Region

ALGIERS — Algerian financier Rafik Khalifa was jailed for 18 years Tuesday for embezzling from his own bank to finance a lavish lifestyle that included a French villa and a private jet.

Khalifa was being retried after a 2007 conviction in absentia that saw him sentenced to life in prison, and the prosecution had been seeking the same penalty.

The court in Blida, southwest of the capital, also ordered Khalifa's assets seized and fined him 1 million dinars (10,000 euros/$11,200).

The 49-year-old ex-golden boy, courted in his day by Algeria's elite and praised in the press, faced charges that included fraud, theft, corruption and falsification of administrative and banking documents.

The prosecution had sought sentences varying from 18 months to 20 years for 70 co-defendants, but the verdicts in their cases were not immediately known.

In closing remarks this week, prosecutor Mohamed Zerg-Erras claimed that Khalifa had used the 70 branches of his El Khalifa bank to fleece clients attracted by promises of 13 per cent interest on time deposits.

"The purpose of this bank was not to invest but to plunder depositors' money and fly away with it aboard [his] Khalifa Airways," Zerg-Erras charged.

Ali Mezine, the lawyer who presided over the eventual liquidation of El Khalifa Bank, said the money went to sponsoring French football club Olympique de Marseille, buying a 32-million-euro ($36 million) villa in Cannes, apartments in Paris and a corporate jet.

The group built around the bank, founded in the 1990s, went bust in 2003 with losses estimated at between $1.5 billion and $5 billion.

When his empire collapsed, Khalifa fled to London to avoid arrest, but was extradited at the end of 2013.

He was convicted in France last year and sentenced to five years in prison for misappropriating millions of euros

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel held unannounced diplomatic level talks with Turkey on Monday to explore prospects, after Turkish polls, of restoring an alliance that was once central to US Middle East policy but has soured dramatically under Turkish leader Tayyip Erdogan.

The Islamist-rooted AK Party founded by Erdogan, who accused Israel last year of having "surpassed Hitler in barbarism" through attacks on Palestinian territories, lost its overall majority in a June 7 vote for the first time since taking power in 2002. It must now seek a coalition partners for government.

Erdogan's years in full control of foreign and domestic policy saw virtual collapse of what had been Israel's closest alliance with a Muslim state, encompassing the military and intelligence sectors. The killing of 10 pro-Palestinian Turks by Israeli commandos on a ship that tried to break its Gaza blockade in 2010 marked a low point.

An Israeli official told Reuters on condition of anonymity that Dore Gold, a Netanyahu confidant who was named director general of Israel's foreign ministry last month, had met his counterpart Feridun Sinirlioglu in Rome on Monday.

Shift?

The official said it was too early to judge whether the meeting signalled an acceleration of reconciliation efforts.

"Certainly there is a sense that the situation in Turkey has shifted after the election," the official said, referring to the AKP's recent setback in parliament that has shaken Erdogan's standing and undermined his plans for a powerful presidency.

"But time will tell whether the new government there takes a more accommodating line on Israel than Erdogan."

A spokesman for Israel's foreign ministry confirmed Gold had been in Rome but would not comment on any meetings held there.

Officials at Turkey's foreign ministry declined to comment.

Efforts to reconcile Turkey and Israel, including in a 2013 phone call between Erdogan and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that was brokered by US President Barack Obama, have yet to yield a final deal restoring full diplomatic ties.

The channel between Israel and Turkey, which borders Iraq, Iran and Syria, was long seen as a key element in US policy in the region. With the rise of Daesh and the complexities of relations with Iran it retains importance for Washington.

It remains unclear what effect the outcome of the election will have on Erdogan's influence on foreign policy. But his failure to achieve a majority to change the constitution and increase the powers of the largely figurehead presidency he holds could weaken his hold.

BAGHDAD — A Daesh group video released Tuesday showed the militatns murdering 16 men by drowning them in a cage, decapitating them with explosives and firing a rocket-propelled grenade into a car.

The video, apparently shot in Iraq's Nineveh province, was one of the most brutal yet in a series released by the militants of killings of opponents in areas under Daesh control.

Daesh has executed hundreds of people by gunfire, dozens by beheading, stoned some to death, thrown others from buildings and burned a captured Jordanian pilot alive.

Videos of the killings are a key propaganda tool of the militants, used to shock and terrify their enemies as well as to draw in new recruits seeking the most brutal and active militant group.

The men killed in the latest video are said to be "spies", with some of them making recorded "confessions".

