a 330-kilometer (205-mile) border with Syria with no official demarcation at several points, making it porous and prone to smuggling.
Syria imposed new restrictions on the entry of Lebanese citizens last week, following what Lebanon’s army said was a border skirmish with unnamed armed Syrians.
Lebanese nationals had previously been allowed into Syria without a visa.
Several foreign dignitaries have headed to Damascus in recent weeks to meet the new leaders, with a delegation from Oman also in town earlier Saturday.
Unlike other Arab Gulf states, Oman never severed diplomatic ties with Assad during the war.
Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani visited Damascus on Friday, while France’s Jean-Noel Barrot and his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock did last week.
Shaibani has visited Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Jordan this month, and said Friday he would head to Europe soon.
Syria’s war has killed more than half a million people and ravaged the country’s economy since starting in 2011 with the brutal crackdown of anti-Assad protests.
Eight killed, 50 injured in explosion of gas station, gas storage tank in Yemen’s Al-Bayda, sources say
CAIRO: Eight people were killed and 50 others injured in an explosion of a gas station and a gas storage tank in Yemen’s Al-Bayda province, a medical source and a local official said.
