1 – US Indicts Turkish Halkbank for Illegal
Transfer of Billions of Dollars to Iran
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com
2- ‘We Armenians Survived’: Physician’s Contribution Draws
Past to Present
3 – Save Your Favorite Restaurant, Order Direct
4- Pasadena School Board Approves New Armenian Dual Immersion School
5- Afeyan: Phase 2 of COVID-19 Vaccine Trials in Spring
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1 – US Indicts Turkish Halkbank for Illegal
Transfer of Billions of Dollars to Iran
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com
Halkbank, whose majority shareholder is the Turkish government,
pleaded not guilty in New York on March 31, 2020, to criminal charges
that it helped Iran illicitly transfer tens of billions in dollars and
gold, wrote Aykan Erdemir and Philip Kowalski in an essay published on
April 3 by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a policy
institute based in Washington, D.C.
On October 15, 2019, the Federal Southern District Court of New York
accused Halkbank of “fraud, money-laundering and sanctions offenses,”
alleging that Halkbank and its executives aided Iranian-Turkish gold
trader Reza Zarrab in a “multi-billion dollar scheme to circumvent
U.S. sanctions on Iran.”
Initially, Halkbank refused to appear in court “claiming that the
criminal charges are beyond the U.S. court’s jurisdiction,” Erdemir
and Kowalski wrote. However, when “prosecutors proposed escalating
contempt fines which could have totaled $1.8 billion after eight
weeks,” the bank agreed to respond to the court charges.
Originally, the Turkish and Iranian officials had concocted a scheme
to exchange gas for gold to circumvent the U.S. sanctions, by claiming
that the gold was headed not to Iranian government entities but to
Iran’s “private sector.” Erdemir and Kowalski stated that “the scheme
ultimately yielded the Iranian regime some $13 billion in Turkish gold
between 2012 and 2013. Once the U.S. Congress introduced legislation
to close the ‘golden loophole’ in 2013, Iran used Turkish front
companies to issue invoices for fake transactions of food and medicine
that fall under the humanitarian exception to U.S. sanctions. In one
infamous case of over-invoicing, a Turkey-based luxury yacht company
used Halkbank to sell nearly 5.2 tons of brown sugar to Iran’s Bank
Pasargad at the price of approximately $240 per pound.”
This scheme was first exposed in December 2013 by Turkish
investigators who implicated then Prime-Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
several of his ministers and other senior officials, including
Halkbank’s managers. Erdogan shut down the probe by firing the police
officials, prosecutors and judges!
The scandal resurfaced in March 2016 when Iranian-Turkish ring-leader
Reza Zarrab was arrested in Miami after he flew to Florida to visit
Disney World with his family.
In March 2017, U.S. authorities arrested Halkbank Deputy CEO Mehmet
Hakan Atilla upon his arrival in New York. Zarrab pleaded guilty and
agreed to testify in court against Atilla. Zarrab confessed that he
had bribed senior Turkish ministers and top Halkbank executives. He
even implicated Erdogan in the corruption scheme, stating that Erdogan
had personally approved the illegal actions.
“Halkbank’s Atilla received a 32-month prison sentence in May 2018, a
significantly shorter one than prosecutors had originally sought,”
according to Erdemir and Kowalsky. “After Atilla’s return to Turkey,
Erdogan rewarded the convicted sanctions buster by appointing him CEO
of the Istanbul stock exchange, following the president’s established
pattern of rewarding other senior accomplices of Zarrab with cushy
appointments.”
Erdogan personally appealed to Pres. Trump and other senior officials
to block the court case of Halkbank, claiming that US courts have no
right to try Turkish citizens. The Courthouse News Service reported
that “One of Zarrab’s shell companies, Royal Holding A.S., listed its
address as a 35th floor unit in Trump Towers Istanbul. Before pleading
guilty to money laundering, sanctions evasions and bribery, Zarrab
retained Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani to lead a campaign of
shadow diplomacy that echoed the one in Ukraine. Shuttling between
Turkey’s capital of Ankara and the White House, Giuliani met with
Erdogan, Trump, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and other
senior U.S. and Turkish officials in an attempt to negotiate a
prisoner swap. The New York Times reported that Tillerson resisted the
White House pressure for a deal that would have effectively killed the
Zarrab case.”
