Commercial flights between Turkiye, Syria resume after 13 years
Istanbul, Jan 23 (AP): Commercial flights between Turkiye and Syria resumed on Thursday after 13 years with a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul to Damascus.
Turkish media showed Syrian families draped in their national flag singing pro-opposition songs and cheering as they prepared to board flight TK0846 to Damascus.
Passengers continued their celebrations inside the plane, singing the uprising anthem “Hold your head up high, you are a free Syrian.” One man sobbed while waiting for takeoff.
“I missed Syria and am happy to fly back,” said Fuad Abdulhalid, who has lived in Turkey for 12 years.
Another passenger, Nail Beyazid, expressed hope as he prepared to visit his home for the first time since fleeing from Syria.
“We are very happy that (Syria) was liberated, and the situation is very good,” Beyazid said. “We had a house, a factory. We also had cars, which are gone now. We are going back to take a look.”
Since the lightning rebel offensive that ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad a month ago, Arab and Western countries that had cut off relations with the former government have been reopening diplomatic relations with Syria's new de facto authorities, headed by the Islamist former insurgent group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS.
The first international commercial flight since Assad's fall, a Royal Jordanian Airlines plane, landed in Damascus earlier this month.
Turkiye, a key ally of Syria's new authorities, has expressed its intention to invest in its economy and help its ailing electricity and energy sectors.
Turkish Airlines CEO Bilal Eksi announced earlier this month that the airline would fly three times a week between Istanbul and Damascus. The move followed a visit to Ankara by Syria's foreign minister, Asaad al-Shibani, who met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other officials.
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CBI closes case against DHFL, its directors in 'fake' home loan accounts case
New Delhi, Jan 23 (PTI): The CBI has closed the case against the DHFL and its directors pertaining to 2.60 lakh allegedly fictitious home loan accounts, some of which were used to claim interest subsidies under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna, officials said.
After over three years of probe, the agency could not find evidence suggesting a criminal conspiracy which could have led to the creation of such accounts, they said.
The irregularities were pointed out in the report of auditor Grant Thornton, appointed by the new board of the scam-hit Dewan Housing Finance Limited (DHFL), they said.
The agency has now submitted its final report before a special court in Delhi, which would take a call on whether to accept the closure report or order further investigation into the matter.
The CBI had booked promoters Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan along with the company.
It was alleged that DHFL had opened a fictitious branch in Bandra and fake accounts worth Rs 14,046 crore of home-loan borrowers, who had already repaid their loans, were entered in the database, they said.
A total of 2.60 lakh "fake and fictitious" home loan accounts were created in the non-existent branch from 2007-19 for a total loan worth Rs 14,046 crore, out of which Rs 11,755.79 crore were deposited or routed to several fictitious firms known as Bandra Book firms, the CBI had alleged in the FIR.
Several of these bogus loan accounts were linked in the Pradhan Mantri Awas (PMAY) to claim interest subsidies from the National Housing Bank in connivance with its officials, the CBI had alleged.
The DHFL had allegedly processed 88,651 cases under the PMAY till December 2018, and it received an interest subsidy of Rs 539.40 crore, while it has to receive Rs 1,347.80 crore from the government, it had said.
PMAY is a central scheme to ensure housing for all.