First, the militants lead four men to a car and close the doors, after which one fires a rocket-propelled grenade under the vehicle, setting it alight.

A militant is later shown locking five men inside a metal cage, which is then lifted by a crane and submerged in what appears to be a dirty swimming pool.

Two cameras affixed to the outside of the cage show the men's deaths in the murky water.

The last killings show a militant looping blue detonating cord around the necks of seven kneeling men, after which the explosives are set off and some of the men are decapitated.

Daesh spearheaded an offensive last June that overran large areas north and west of Baghdad, and also holds significant territory in neighbouring Syria.

Its military gains and atrocities drew a US-led coalition of countries to launch an air campaign against it last year, as well as to provide training and arms to Iraqi forces.

BAGHDAD — The number of people displaced within Iraq due to violence and fighting by the Daesh terror group has exceeded 3 million, the United Nations said Tuesday, a grim milestone for the war-battered country.

The International Organisation for Migration IOM said that at least 3.09 million people have been displaced between January 2014 and June 4 within 18 Iraqi provinces. The majority of the displaced are from Anbar province, Iraq's Sunni heartland captured last summer in a blitz by the Daesh militants.

Fighting in Anbar has intensified in the past months as Iraqi forces, backed by US-led coalition airstrikes fight to claw back territory held by Daesh.

The IOM report said that more than 276,000 people have been displaced over a two-month period between April and June alone amid fighting in Anbar's provincial capital, Ramadi, which eventually saw the city slip out of Iraqi government's control.

At least 45 per cent of Anbar's displaced have fled to Baghdad, while about 35 per cent are elsewhere within the sprawling desert province.

Iraq has been ravaged by violence since the Daesh group first entered Anbar in late 2013 amid fierce clashes with Iraqi security forces that sent civilians fleeing from their homes. The Sunni militant group then waged a lightening advance across northern Iraq last June, often giving non-Sunni Muslims in territories they captured an ultimatum to convert to Islam, pay a religious tax or die.

Hundreds of thousands of religious minorities opted to run for their lives, including Christians, Yazidis and Shiite Muslims. IOM said that over 2 million displaced are housed in private homes, while more than 638,000 people have been accommodated in shelters.

Last week, more than 1,500 residents returned to their homes in Tikrit, 130 kilometres north of Baghdad, after Iraqi security forces and allied militias recaptured the city from Daesh. But that number pales in comparison to Tikrit's population of 150,000 before the Daesh seizure of the city.

Iraqi government officials have warned that even after military operations against Daesh are concluded, many of the towns and villages require extensive work to rebuild infrastructure and homes, as well as to ensure that water and electricity are working.

Peshawar, Pakistan — The United Nations refugee chief Tuesday warned the European Union about its planned military operation to target people-smugglers in the Mediterranean, saying migrants attempting the risky sea crossing must be protected.

Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, welcomed the initial intelligence-gathering phase of the new mission, which could begin as early as next week, but said rescuing migrants at sea should be the top priority.

More than 100,000 people have made the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe so far this year, and some 1,800 have drowned trying.

Many of them have been fleeing war or poverty in parts of Africa and the Middle East and paid huge sums to risk their lives in barely seaworthy boats for a chance of reaching Europe.

EU leaders agreed at a summit in April, overshadowed by the sinking of a rickety migrant boat with the loss of 800 lives, to formulate a plan to tackle the crisis at source on the southern shores of the Mediterranean, including a military option to go after smugglers in Libya.

On Monday EU foreign ministers approved the launch of a three-stage military strategy beginning with intelligence-gathering.

Guterres, visiting Afghan refugee facilities in Pakistan, said the lives of those attempting the crossing must come first.

"Our position has been very clear: first priority rescue at sea — lives need to be saved, nobody should be left to die in the Mediterranean," he said.

The 28-nation EU scaled down its search and rescue operations last year, to the dismay of Italy, where the bulk of the migrants arrive. 

The new military mission, dubbed "EU NAVFOR Med", will initially involve five warships, two submarines, three maritime patrol aircraft, drones and helicopters.

'Protect victims' 

Guterres said action to deal with those who were cashing in on the Mediterranean migrant crisis was welcome, but international law must be respected.

"Smuggling and trafficking are horrible things. People are exploited, their rights are violated, people die in unseaworthy boats," he said.

"So whatever can be done to crack down on traffickers and smugglers is positive, with one essential condition — that the protection of the victims is guaranteed and the access to European territory is guaranteed."

Last week the UN human rights chief HH Prince Zeid called on the EU to open its doors wider to migrants and said the bloc could easily take in a million refugees.