Erdogan’s and Giuliani’s efforts succeeded in stalling the prosecution
for almost two years, but ultimately failed when the U.S. Attorney’s
Office for the Southern District of New York went forward with the
charges last October.”
Senator Ron Wyden, the Senate Finance Committee’s top Democrat, told
Courthouse News Service: “It sure looked like Donald Trump was doing
the bidding of Erdogan and Giuliani, and there were real questions
about whether this was about getting Halkbank off the hook, even
though there were allegations that they were orchestrating the largest
sanctions evasion scheme in history.”
During Pres. Trump’s Senate impeachment inquiry earlier in 2020,
Senators Wyden, Robert Menendez and Sherrod Brown asked a joint
question which was read aloud in the Senate by Chief Justice John
Roberts: “Has the president engaged in a pattern of conduct in which
he places his personal and political interests on top of the national
security interests of the United States?”
Wyden told Courthouse News Service: “Donald Trump has significant
financial interest in Turkey,” referring to Trump Towers Istanbul. “We
read regularly that his family has forged personal relationships with
important Turkish officials. And so, you have to ask—which is what is
part of our inquiry—whether the Trump policy toward Turkey is in a
significant way colored by his personal and political interests and
not the national security of the country.”
If Halkbank is found guilty of violating U.S. sanctions, the court
could impose a hefty penalty, regardless of the wishes of Pres. Trump.
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2- ‘We Armenians Survived’: Physician’s Contribution Draws
Past to Present
ALAMEDA, Calif.—Author Ellen Sarkisian Chesnut’s second non-fiction
book: We Armenians Survived! Battle of Marash 1920 became available
for purchase at the Amazon Kindle Store in December 2019. The book
consists of eye-witness accounts of civilians caught between the
opposing forces of Turkish combatants against the French army.
“I knew my mother’s people, the Shamlians, Topalians and Berberians of
Marash, Turkey lost relatives to heartless torture before being
summarily killed but luckily they survived as did an adolescent, Lydia
Bagdikian, not a family member, whose memoir is featured in the book,”
says Chesnut.
Chesnut first learned of her family’s experiences during the Armenian
Genocide of 1915-1923 when she was an adolescent. She always wanted to
let readers of history know the truth of what happened. Chesnut
succeeded in this with the publication, to overwhelmingly positive
reviews, of her first book about her father published in 2014—Deli
Sarkis: The Scars He Carried.
“I’m reading Ellen Chestnut’s latest book “Battle of Marash” while in
quarantine due to the pandemic. Rather than repeat the excellent
previous reviews for this book, I just want to add my personal
recommendation for this book which is a heartfelt compilation of
memoirs by survivors of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey. While this
first genocide of the 20th century was horrific, the stories of
persecuted Christians and their amazing survival and incredible
accomplishments as immigrants is heart warming. In one passage I
learned that a co-developer of the malaria drug that is now saving
CV19 patients’ lives was just one of these incredible survivors. What
an amazing people,” wrote readers Jim and Randi, who gave the book a
five-star review on March 28, 2020.
The review references three chapters of the book that feature the
memoirs of Dr. Dicran Berberian about the Battle of Marash. “It turns
out that Dicran Berberian (my mother’s first cousin) was the
co-discoverer of the antimalarial drug Plaquenil now known as
Hydroxychloroquine. This is being used by some doctors to treat people
with COVID-19,” said Sarkisian Chesnut.
Ellen Sarkisian Chesnut’s second non-fiction book is available not
only at the Amazon Kindle Store but can be ordered at any bookstore in
America both in Ebook and paperback version.
Chesnut has decided that all proceeds from book sales will help
Armenian compatriots in distress in both Lebanon and Syria—Armenian
Relief Society for Armenian Syria Relief and the Armenian Missionary
Association of America for Armenian Lebanon Relief. “By ordering this
book, you will not only be getting an informative book filled with
inspirational stories but you will be helping Armenians in the Middle
East! Thank you for your heartfelt support!” said Chesnut.
For more information, visit
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3 – Save Your Favorite Restaurant, Order Direct
By Rostom Sarkissian
For The California Courier
You’re hungry, your pantry looks like the grocery store shelves in a
horror movie, and you’re craving kabob, pad Thai or that juicy burger
from the local spot you love, so what do you do?
