BY SYLVAN LANE,

A victory for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, a Democratic takeover of the Senate and defense of the party’s House majority in the November elections would be the best outcome for the U.S. economy, according to an analysis released Wednesday by Moody’s Analytics.

In an analysis of potential Election Day outcomes based on the economic proposals of President Trump and Biden, Moody’s found that a Democratic sweep would bring the quickest return to full employment, highest number of jobs added and best rebound in economic growth.

“The economic outlook is strongest under the scenario in which Biden and the Democrats sweep Congress and fully adopt their economic agenda,” wrote Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi, who provided economic analysis for the late Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) 2008 presidential campaign, and economist Bernard Yaros.

Zandi and Yaros modeled four potential outcomes of the November election: a total Democratic sweep; Democrats holding the House and taking the White House but not the Senate; a total Republican sweep; and a extension of the status quo with Trump in the White House, Democrats in control of the House and Republicans in control of the Senate.

They gave Biden winning but contending with a GOP-controlled Senate a 40 percent probability, two more years of the status quo a 35 percent chance, a Democratic sweep a 20 percent chance and a GOP sweep a 5 percent chance.

Zandi and Yaros argued that a total Democratic sweep would bring the biggest boost to the economy because of Biden’s plans to spend trillions on infrastructure, education and the social safety net while boosting trade and immigration. They also argued that the higher taxes proposed to fund part of these plans would not slow the economy in a meaningful way.

“Greater government spending adds directly to [gross domestic product] and jobs, while the higher tax burden has an indirect impact through business investment and the spending and saving behavior of high-income households,” they wrote. 

“Longer-term growth under Biden’s policies is also stronger because on net they expand the supply side of the economy—the quantity and quality of labor and capital needed to produce goods and services,” they added. 

President Donald Trump and his sibling were sued by their niece, who claims the family cheated her out of millions of dollars.

Mary Trump, whose best-selling memoir describes a deeply dysfunctional family, filed a suit in State Supreme Court in Manhattan accusing the president, his sister Maryanne Trump Barry and their late brother Robert Trump of fraud and civil conspiracy, reported the New York Times.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Manhattan Supreme Court, accuses Donald Trump and his siblings of deceiving Mary Trump about the true value of her inheritance.

Mary Trump, the president’s niece whose tell-all book has roiled the Trump family, is suing the commander-in-chief and his siblings, accusing the trio of committing fraud in an attempt to deprive her of millions of dollars associated with the family’s real estate empire. 

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in a New York court, names Donald Trump, his sister Maryanne Trump Barry, and their late brother Robert Trump, in the alleged fraud and civil conspiracy.

In her memoir released earlier this year, Mary Trump, 55, wrote that, for the Trumps, “fraud was not just the family business—it was a way of life.”

“Rather than protect Mary’s interests, they designed and carried out a complex scheme to siphon funds away from her interests, conceal their grift, and deceive her about the true value of what she had inherited,” the lawsuit, first reported by The New York Times Thursday, says.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) gave more than $6 million in contacts since September 2018 to the firm where acting Secretary Chad Wolf’s wife serves as an executive, NBC News reported Wednesday.

The consulting firm Berkeley Research Group has worked on many federal contracts but worked with DHS after Wolf was named the chief of staff at DHS’s Transportation Security Administration in 2017. 

His wife, Hope Wolf, is the vice president of professional staff operations at the company.

Records on the federal government website USA Spending indicate that Berkeley Research Group’s contracts are for “Information Technology Software,” but NBC News said it’s unclear what software was given to which part of DHS.

A DHS spokesperson told The Hill that Chad Wolf did not know about the contracts until reporters contacted him. 

“At no time in any of his positions since joining DHS has Acting Secretary Wolf been involved in awarding any contracts,” the spokesperson said.

“The whole process is performed by career officials. Even if he were involved with the procurement process for this particular contract, which he was not, he would have had to recuse himself due to even the appearance of impropriety.”