The Mediterranean migration crisis has become a hugely sensitive political issue in Europe, driving gains for far-right and eurosceptic parties across the continent.

The second phase of the EU mission involves intervention to board and disable smuggler vessels and arrest the traffickers, while the third would extend these actions into Libyan waters and possibly inside the country itself.

Recognising the reluctance of some members to commit to the potentially complex and dangerous second and third stages, the April summit agreed a UN Security Council resolution would be needed before they went ahead.

The situation is complicated by the unstable picture in Libya, where rival factions are fighting for control and the internationally-recognised government has been forced to flee the capital. 

TEHRAN — Iran's parliament approved a controversial bill Tuesday that it said would protect the country's nuclear programme, but which could also hinder final negotiations on a deal with world powers.

The move re-exposed persistent tension between President Hassan Rouhani's government and lawmakers in Tehran, where hardliners routinely voice doubt about the merit of talking to the West.

One of Rouhani's vice presidents said the bill, which still has to be signed into law by Iran's Guardian Council, was unconstitutional and would not help its negotiators at "a sensitive point" in the talks.

The move, just one week before the deadline for an international agreement on the Islamic republic's disputed nuclear programme, lays down terms for MPs' accepting it.

Rouhani, a moderate who aims to end Iran's diplomatic isolation, wants an agreement that can lift sanctions that have hobbled the economy.

However, critics of his nuclear policy, including members of the conservative-dominated legislature, say too many concessions have been made and, using the bill, they demanded a bigger say.

The draft law says the government must "preserve the country's nuclear rights and achievements", a reference to retaining the ability to enrich uranium and keeping all nuclear facilities open.

Such demands have already been enshrined in an outline agreement struck on April 2 between Iran and the P5+1 powers — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany.

But the bill, whose backers said it would protect Iran's negotiating team from further demands, goes further and says sanctions must be lifted "on the day Iran starts implementing its obligations".

The timing of removal has become important as members of the P5+1 have said it can only happen upon international verification that Iran has met requirements laid down under a deal.

Some 214 lawmakers out of 244 present supported the bill, with 10 against, six abstentions and the remainder not voting.

Bargaining stepped up 

Bargaining over a final deal, due by June 30, intensified Monday when Britain and France reiterated that comprehensive inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities are essential.

The bill allows inspections of nuclear sites but not military or sensitive non-nuclear establishments. Such limitations are likely to alarm Western powers given their longstanding suspicion Iran is covertly developing an atomic bomb, an allegation it denies.

Vice President Majid Ansari, who was prevented from addressing parliament, later told state media the terms of a nuclear deal were not a matter for lawmakers.

"The engagement of MPs on this issue is of no help to the nuclear team and it could create problems in the negotiation process," he said, citing an infringement of Article 176 of the constitution.

That, he said, reserves defence and strategic issues to Iran's Supreme National Security Council, a body of ministers, generals and appointees of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

It is chaired by Rouhani. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, the government's chief representative in the nuclear talks, is also a member.

Ansari's remarks came despite the bill being watered down Sunday, with the task of supervising a nuclear deal being given to the SNSC. Parliament had wanted formal oversight.

Roadblocks in the nuclear talks include details on sanctions and inspections as well as Iran's future nuclear research.

In a measure similar to that taken in Tehran, President Barack Obama has given US lawmakers 30 days to review any deal.

Obama, a Democrat, has faced persistent opposition to his Iran policy from Congress, which is controlled by Republicans, who by their right of review may try to block an agreement.

Other critics of the nuclear diplomacy include Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who warned Congress in March against ratifying "a bad deal".

Iran's parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, has said lawmakers will not stand in the way if Khamenei, who has the last word on all matters foreign and domestic, says an accord is in the national interest.

VIENNA — The gruelling diplomatic marathon towards a historic deal putting an Iranian nuclear bomb out of reach entered the final furlong Tuesday with one week left for Tehran and six major powers to finalise the accord.

Whether they will manage to nail down the agreement by the June 30 deadline is unclear, however, with both sides complaining of differences and saying more time may be needed — albeit only a few more days.

On Monday, Iran's Mohammad Javad Zarif, who is expected in Vienna in the coming days with other foreign ministers, said in Luxembourg that "all sides should avoid excessive demands."

"There is the possibility that we can finish this by the deadline or a few days after the deadline," Zarif said as he met his British, French and German counterparts, saying there was sufficient "political commitment".

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond urged "more flexibility" from Tehran, while Iran's lead negotiator Abbas Araghchi said "progress hasn't been what we expected".