Before you pick up your phone and press some buttons on a delivery app
like GrubHub, UberEats, or Postmates, think about the restaurant you
love. If you want them to exist in the short or long term, close that
app and order directly from them the old-fashioned way: call them or
as we did in the early days of the internet, go to their websites.
This advice applies all the time but is especially important now. If
your favorite restaurant is open during this pandemic, then by law
they are only allowed to do take out or delivery. They don’t deliver,
you say? Call them and ask because you’ll be surprised at how many
have figured out an in-house delivery option. If they haven’t, then
order from the apps. But if they have, then please order from them
directly. It’s the greatest thing you can do to help them!
My family’s restaurant, Aslan Mediterranean Cuisine, has been in
operation for 33 years in Los Angeles, and I can’t explain to you how
much you will be helping ALL the restaurants that you love by ordering
directly from them. With that simple act, you will be putting extra
money in their pockets because the big tech companies take up to 30
percent of restaurant’s revenue—right off the top—on every order you
place.
These tech delivery companies start their relationships with
restaurants by enticing them with the promise of new customers. But
over time, what they end up doing is converting a restaurant’s
existing customers into their platform’s users. Before restaurants
realize it, they become captives to the Faustian bargain they made at
the beginning. Since customers get the exact same meal they’re used
to, they don’t realize that they’re actually ordering from a billion
dollar “broker” company, rather than the mom and pop business they
think they’re supporting.
Before the coronavirus created this existential crisis, these delivery
companies were already draining small restaurants of crucial revenue.
Now that everyone is staying at home, these delivery companies have
become even more popular. Sensing an opportunity to capture customers
and worrying about a David vs. Goliath narrative, these companies put
out press releases touting their efforts to help small businesses,
while simultaneously creating marketing gimmicks that further
disadvantage small businesses. GrubHub eventually got bad press for
their “Supper for Support” promotion which costs restaurants $21 on
the first $30 of a sale, and UberEats comically offered to waive their
fees for restaurants on pick up orders, which happens as often as you
pay for an Uber ride so you can then walk home.
As an essential industry, restaurants have an exemption to stay open,
but only for delivery and take-out. Every restaurateur we know has
seen their revenue slashed; we have agonized at having to reduce hours
and let loyal staff go; we all worry about how we’re going to pay our
bills; we are constantly thinking about how to make sure that we and
our staff stay safe and don’t get sick when we interact with our
customers, and; the prudent ones among us have limited our shopping
days and locations to ensure the safety of our staff, thus increasing
our input costs because we can’t always shop where the produce is the
cheapest.
Like most restaurants, we don’t serve food that is quintessentially
unique, so our customer’s demand is considered elastic (i.e. when
price goes up, the customers will go somewhere else) so we have been
shouldering the increased material and food costs while simultaneously
being drained of much needed revenue by our delivery “partners.”
What we, and many restaurant owners have found to be hopeful is the
genuine desire by Americans of all stripes to help their favorite
local restaurants survive. Americans are rallying around efforts to
feed first responders, meet the nutritional needs of vulnerable
populations and ensure that children who need healthy meals get it
while supporting the remaining small business that are allowed to be
in operation.
The best way you can help is by ordering directly from all the
restaurants you love. I promise you, if you order that way, they will
love you right back!
Rostom Sarkissian is a Los Angeles-based public affairs professional
with over 20 years of experience in campaigns, project management,
non-profit development, government & media relations and small
business marketing. His family’s restaurant, Aslan Mediterranean
Cuisine, has been serving Mediterranean food with a Lebanese, Armenian
& Greek flair since 1988.
A longer version of this piece can be found on Medium where the author
delves into what restaurant owners can do to level the playing field
and shares some advice on how we can all be more safe when we order
take-out / delivery, shop for groceries & other essential goods during
this pandemic.
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4- Pasadena School Board Approves New Armenian Dual Immersion School
PASADENA—In response to community interest, the Pasadena Unified
School District (PUSD) Board of Education has approved a new Armenian
Dual Language Immersion high school program for the 2020-2021 school
year. The 9-12th grade program will be located at Blair High School,
home of the District’s International Baccalaureate secondary school
programs; students will have access to IB courses. Blair serves
students in middle and high school and is composed of three adjacent
campuses. Registration for the Armenian Dual Language Immersion
Program begins April 6, 2020, at openenrollment.info
“This is a unique opportunity to expand PUSD’s bilingual and
biliteracy academic options that now include our district’s first high
school Armenian Dual Language Immersion Program,” said Superintendent
Brian McDonald. “The commitment that the parents and community have
demonstrated by establishing a program that encourages families to
remain in PUSD is remarkable, and I am pleased to welcome them to
PUSD.”