Berkeley Research Group declined to comment on “client engagements.”

Kyle Herrig, the founder and president of Accountable.US, a liberal leaning watchdog, told NBC News the contracts could be a conflict of interest.  

“After Mr. Wolf joined DHS, it began pumping millions of dollars into his wife’s firm, which also happens to be his largest financial asset,” Herrig told the network. “The arrangement is highly problematic and warrants congressional scrutiny.”

He also noted the largest amount on Chad Wolf’s federal financial disclosure form is for Hope Wolf’s $1.1 million retirement account at the company. 

The news comes as the acting secretary is scheduled to appear for his confirmation hearing in the Senate Wednesday morning. President Trumpannounced he would nominate Chad Wolf to become the DHS secretary last month after Wolf had served for nine months in an acting capacity. 

Wolf became the chief of staff at the Transportation Security Administration in 2017 before being promoted to chief of staff to then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in 2018. He became acting secretary of the agency in November.

Source: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/517757-more-than-6-million-in-dhs-contracts-awarded-to-firm-of-acting

Armenia views the construction of a new embassy by China as a new bid aimed at raising the Armenian-Chinese relations to a higher level, President Armen Sarkissian said after touring the newly-built Chinese Embassy in Yerevan.

“China can be proud of such a big presence, and we view this as an application by China that the Armenian-Chinese relations can be at a higher level and can further deepen. The cooperation between our countries, despite their different sizes (small Armenia and big China), both have many commonalities, both are global nations in some sense because the Chinese culture and nation are spread globally and the same relates to the Armenian people”, Sarkissian said.

According to the Armenian President, there are numerous directions for cooperation with China, but first of all in the fields of security and agriculture. “Therefore I have a very positive attitude to our future cooperation”, he said.

Sarkissian has offered the Chinese Ambassador that the cooperation with Armenia develops not only in the economic sector, but also in the education sector because there is a potential as well here, as well as in the field of culture as both Armenians and Chinese people are old nations, have a huge history and art and modern culture. “Everything depends on us, whether we will take any action or not”.

Ambassador of China to Armenia Tian Erlong considers high technologies one of the most prospective fields for the cooperation between the two countries.

“The contemporary world will not move on without the development of high technologies. Even the coronavirus pandemic proved how important the IT technologies, the online business are, therefore, I believe that the high technologies for the big China and the small Armenia are the chain that unites us, and the geographical distance is not an obstacle in this respect”, the Ambassador said.

Azerbaijan’s militaristic rhetoric, accusations against Armenia show that Baku is preparing a ground for an attack, Editor-in-chief of Realist Arabic news agency, analyst, Doctor Amr Eldiib told Armenpress, commenting on the latest regional developments.

“In order to start such actions Azerbaijan is preparing a respective ground by conducting anti-propaganda, spreading fake news as much as possible, for instance, the one according to which Armenia is bringing Kurds to Armenia and Artsakh. This is of course obvious fake news and is out of logic, no one would believe in it, however, by ensuring the respective field in the political platform Azerbaijan, in case of an attack, will already announce that it is protecting itself. Therefore, the Azerbaijani President’s such rhetoric, statement containing large number of accusations are leading to that”, the Egyptian analyst said, adding that information war is underway at this stage, but after that concrete actions in the border are not ruled out.

According to him, this entire process comes from Azerbaijan, but he says that here he obviously sees Turkey’s handwriting. Azerbaijan may go to escalation, supported by Turkey, which is trying to strengthen its positions in the region. The editor-in-chief of Realist Arabic says it’s not a coincidence that after the July military operations, escalation on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, Azerbaijan and Turkey started holding joint military exercises. After that Turkey left a part of its military troops there. According to Amr Eldiib, Turkey is trying to strengthen its positions in Azerbaijan, and this means strengthening of positions in the Caucasus and the region.