In April, Iran and the "P5+1" — the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany — agreed the main outlines of the deal after a bruising rollercoaster round of talks in Lausanne, Switzerland.

After two missed deadlines in July and then November last year, this built on an interim deal struck in Geneva in November 2013 after Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was elected.

According to the Lausanne framework, Iran will downsize its nuclear activities, slashing the number of centrifuges enriching uranium, which can be used in nuclear power but also when highly purified for a bomb.

The powers hope this will ensure Iran would need at least a year — compared with a few months in 2013 — to produce a bomb's worth of material. Tight UN inspections would give ample notice of any such "breakout".

In return, UN and Western sanctions that have caused Iran major economic pain would be progressively lifted, although the six powers insist they can be easily "snapped back" if Tehran violates the accord.

After 12 years of rising tensions, Iran denies seeking atomic weapons, saying its programme is for peaceful purposes such as meeting, through nuclear power, the energy needs of its almost 78 million people.

After the Lausanne breakthrough, US President Barack Obama hailed the "historic understanding" and said that if completed, the deal would "make our country, our allies and our world safer".

There were celebrations on the streets of Tehran and Rouhani promised on national television that the accord would open a "new page" in Iran's international relations.

Devil in the detail 

Since April, armies of diplomats and experts have been attempting to turn the one-page, 505-word joint Lausanne statement into a beast of a final document which including several appendices will be 40-50 pages long. 

"Each word of this instrument is being discussed and sometimes quarrelled on," Deputy Foreign Minister Araghchi said earlier this month.

It will be a highly complex accord, setting out an exact timetable of sanctions relief and reciprocal steps by Iran as well as a mechanism for handling possible violations by either side.

A particular sticking point is thought to be the issue of closer inspections by the UN atomic watchdog, potentially including military sites to probe past — and any future — suspicious activity.

"A robust agreement is one which includes an extensive verification element, including if necessary visits to military sites," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Sunday.

However, this is anathema to the Islamic republic. In May, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tehran "will not allow any inspections of military sites by foreigners".

Other tricky issues include how UN sanctions might be re-applied, the reduction of Iran's uranium stockpile and its future research and development into new types of centrifuges.

Araghchi and senior EU diplomat Helga Schmid were due to meet in Vienna later Tuesday, the EU said, and will be joined by other senior figures later this week including US Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman.

Zarif, US Secretary of State John Kerry, who broke his leg cycling during a break from talks on May 31, and the other foreign ministers were expected as the deadline approaches.

"The political will to reach a good agreement is there and many of the difficult political decisions have already been made," said Arms Control Association analyst Kelsey Davenport.

"It is certainly possible to wrap up the remaining issues in the eleventh hour and reach an agreement within a few days of June 30," she told AFP.

LONDON — Lebanon has launched a 24-hour hotline for female domestic workers to allow them to report abuse or mistreatment and receive help.

The country hosts more than 200,000 migrant domestic workers, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), employed under the "Kafala" sponsorship system, which binds them to a single employer and leaves them vulnerable to abuse.

Social workers operating the hotline will document complaints and provide referrals to healthcare, legal assistance and relevant government institutions.

"This project is the practical implementation of the ministry of labour's concern for human rights," Sejaan Azzi, Lebanon's minister of labour, said in a statement.

"Every domestic worker now has an address to turn to lodge a complaint in the event she is subjected to any kind of harm or violation of her dignity, and that address is the ministry of labour."

Eighty three per cent of the world's 53 million domestic workers are women, according to ILO. Often unregistered and unprotected by labour laws, they are among the most vulnerable groups of workers in the world.

The Kafala system, used throughout the Middle East, requires migrant workers to seek permission from employers to change jobs and excludes them from the protections of labour laws. Many of Lebanon's domestic workers are from Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Philippines and Sri Lanka.

Maids are often kept under lock and key by their employer, forced to work long hours, deprived of food and wages or threatened and physically and sexually abused, activists say.

In March, Human Rights Watch called on the Lebanese authorities to recognise a union for domestic workers and said Azzi should make good on promises to protect the rights of domestic workers and bring their abusers to justice.

The hotline, accessible through a quick-dial number 1740 from within Lebanon, is being promoted with billboards in several languages to alert migrants of its existence.

BAGHDAD — Bomb attacks killed at least eight soldiers in Iraq on Monday hours after gunmen shot dead two interior ministry intelligence officers in Baghdad, police and sources in an anti-Daesh militia said.