PUSD currently offers Dual Language Immersion Programs in French,
Mandarin, and Spanish.
To register, current PUSD students must submit an application between
April 6 – 20, 2020, to enroll in the program. New-to-PUSD resident
students and out-of-district students may apply online between April 6
through August 6, 2020. Additional details are posted on PUSD’s Open
Enrollment website at openenrollment.info
Classes, including language immersion, will be taught by
fully-credentialed bilingual teachers who have additional preparation
and expertise in teaching Armenian. The program will be located at
Blair School, which serves students in grades 6-12 and has vibrant
International Baccalaureate programmes, an International Academy, a
Health Careers Academy, and a Spanish Dual Language program..
Armenian DLIP will be open for students in grades 9-12. The model
would be consistent with other DLIP high school programs in PUSD by
offering one class per grade level when fully implemented at the high
school level. The instructional model will follow the Guiding
Principles for Dual Language Education. Staff will conduct additional
planning and outreach to determine the selected program model for
possible middle school and elementary school options, should the
program expand in future years.
The new Armenian Immersion Program will offer the following classes in
2020-21: Armenian I, Armenian II, Armenian III, and Armenian IV
(subject to minimum student enrollment). As the program expands, PUSD
plans to offer additional courses including Armenian Literature and
Armenian History and Culture.
Language course placement will be determined by the student’s ability
in the target language as well as prior course completion.
“This was the finest example of collaboration and partnership between
the Armenian community and the Pasadena Unified School District,” said
Maro Yacoubian, a community member who advocated for the creation of
the program. “With the unwavering commitment from parents and
community members, we have not only filled a void in the community but
have also created a groundbreaking educational opportunity.”
“By establishing this academy, PUSD will have the distinct honor of
having created the first Armenian Dual language, history/culture, with
IB program in the nation,” said community member Goldie Gastjan. “This
unique program will present the opportunity for students beyond
Pasadena to attend this school. Our community families are anxiously
waiting, and we see a very bright future.”
“I am thrilled with the Pasadena Unified School District’s vote of
approval to establish an Armenian Dual Language Immersion program at
Blair School, the first of its kind in the U.S.” said Arsine
Shirvanian, a community member who advocated for the program.
A welcome and program event will be planned once schools reopen. The
first day of school for PUSD students is August 17, 2020.
The approval is conditional upon enrollment in the program of 150
students who are new to PUSD and is expected to draw interest from
Pasadena-area families, including students who were previously
enrolled at the soon-to-close AGBU high school.
The program will be capped at 250 students in the first year. If the
program does not meet enrollment projections, course offerings and the
program location are subject to change.
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5- Afeyan: Phase 2 of COVID-19 Vaccine Trials in Spring
The first human trial of a vaccine to prevent the coronavirus could
advance to the next step this spring, Moderna Chairman Noubar Afeyan
said April 9.
“It’s difficult to put a specific date on things just because it’s a
very dynamic situation,” Afeyan told CNBC. “We’ve entered phase 1
trials. … We’ll enter hopefully phase 2 of trials… we expect that to
happen in the spring, perhaps early summer. And success there will
hopefully lead us to phase 3 trials.”
Moderna partnered with the National Institutes of Health to accelerate
the development of the vaccine to prevent COVID-19. Phase 1 human
trials of the potential vaccine began in the Seattle area in
mid-March.
Afeyan expressed hope that the first results of COVID-19 vaccine
testing to come in spring.
Afeyan, who is also CEO of venture capital firm Flagship Pioneering,
helped co-found Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Moderna in 2010.
Afeyan said he expects other companies working on a vaccine, such as
Johnson & Johnson, could also be successful in developing an effective
one.
“We hope that everybody succeeds because the worldwide demand for
these types of interventions is far in excess of what any one player
can deliver,” he said.
Johnson & Johnson said Monday that it hoped to begin human trials of
its experimental COVID-19 vaccine by September. Other companies are
attempting to develop a drug to treat COVID-19.
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