“Obviously this is Turkey’s handwriting. Observing the last experience we see that Turkey has used the conflicts in different parts of the Middle East for strengthening its positions. Now it tries to do the same in the South Caucasus”, he added.

The analyst said that Turkey is also trying to solve another issue. In recent period Turkey’s actions at several directions in the Eastern Mediterranean, North Africa and Middle East are not fully accepted by the international community.

“Currently Turkey is under strong pressures over the issues of the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean. Therefore, it’s not ruled out that Turkey may try to go to the Central Asia, Armenia, Azerbaijan in order to avoid these pressures. But I think that Turkey should not be provided with that opportunity”, he said. In this respect he highlighted uniting efforts with different countries. All countries, which feel a threat by Turkey, should be able to act jointly and jointly react to Turkey’s aggressive policy if necessary.

The analyst attached importance to the recent visit of Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan to Egypt, which also touched upon Turkey’s actions. He says Egypt and Armenia have a great potential to develop the relations not only in the political, but also in other fields. By using the friendly ties and opportunities between the two peoples it is necessary to boost the cooperation in other sectors as well. Amr Eldiib expressed hope that meetings of Armenian and Egyptian officials will take place soon.

Interview by Anna Gziryan

Incident follows anti-Armenian graffiti and suspected arson at church

MICHAEL BARBA,

Police are now investigating a string of incidents at Armenian community centers in San Francisco as hate crimes after gunshots rang out at a school near Lake Merced over the weekend, authorities said Monday.

Officers were patrolling the KZV Armenian School at 825 Brotherhood Way at around 2:25 a.m. Saturday morning when someone fired a bullet that damaged the school’s sign, according to police. No one was injured by the gunfire.

The officers were assigned to guard the school after the campus was tagged with anti-Armenian graffiti in July and a church building on Commonwealth Avenue near the Richmond District caught fire in a suspected arson last Thursday.

The incidents have sparked outrage from officials and come amid heightened tensions between Armenia and its neighboring country, Azerbaijan, that escalated in July when violence broke out along the border.

“We will not tolerate intimidation,” U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, who is of Armenian descent, tweeted in response to the first two incidents. “Love will triumph over hatred. Hope will defeat fear. Those responsible will be held accountable.”

In a statement, the San Francisco Police Department said it had “taken steps to increase the safety and security of the community.”

“However, we ask that the community remain alert and report anything suspicious to the police,” the department said. “Investigators are actively working to identify those responsible for the crimes and to place them under arrest.”

Police said the officers who heard the gunshots near the school Saturday “immediately searched for the source of the gunshots, but no suspects were located.”

On Monday, a spokesperson for the FBI in San Francisco said the agency was aware of the incidents and in“regular contact with local authorities.”

“Should information come to light of a potential federal violation, the FBI is prepared to investigate,” the agency said.

St. Gregory Armenian Apostolic Church has established an online fundraiser in response to the fire at its offices last Thursday. 

This story has been updated to include a new statement from the FBI.

[email protected]

Uri Blau, Washington Leaked bank reports reveal money transfers from state-owned defense giant to two companies suspected of money laundering for Azerbaijani government ■ The transfers began just months after a $1.6 billion arms deal was signed with the Azeri regime ■ This report was written with the assistance of Shomrim, the Center for Media and Democracy. Share in Facebook

Israel’s largest aerospace and aviation manufacturer transferred at least $155 million to two companies associated with huge-scale money laundering for the Azerbaijani government, according to leaked bank reports for the period 2012-2014. The reason for these payments by state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries, which produces aerial and astronautic systems for both military and civilian usage, remains unclear.

The story came to light as part of a huge leak involving thousands of banking documents that ultimately ended up in the hands of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

A Shomrim investigation reveals that the funds were transferred shortly after IAI signed one of its largest-ever business deals with the Azerbaijani government. A source familiar with the particulars of the deal claims, however, that to the best of his knowledge, it did not include an agreement regarding payment to any intermediary. IAI chose not to dispel the fog surrounding the nature of the payments and refrained from responding to questions as to the background of the transfers.

