Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh are among several Lebanese political and financial officials named in the Pandora Papers with wealth hidden in offshore tax havens, at a time when millions of Lebanese people cannot access their savings in the banks.
The Papers show that Mikati, the recently reappointed billionaire prime minister of Lebanon, owns a Panama-based offshore company he used to buy property in Monaco worth $10m.
His son Maher owns at least two companies in the British Virgin Islands, which he used to buy an office in central London for the Mikati family’s international investment company, the M1 Group, the investigation revealed.
Establishing offshore companies is not necessarily illegal, but is a common tool for tax evasion, money laundering, and other nefarious financial practices.
Players wear shirts to voice human rights concerns in Qatar ahead of their FIFA World Cup qualifiers
Players from the three European nations, Netherlands, Germany and Norway, all wore shirts to voice their concerns over the treatment of migrant workers as pressure builds on Qatari authorities.
The human rights organisation claims its research shows that thousands of migrant workers are still exploited and abused as World Cup organisers aim to build seven new stadiums for the tournament.
Dutch defender Matthijs de Ligt stressed the importance of players taking a united approach to help protect workers.
We cannot remain indifferent to it and do nothing so we should support these players on their campaign and stop any human rights abuses associated with the tournament.
Foreign Minister Yair Lapid told US President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Tuesday that Iran is “becoming a nuclear threshold state.”
The unusually stark wording was used by Lapid during a meeting with Jake Sullivan in Washington and was reiterated by the foreign minister in a later sit-down with a delegation of Congressional leaders headed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The message built on the one delivered by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in his speech to the UN General Assembly last month, when Bennett warned that the Iranian nuclear program is at “a watershed moment.”
The US has yet to publicly entertain alternative options to the JCPOA in detail, insisting that it is still pursuing the diplomatic path to blocking Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad threatened actions against Kurdish forces, whom he accused of working as US agents, and demanded that the US end its illegal occupation.
He warned that Syrian troops would expel the occupiers if they failed to leave of their own accord, telling the Kurdish administration that its forces “should stop working for foreign powers against their own country.”
Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, who became Iran’s first president after the 1979 Islamic revolution before fleeing into exile in France, died on Saturday aged 88.
He died at the Pitie-Salpetriere hospital in Paris following a long illness, his wife and children said on Bani-Sadr’s official website.
In an interview with Reuters in 2019, the former president said that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had betrayed the principles of the revolution after sweeping to power in 1979, adding this had left a “very bitter” taste among some of those who had returned with him to Tehran in triumph.
While few Iraqis expect meaningful change in their day-to-day lives, the parliament elections will shape the direction of Iraq’s foreign policy at a key time in the Middle East, including as Iraq is mediating between regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Iraq’s vote comes amid a flurry of diplomatic activity…
As Iraq heads to the polls on October 10, a spotlight has fallen on the outsized influence neighboring Iran wields — but also on the growing popular backlash against it.
One of the more alarming things for Iran in Iraq right now is the huge sense of public dissatisfaction towards Iran
At the height of unprecedented protests in November 2019, furious demonstrators attacked and torched Iran’s consulate in the southern city of Najaf, shouting “Get out of Iraq!”
Thousands of Haitian migrants have returned to the island after being deported by the US. Many of the migrants had been living in South America and have not set foot in Haiti for years.
Many of the newly arrived migrants have not seen Haiti since they fled to Latin American countries after the 2010 earthquake or other natural or political crises.
DHS is “very concerned” that Haitians “are receiving false information that the border is open or Temporary Protective Status is available
The United States hopes to restart nuclear talks with Iran soon, a senior US official said Monday, while noting “alarming” progress by Tehran on developing nuclear capacity.
Despite Israeli skepticism, the Biden administration believes “very strongly that the diplomatic path remains the best,” the official said.
However, the official said the White House and Israel’s new government agree that Iran has made rapid advances since Trump quit the international effort to monitor Tehran’s nuclear activities in return for sanctions relief.
A major crackdown in western Libya has resulted in the detention of at least 4,000 migrants, including hundreds of women and children.
The authorities describe this as a security campaign against illegal migration and drug trafficking. The Interior Ministry, which led the crackdown, made no mention of any traffickers or smugglers being arrested.
The town has seen several waves of raids on migrants over the years, but the latest one was described by activists as the fiercest so far.
