Palestinian Officials Cited in Funds Misuse

A Palestinian Authority official said five ministers were implicated in a report that found that the self-rule government misused $326 million in public funds last year. “Five ministers were . . . accused of mismanagement and squandering of public funds,” the official, who requested anonymity, said. He did not identify the ministers. The 600-page report by the authority’s Monitoring Institution, set up by Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, was the first official charge of corruption within the administration since self-rule began in 1994.