A Shomrim investigation reveals that the funds were transferred shortly after IAI signed one of its largest-ever business deals with the Azerbaijani government. A source familiar with the particulars of the deal claims, however, that to the best of his knowledge, it did not include an agreement regarding payment to any intermediary

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Instead, it offered the following laconic response: “Israel Aerospace Industries is a government company that operates in strict compliance with the provisions of the law. As a defense company, and in keeping with company policy, it doesn’t address or respond to information about its business activities other than as required by law.”

The payments appear in more than a dozen Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) compiled by Deutsche Bank officials and submitted to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, the U.S. Treasury Department entity responsible for detecting illegal financial activity, including money laundering and funding for terrorism. The reports, along with thousands of others from banks worldwide, were leaked originally to BuzzFeed News and then passed on to the ICIJ, which, in turn, shared them with 108 media outlets around the world and some 400 journalists, including Shomrim. See accompanying article for more on the leak.

It’s important to stress, of course, that the submission to FinCEN of a SAR doesn’t mean that the individual or company mentioned in the document has done anything illegal. The transactions to which the report refers could be part of totally legitimate business activities that were carried out in a manner that aroused the suspicion of the financial institution that reported them.

The mysterious beneficiary

The list of entities and banks mentioned in the Deutsche Bank reports concerning IAI is long and includes Israeli and foreign banks, through which payments were made from customers such as Alitalia, Indian Aerospace Industries, RwandAir, Ethiopian Airlines, Russia’s Rossiya Airlines, the Kenya Police and others. The reports also include a long list of entities to which the IAI itself transferred monies, such as the Defense Ministry, aeronautical companies around the world, and so forth. Sticking out like sore thumbs among the recipients of these payments are two companies – Jetfield Networks and Larkstone – that don’t seem to match the profile of the Israeli company’s other suppliers.

embargo on weapons sale. Baku harbour (photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Founded in New Zealand in 2009, Jetfield moved its operations to the Marshall Islands some three years later; and there, according to bank documents obtained by Italian newspaper L’Espresso, the “legitimate heir” of the company branched out into the field of consulting services. Before then, according to the same documents, the company had reported to the banks that it was engaged in commerce, including the buying and selling of construction equipment.

Jetfield’s relocation to the Marshall Islands became official in early February 2012, and almost simultaneously, Israeli and international media reported the signing of a huge contract between IAI and the Azerbaijani government – a product of the close and multifaceted relationship between Israel and Azerbaijan

The company’s beneficiary is a man by the name of Javid Huseynov, an Azeri born in 1961. Huseynov is also the beneficiary of Larkstone, a company that operates out of Estonia.

Jetfield’s relocation to the Marshall Islands became official in early February 2012, and almost simultaneously, Israeli and international media reported the signing of a huge contract between IAI and the Azerbaijani government – a product of the close and multifaceted relationship between Israel and Azerbaijan that remains, for the most part, hidden from public view. Israel buys oil from Azerbaijan, and the Azeris purchase arms and agricultural equipment from Israel. The government in Jerusalem, according to foreign media reports, attaches significant strategic importance to Azerbaijan due to its long border with Iran, with the human rights violations that occur in the country failing to constitute any sort of obstacle to the ties.

In its latest report, U.S.-based organization Freedom House, an independent watchdog that ranks the countries of the world in terms of their standards of democracy and human rights, notes that “power in Azerbaijan’s authoritarian regime remains heavily concentrated in the hands of Ilham Aliyev, who has served as president since 2003, and his extended family. Corruption is rampant, and the formal political opposition has been weakened by years of persecution. The authorities have carried out an extensive crackdown on civil liberties in recent years, leaving little room for independent expression or activism.”