Iraq faces a major security challenge from the Daesh terror group, an ultra-hardline Sunni militant group that controls a third of the country and parts of neighbouring Syria.

Three roadside bombs hit the army patrol near the city of Haditha in the Sunni heartland Anbar Province, the focus of efforts to slow the advance of Daesh. At least six soldiers were killed, a source from the militia, known as Sahwa (Awakening), said.

In the village of Habariya in Anbar, a suicide bomber in a car attacked an Iraqi army regiment, killing two soldiers, police sources said.

Earlier, gunmen in speeding cars opened fire on a vehicle transporting Iraqi interior ministry officials in the capital, killing two intelligence officers, police and medics said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which also wounded one person in the Baladiyat district of eastern Baghdad.

In the Abu Dsheer district in southern Baghdad, at least two people were killed and seven wounded when a bomb exploded near a crowded market, police and medical sources said.

Efforts to contain Daesh are also focused on the town of Baiji in the north, near Iraq's biggest refinery.

GENEVA — Both Israel and Palestinian armed groups may have committed war crimes during last year's Gaza war, a widely anticipated United Nations report said Monday, decrying "unprecedented" devastation and human suffering.

The Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza conflict announced it had received "credible allegations" that both sides had committed war crimes during the conflict, which killed more than 2,140 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and 73 people on the Israeli side, mostly soldiers.

"The extent of the devastation and human suffering in Gaza was unprecedented and will impact generations to come," said the chair of the commission, New York judge Mary McGowan Davis.

Israel, which has been harshly critical of the commission since its inception last year, blasted the report as biased, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisting his country "does not commit war crimes".

"Israel defends itself against a terror organisation which calls for its destruction and that itself carries out war crimes," Netanyahu said in a statement, referring to Islamist movement Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.

Hamas, meanwhile, hailed the report's "condemnation of the Zionist occupier for its war crimes".

The report criticised both sides, but especially decried the "huge firepower" Israel had used in Gaza, with more than 6,000 air strikes and 50,000 artillery shells fired during the 51-day operation.

551 children killed 

The bombings of residential buildings had especially dire consequences, wiping out entire families, with 551 children killed, a choked-up McGowan Davis pointed out to reporters.

Hundreds of Palestinian civilians were killed in their own homes, and the report provided heart-wrenching testimony from a man who lost 19 of his relatives in an attack in Khan Younis on July 26, including his mother and all of his children.

"We all died that day, even those who survived," he said.

According to the report, which will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council on June 29, 742 people were killed in attacks on residential buildings, with at least 142 families losing three or more members.

"The fact that Israel did not revise its practice of air strikes, even after their dire effects on civilians became apparent, raises questions of whether this was part of a broader policy which was at least tacitly approved at the highest level of government," the commission said in a statement.

The investigators, meanwhile, also decried the "indiscriminate" firing of thousands of rockets and mortars at Israel, which it said appeared to have been intended to "spread terror" among Israeli civilians.

Palestinian armed groups fired 4,881 rockets and 1,753 mortars towards Israel, killing six civilians and injuring at least 1,600 others, it pointed out.

McGowan Davis said one Israeli woman had described the helplessness she felt when her grandchild pleaded with her to “stop the rockets”.

The two-member commission also pointed out that tunnels dug by Palestinian militants into Israel had traumatised Israeli civilians “who feared they could be attacked at any moment by gunmen bursting out of the ground”.

‘Failure to achieve justice’ 

While the conflict has ended, McGowan Davis pointed to a “pervasive failure on all sides to achieve justice” for the wrongs committed, and the investigators urged Israel to “break with its recent lamentable track record in holding wrongdoers accountable”.

They were not granted entry to Israel or the conflict area, and relied instead on more than 280 confidential interviews and some 500 written submissions for their findings.

The report, initially scheduled for publication in March, was delayed after the head of the team quit under Israeli pressure.

Canadian international law expert William Schabas resigned as chair of the commission after Israel charged he was biased because he had prepared a legal opinion for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in October 2012.

Israel was not satisfied, calling for the entire inquiry to be shelved, insisting the commission and the Human Rights Council which created it are inherently biased against Israel.

In the occupied West Bank, a senior PLO official said the report reinforces “our will to go to the International Criminal Court”.

Palestinians have been seeking to open criminal proceedings against Israel at the ICC as part of an increased focus on diplomatic manoeuvring and appeals to international bodies.

The UN investigators refused to say Monday whether they thought the ICC was an appropriate forum for ensuring accountability for the abuses committed during the 2014 Gaza conflict.