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   PLO financier flees to London KHALED ABU TOAMEH and MUHAMMAD NAJIB Aug. 18, 2002 Jawid Ghussein, a Palestinian multi-millionaire who ran the PLO's finances for 12 years, has fled from Jerusalem to London. Palestinian security officials accuse Ghussein, 71, of embezzling $7 million. Ghussein, who was the head of the PLO's National Fund, a body that supervises the Palestinian economic institutions and social welfare projects, had been under house arrest in Gaza ever since he was abducted from his hospital bed in Cairo by PA security agents last January. The National Fund is in charge of hundreds of...

<p>JERICHO, West Bank -- Tucked away on a quiet side street, the sand-colored mansion built two years ago by Ahmed Korei, speaker of the Palestinian legislature, was meant to be a haven for the busy politician.</p> <p>Instead, the 12-room home -- with its swimming pool, lush landscaping, privacy wall and guard tower -- became an embarrassing liability. Why, Palestinians began to ask publicly, were senior officials living in luxury while the continuing fight with Israel drove their people deeper into poverty?</p>

— Several Arab countries have cut off financing for the Palestinian Authority after press reports charged that chairman Yasser Arafat had embezzled funds meant to aid Palestinians. Palestinian sources said the Arab League funding was meant to finance the Palestinian health system as well as to improve infrastructure. The Arab states froze more than $200 million in funding pledged to the PA after reports in the Gulf Arab media asserted that Arafat had embezzled $5 million in Arab allocations, the sources said. Among the countries that have suspended funding are Morocco, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, the...

An Israeli official said on Thursday that mounting financial debt could lead to the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, which has spent more than $1 billion annually since the start of the intifada in September 2000. IDF Lt. Col. Yitzhak Gurevitch, the economic head for the territories' government coordinator, said the PA overspends its monthly budget by $13 million. It spends $90 million a month, while taking in $77 million a month ($55 million from donor countries and $22 million from taxes). The monthly deficit of $13 million is piled onto previous debts. Gurevitch said three factors could lead to ...

<p>"‘AN earthquake is sweeping the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian leadership, the Palestinian people and all over the region." So says Israel’s chief of military intelligence, Aharon Zeevi.</p> <p>The causes of the earthquake, Zeevi believes, were the two vast Israeli incursions into the West Bank during the past three months, along with President Bush’s "new road map for the Palestinian Authority."</p>

On June 7, 2002, the Kuwaiti Al-Watan daily published the following report: "Yesterday, Al-Watan received documents from private sources in the Cairo branch of an Arab bank showing that Yasser Arafat had deposited in his name $5.1 million into a personal account. According to sources, this is theft of Arab aid funds allocated to the Palestinians through an arrangement between Arafat and his Cairo office head Ramzi Khouri." "The sources added that according to the documents, these funds were deposited in the personal accounts of President Arafat to cover some of the president's personal expenses, including the costs of his...

Arafat, PA transferring tens of millions of dollars overseas: Israel [Corrected 07/14/02]   07/14/2002 Agence France-Presse (Copyright 2002)   CORRECTION: ATTENTION - ADDS dropped word in lead   JERUSALEM, July 14 (AFP) - The Palestinian Authority has transferred tens of millions of dollars overseas in case of a long- term Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, an Israeli newspaper reported Sunday. An Israeli document, quoted by Yediot Aharonot newspaper, accuses Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat of having transferred 5.1 million dollars into the Parisian bank account of his wife Suha.   The document also refers to a transfer of 70...