An embargo on the sale of weapons to Azerbaijan, imposed in February 1992 by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, has also not deterred Israel from trading with Azerbaijan.

Negotiations over the deal between IAI and Azerbaijan began some two years before the contract was announced, and talks with various IAI sources reveal that very few company officials were in the know. The first batch of products was delivered about two years after the deal was signed and supplies continued for at least five years. According to Israeli and international media reports, the deal included the sale of drones and missile defense systems. For the Azeris, it was a business deal of extraordinary proportions, amounting to more than half the country’s overall annual defense budget of $3.2 billion.

according to Israeli and international media reports, the deal included the sale of drones and missile defense systems. For the Azeris, it was a business deal of extraordinary proportions, amounting to more than half the country’s overall annual defense budget of $3.2 billion

For IAI, too, the deal was almost unprecedented in size, the result of what one of the sources we interviewed for this report defined as “a honeymoon” with the Shia republic that began somewhere around 2007.

“No clear commercial purpose”

“This report is submitted,” begins one of the documents sent by Deutsche Bank to the U.S. authorities, “because Israel Aerospace Industries is involved in the production of arms, which is a high-risk industry [in terms of money laundering, U.B.]” The report then goes on to include data on several large money transfers, in round amounts, that were made “without a clear commercial purpose.” According to Deutsche Bank, IAI said the huge payments were for “management and consulting services” provided by the two companies. We’ll get back to that later.

The payments to Jetfield began in June 2012, just months after the giant deal with Azerbaijan was signed, with a transfer of close to $30 million, followed by an additional $6 million in October that same year, and then repeated transfers in the months that followed. An analysis of Deutsche Bank’s reports to FinCEN shows that by 2014, more than $116 million had been transferred to Jetfield, with Larkstone receiving around $39 million during the same period. In one instance, according to the bank reports, IAI transferred about $8 million to Jetfield for the purchase of helicopter rotor blades. “Deutsche Bank wasn’t able to independently confirm the purpose of the transfer of funds,” the report notes.

The payments to Jetfield began in June 2012, just months after the giant deal with Azerbaijan was signed, with a transfer of close to $30 million, followed by an additional $6 million in October that same year, and then repeated transfers in the months that followed

The money transfers to Jetfield and Larkstone raise questions primarily due to information about the two companies that came to light in the years that followed. Bank documents, which were leaked in 2017 and served as the basis for a series of investigative reports published by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) under the title, The Azerbaijani Laundromat, revealed that a sum of 2.5 billion euros had been channeled through companies with very close ties to the Azeri regime to four companies registered in England, through which the money was then laundered. Jetfield, according to the OCCRP investigation, was one of the companies through which some of the money, $109 million, was channeled. Larkstone was part of the system too.

The money, which flowed out of Azerbaijan between 2012 and 2014, was used, inter alia, to purchase luxury goods for government officials in Azerbaijan, but also for greasing palms. More than 2 million euros that left Azerbaijan, with a portion going through Jetfield, for example, ended up in 2012 in the bank account of Italian politician Luca Volontè, Rome’s representative to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), an official European Union body that keeps track of human rights violations and the preservation of democratic institutions. The Italian police believe that, in return for the payment, Volontè undertook to soften European Council reports on human rights violations in Azerbaijan. The investigation, which was launched as far back as 2015, is still ongoing.

The questions only get bigger in light of material uncovered in a worldwide investigation underway into the Estonian branch of Danske Bank of Denmark, which allegedly served as a center for money laundering to the tune of some $200 billion. Both Jetfield and Larkstone managed accounts at the bank, and internal bank correspondence uncovered during the investigation touches on the companies’ ties with IAI.

In one internal email, Oksana Lindmets, a Danske Bank employee and suspect in the affair, provides details about a meeting with representatives of Jetfield in Baku in January 2012. The company, she writes, is part of an array of firms, including Larkstone, that are engaged in “marketing, research, legal, financial and tax consulting, and also the finding of partners.” Its principal customers, Lindmets adds, “are international companies that wish to offer their services and other goods to various government ministries in Azerbaijan (Defense, Communications, etc.).”

