{"id":41488,"date":"2019-11-07T19:22:09","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T19:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=41488"},"modified":"2019-11-07T19:22:09","modified_gmt":"2019-11-07T19:22:09","slug":"maritime-coalition-launched-to-protect-gulf-shipping-after-iran-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=41488","title":{"rendered":"Maritime coalition launched to protect Gulf shipping after Iran attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"54\">\n<p>\nZURICH\/JERUSALEM: The former head of the United Nations\u2019 Palestinians aid agency who resigned in the face of an inquiry into misconduct allegations has denied wrongdoing and said his agency was the victim of a political campaign designed to undermine it.<br \/>The agency has faced budgetary difficulties since last year, when the United States, its biggest donor, halted its aid of $360 million per year. The United States and Israel have both accused UNRWA of mismanagement and anti-Israeli incitement.<br \/>Commissioner-General Pierre Krahenbuhl, a Swiss diplomat, was replaced on Wednesday pending completion of a review of \u201cmanagement-related matters\u201d at the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said.<br \/>\u201cI have rejected these allegations from the start and will continue to do so,\u201d Krahenbuhl said in an interview with Swiss broadcaster RTS on Wednesday evening. \u201cThere is no corruption, fraud or misappropriation of aid.\u201d<br \/>In a resignation letter to UN Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres, obtained by Reuters, Krahenbuhl complained the inquiry \u201chas been fraught with leaks&#8230;despite your personal commitment to confidentiality.\u201d<br \/>He denied what he called \u201cthe unfounded allegation that I entertained a romantic relationship with a staff member.\u201d<br \/>Krahenbuhl said he was \u201cabove the politics that have governed this entire process\u201d and was resigning \u201cin the firm belief that this is in the best interest of Palestine refugees, of my family and myself.\u201d<br \/>He added: \u201cA further delay would only benefit those who have so actively engaged in political, financial and personal attacks over the past two years with the declared objective to undermine UNRWA and the integrity of Palestine refugees.\u201d<br \/>UNRWA assists more than 5 million registered Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, as well as in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.<br \/>Krahenbuhl wrote that Washington\u2019s withholding of funding had caused \u201can existential financial crisis\u201d at UNRWA.<br \/>He was notified in March that an investigation was under way by the UN Secretariat in New York \u201cbased on allegations received against UNRWA personnel relating to unsatisfactory conduct,\u201d an UNRWA spokeswoman said.<br \/>Krahenbuhl, who took over the UNRWA post in 2014, was previously director of operations at the International Committee of the Red Cross.<br \/>His tenure at cash-strapped UNRWA saw frequent clashes with US President Donald Trump\u2019s administration, which has suggested refugee host countries should take over UNRWA\u2019s services across the Middle East.<br \/>Switzerland, the Netherlands and Belgium have separately suspended payments to UNRWA over the management issues that are now under investigation. The agency\u2019s spokeswoman says it still needs $89 million to keep operating until the end of this year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ZURICH\/JERUSALEM: The former head of the United Nations\u2019 Palestinians aid agency who resigned in the face of an inquiry into misconduct allegations has denied wrongdoing and said his agency was the victim of a political campaign designed to undermine it.The agency has faced budgetary difficulties since last year, when the United States, its biggest donor,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":41489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}