Iraq: UN official plants locusts eggs to destroy Iraqi crops

The Iraqi Foreign Ministry has called on the UN to expel an employee of the UN in Iraq, accused by Baghdad of working to destroy the agricultural crops. The employee, identified by the United Nations secretary general's deputy spokesman as Ian Broughton, is from New Zealand.

He works in demining northern Iraq. The Iraqi Foreign Ministry summoned Hans von Sponeck, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, to ask him to remove the employee within 72 hours after he was accused of working to destroy Iraqi agricultural crops.

The deputy spokesman, Manoel de Almeida e Silva, said von Sponeck is to meet today with the Iraqi Ministry for Foreign Affairs "to review the situation."

Official sources in the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said the employee implanted many boxes containing eggs for locusts to destroy the crops in Iraq.