Lindmets notes in her email (sent in June 2012, a few months after IAI signed its deal with Azerbaijan) that Jetfield has already signed contracts with IAI. The email explicitly states that Jetfield isn’t involved in the buying or selling of equipment, and that the company will be providing consulting and office management services for IAI, locating local partners and so forth. Jetfield, according to the email, will receive a brokerage fee of 9.9 percent of the volume of the deals.

Another email, dealing with Larkstone this time, was sent in February 2013 and concerned the transfer of $11.5 million from IAI to the company. This contract is unusual, Lindmets writes, as it doesn’t deal with consulting services. According to the email, Larkstone had been contracted by IAI to purchase trucks and a generator to be transferred to Azerbaijan. A third email notes that Larkstone may be involved in the construction of a training base in Azerbaijan on behalf of IAI.

IAI business deals require the approval of the company’s board of directors, as well as that of SIBAT, the International Defense Cooperation Directorate of the Defense Ministry. According to former IAI officials, the regulations regarding the payment of commission fees are very stringent, and the same goes for the due diligence that companies that work with IAI undergo. These regulations, a former senior IAI official told Shomrim, have been even more strictly adhered to since Israel joined the OECD more than a decade ago. In any event, none of the people with whom we spoke were familiar with the names Jetfield, Larkstone or Huseynov.

Source: https://www.hashomrim.org/eng/341

The 47-year-old, a Rhode Island native, is the daughter of immigrants — her father is from India, while her mother is a second generation Armenian

Sara Gideon, the Democratic speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, is challenging longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins. The Huffington Post reported that Gideon had “signaled a potential bid in October after Collins, the state’s GOP senator, voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh.”

Gideon, 47, the daughter of an Indian father and an Armenian mother, is serving her second term as Speaker of the House and fourth term in the Maine House of Representatives, representing the towns of Freeport and Pownal.

″Whether it’s been on the town council, as a state representative or as Maine’s speaker of the House, I’ve learned that if you listen and if you are willing to work with others, it’s still possible to get things done,” the Indian-American said in a video announcing her decision to run against Collins on June 24.

News reports say that defeating Collins is key to Democratic hopes of winning back control of the Senate in 2020 and speculate that this will be one of the most high-profile Senate race of 2020. 

“Susan Collins has been in the Senate for 22 years and at one point maybe she was different than some of the other folks in Washington,” the Gideon said in her campaign video. “But she doesn’t seem that way anymore.”

Gideon, a Rhode Island native, is the third candidate to have formally announced plans to run for Senate against Susan Collins. Betsy Sweet, a former candidate for governor of Maine, announced in June that she was running for the Senate. And Bre Kidman, a lawyer and the first openly non-binary U.S. Senate candidate in the country, announced her candidacy back in April.

Susan Rice, the former National Security adviser and one-time ambassador to the United Nations, who had earlier hinted that she might consider running to replace Susan Collins, has however decided against it, news reports said.

Derek Levasseur, a conservative blogger, has announced he will run against Collins in the Republican primary.

In an interview with the Press Herald on June 24, Gideon said she didn’t believe Collins was still acting in the best interest of Maine people. She said Collins had become “a creature of Washington, D.C.,” serving mostly the interests of the Republican Party.

“When I think about Sen. Collins, I think she might have been different from the other people in Washington when she was first elected, but I have to ask is that still the case,” Gideon said. She told the Press Herald that as a U.S. senator she would put “Maine and its people first.”

A June 25 Huffington Post report says that a day after announcing her candidacy, Gideon received three key endorsements. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and NARAL Pro-Choice America announced their support, along with EMILY’s List, a political action committee that backs female Democratic candidates who support abortion rights.

According to her website, Gideon had sponsored legislation in Maine, which was signed into law this year, to expand abortion access by permitting health care professionals who are not physicians to perform the procedure. She was also behind an effort to expand benefits to families in poverty.

On her website Gideon says her number one priority is building an economy that works for everyone. She believes that “Maine people are our best resource, that Maine students deserve our investment and that fostering innovation and entrepreneurship will lead to successful businesses statewide.”

The New York Times reported that Gideon said she first got the idea to run for public office in 2009 when someone left a message on her family’s answering machine asking her husband to consider running for town council. When she pushed the button and heard the message, she said, “I thought to myself, actually I think that’s a job that I can do.”

Gideon graduated from the George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where she also worked as an intern for U.S. Sen. Claiborne Pell, Democrat of Rhode Island. She spent most of her career as an advertising account executive for a nationally renowned newspaper, where she was awarded the president’s award for excellence in sales.

She is a past member of the Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Energy, Utilities and Technology, where she worked to lower energy costs, encourage increased energy efficiency and promote clean and renewable energy to capitalize on Maine’s natural resources and build a clean-energy economy. She also served as assistant majority leader for House Democrats in the 127th Legislature.

Although there isn’t much information on Gideon’s father, news reports say he immigrated from India and worked as a pediatrician in Rhode Island, where Gideon, the youngest of four children, grew up. After meeting her husband Ben Gideon, a personal injury trial lawyer with the firm of Berman & Simons, she moved with him to Maine. The couple now lives in Freeport with their three children, Julian, Alek and Josie.

read: https://saragideon.com/meet-sara/

The Iran-Iraq War is one of the deadliest military conflicts in the Middle East. The eight-year-long conflict, which saw the use of chemical weapons, killed thousands of people and divided the region on sectarian lines.

A territorial dispute

On September 22, 1980, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein sent troops into neighboring Iran, starting an eight-year-long deadly war that killed thousands of people. The conflict started with a territorial dispute between the two Shiite majority countries.

The Algiers accord

Five years earlier, in March 1975, Hussein, then Iraq’s vice president, and the Shah of Iran signed a deal in Algiers to settle the border dispute. Baghdad, however, accused Tehran of plotting attacks and called for the evacuation of three strategic islands in the Strait of Hormuz, claimed by both Iran and the UAE.

A key water source

On September 17, 1980, Baghdad declared the Algiers accord null and void and demanded control of all of the Shatt al-Arab — a 200-kilometer-long (125 mile) river formed by the meeting of the Tigris and the Euphrates, which flows into the Gulf.

Bombing of ports and cities

Hussein’s forces bombed Iranian airports, including the one in Tehran, as well as military facilities and Iran’s oil refineries. Iraqi forces met little resistance in the first week and seized the towns of Qasr-e Shirin and Mehran, as well as Iran’s southwestern port of Khorramshahr, where the Shatt al-Arab meets the sea.

Common enemy

Many Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, backed Baghdad in the war against Iran, fearing that the Islamic Revolution spearheaded by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini could influence the Shiite population in the Middle East. Western countries, too, supported Baghdad and sold weapons to Hussein’s regime.

Iran pushes back

Iran’s counterattack took Iraq by surprise as Tehran managed to take back the control of the Khorramshahr port. Baghdad announced a ceasefire and pulled back troops, but Tehran rejected it and continued to bomb Iraqi cities. From April 1984, the two sides engaged in a “war of the cities,” in which some 30 cities on both sides were battered by missile attacks.

Truce

On July 18, 1988, Khomeini accepted a UN Security Council resolution to end the war. While the exact number of those killed in the war is not known, at least 650,000 people died during the conflict. A ceasefire was declared on August 20, 1988.

A new chapter

The toppling of Hussein’s regime by the US in 2003 ushered in a new era in the Middle East. Relations between Iraq and Iran have improved since then and the two countries increasingly cooperate economically, culturally and socially.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has exerted an unusually strong hold on US President Donald Trump. A new research news study reveals that this romantic relationship is built by a strong circle of interest.

At the center of the circle of interest are an “oligarch” associated with the Kremlin and a shipping king accused of terrorism. Those who brought these names together with the Trump Administration is a president’s favorite lobbyist and a key person who was dismissed for the Ukraine investigation.

Aubrey Belford and by Adam Klasfeld “oligarchs and Watergate: Trump Turkey Reverse Side of Love” title, Courthouse News, how it starts and complex background on the extensive research news studies published in reputable sites, portals, such as organized crime and corruption watchdog OCCRP and NBC is described as follows :

“The day before Donald Trump took office, at lunch at the Washington Watergate Hotel, a foreign government was pushing ways to engage with the new US administration. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and powerful lobbyist Brian Ballard, then deputy chairman of Trump’s inaugural committee, met for the first time for a job interview that had never been heard before. The two men who held the meeting were also present there; One of them, nearly three years later, which lead to an indictment Trump because informal activities in Ukraine Floridians businessman Lev Parnas, the other is today on trial on terrorism charges in Turkey Mansimov Turkey-Azerbaijan Mubariz maritime king. “

“The agenda includes the United States, there were two million dollar contract to lobby on behalf of Erdogan, Turkey’s Islamist leader.

Parnas describes that period as follows in a 90-minute interview:

‘There were many guards, Turkish guards. It was a small restaurant. We entered. [Çavuşoğlu] was sitting at the restaurant with several Turkish senior officials. ”

According to Parnas, Azerbaijani businessman Mubariz named Ballard, known as “Trump’s Strongest Lobbyist in Washington” by Politico news portal and known as the best fundraiser for Trump in Florida, as “Trump’s No. 1 man”. introduced. “

Courthousnews reporters underline that the developing bilateral relationship has stunned the Trump administration and advisors who believe that Erdogan’s interests are put before the interests of America with the decisions taken by the president himself.

John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, also described the relationship between Trump and Erdogan as “bromance – the close relationship between two boyfriends.”

According to research by Courhousenews and two other media groups, there is a deeper story behind this “close relationship”: parts of this story are Russia-linked oligarchs and fraudsters and key players in the Ukrainian scandal that led to the launch of impeachment investigations targeting Trump.

According to the report, lobbying agreements with Ballard were established with the help of Parnas and shipping king Mansimov, as well as Farhat Ahmedov, who was identified by the US Treasury as the Russian oligarch closely related to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

According to official records, at the end of the contracts, Ballard’s firm required to receive $ 125,000 a month to represent the Turkish state bank Halkbank, which is being tried in the US for fraud, money laundering and sanctions.

Parnas was paid 45 thousand dollars for the deal, which introduced the two sides. Parnas says this money is a “silence.”
The contracts with Ballard were part of a much wider Turkish influence. agreement between Ballard and Turkey, Turkish businessmen and ministers of illegally Trump, one of the former national security adviser, retired General Mike Flynn with the agreement as a lobbyist, the CIA, the former president James Woolsey, such as a name with the $ 10 million that it had discussed the influence campaigns before it also coincided with some of the news that were widely reflected in the media.

Sezgin Baran Korkmaz, one of the businessmen who met both Mansimov and Flynn, was also in partnership with an Armenian-American gangster during this time who was convicted of defrauding some members of a Mormon sect that advocated polygamy.

IRS (US Tax Authority) connected in court in connection with a federal agent Korkmaz fraudsters directly linked to Erdogan that Turkey and testified the way they provide protection from the government.

According to the Courthousenews report, Mansimov, who is currently in jail on terrorism charges, said that Mansimov, who is currently in prison on charges of terrorism, told him that he gave a 25 million dollar oil tanker to the Erdogan family.

Source: https://ahvalnews-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/ahvalnews.com/?amp