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June 2016

Money-Laundering Standards Body Suspends Some Iran Restrictions By Samuel Rubenfeld

The Financial Action Task Force, an international anti-money-laundering standards body, said Friday it would suspend some of its restrictions against Iran for a year to monitor Tehran’s progress implementing changes to its regulatory regime.

The White House has been pushing to ease the path for business into Iran since the implementation of the nuclear agreement, and removing Iran from the FATF blacklist would aid in that effort. Critics, however, are pushing back, saying Iran’s conduct hasn’t changed since the deal was implemented, citing, among other things, Iran’s support for groups such as Hezbollah.

The FATF, following its plenary session in South Korea this week, said it welcomed Iran’s adoption of, and political commitment to, an action plan to address deficiencies in its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing policies, as well as Iran’s decision to seek assistance with implementation. Iran will remain on the blacklist until the full implementation is complete, and if Iran fails to demonstrate “sufficient progress” at the end of the yearlong suspension, the restrictions will be reimposed, the FATF said, calling attention to Iran’s issues with terrorism financing, without specifying what those issues were.

Among other moves in recent months, Iran ordered the implementation of an anti-terror financing law and it joined the Eurasian Group, an FATF-associate body, as an observer. If Iran meets its commitments, the FATF said it would “consider next steps.” In the meantime, the FATF called for members to tell their country’s financial financial institutions to “apply enhanced due diligence to business relationships and transactions,” using a risk-based approach, with people and companies in Iran.

“The FATF will continue to engage with Iran and closely monitor its progress,” it said in a statement.

Countries that fail to implement FATF’s standards on anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing policy run the risk of being labeled as high-risk or uncooperative jurisdictions, making it more costly and difficult for those nations to transact with the banking systems of FATF member states.

Iran has lobbied for removal from the FATF blacklist, seeing it as a roadblock to investment from foreign companies since the implementation of the nuclear agreement with global powers. Global banks have cited the FATF’s statements on Iran as one reason to hold back on investment.

North Korea and Iran are the only countries labeled as “high-risk or uncooperative jurisdictions” by the FATF. In February, the FATF said in its statement it was “particularly and exceptionally concerned” about Iran’s failures to address terrorism-financing issues, saying it poses a serious threat to the integrity of the global financial system. CONTINUE AT SITE

DEAR LEADER ON BREXIT IN APRIL

Obama, Cameron and the Day of the ‘Remains’The president’s entry into the ‘Brexit’ debate included adding to the economic scaremongering.ByToby Young

The debate about whether Britain should remain in the European Union or leave (“Brexit”) took a dramatic turn Friday when President Obama broke off from wishing Queen Elizabeth II a happy 90th birthday to lecture the British people about how to vote in the EU referendum on June 23.

In a joint news conference with Prime Minister David Cameron, who has staked his political future on Britain’s voting “Remain” rather than “Leave,” Mr. Obama was full of surprises.

For one thing, he admitted that it had been his call to remove the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office when he first became president. That was a jaw-dropper, because until now the White House has maintained that the decision was taken before Mr. Obama took up residence and was no reflection on the president’s attitude toward Britain or its “special relationship” with the United States. Only a month ago, Ted Cruz was accused of “lying” when he repeated this story. So it was good of the president to clear that up, although unlikely to endear him to his British audience.

The biggest shock, though, was his affirmation of something the pro-EU camp has been claiming and which is usually dismissed as typical of “Project Fear”—the disparaging name the Leave side has given to the Remain campaign. Earlier this week, George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Mr. Cameron’s closest ally, claimed that Brexit would cost each British family £4,300 ($6,200), a figure written off by his opponents as scaremongering.

But Mr. Obama seemed to confirm Mr. Osborne’s pessimistic analysis when he said Britain, if it leaves the EU, would be at the “back of the queue” if it had to negotiate a separate trade deal with the U.S. That sent shock waves through the Brexit camp, which has long maintained that America’s exports to the U.K.—$56.35 billion in 2015—are so valuable that a new trade agreement would be quickly negotiated. CONTINUE AT SITE

A Peasant Revolt Upends Britain’s Ruling Elite Politicians, academics, big-business leaders and journalists are aghast: Democracy has spoken. By Quentin Letts

What indignation we had from London liberals when the result of Britain’s referendum on the European Union became clear early on Friday. By a majority of 52% in a high turnout, voters had opted to leave the Brussels-based union of 28 European countries.

“Catastrophic!” spluttered Keith Vaz, chairman of the parliamentary select committee on home affairs. Tony Blair suggested the public—the ill-educated dimwits—did not understand what it had just done. A former national political party leader, Lord Ashdown, was so aghast at the result that he lamented: “God help our country.”

The name of the party Mr. Ashdown once led? The Liberal Democrats. Yet here he was complaining after 17.4 million voters gave a clear democratic order to quit the EU, a federalizing union that was unpopular chiefly because, ahem, it was so undemocratic.

Events moved fast. Prime Minister David Cameron, choking back tears, announced his resignation. Mr. Cameron paid the price for leading a rancorous campaign to keep his country in the EU.

Sterling plummeted and the London stock market had an attack of the vapors. The opposition Labour Party announced moves to unseat its own leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who had also campaigned for standing by Brussels. With British politics suffering a bout of the collywobbles, we needed a statesman to bring some stability to proceedings. Enter Donald Trump, who arrived in Scotland on a visit and made a speech in the middle of his Turnberry golf course. Turnberry being prey to notorious breezes, Mr. Trump wore one of his trademark baseball caps.
Not since 1975 had the British electorate been consulted on its membership in the European club. That was before the EU as we now know it existed. Back then it had been the European Economic Community. British politicians assured voters four decades ago that if the U.K. stayed in, there would be no threat to democratic accountability. They did so with the air of parents assuring children that they will like the taste of green beans. Honestly, honey, you really will, once you get used to them.

In 1993 the EEC morphed into the European Union, a far more political undertaking. The EU not only had its own flag and anthem but also a hunger for fiscal, diplomatic and legislative powers. Then came its own currency, the euro. This has caused economic ruin in much of Europe (though not, happily, in Britain, which never gave up the pound).

Now the British electorate has said “enough!” Voters have declared that they want Westminster’s elected House of Commons, not the EU’s commissioners in Brussels, to set British policy—particularly on immigration. Other European nations might look at Brexit with envy. There could well be a domino effect. CONTINUE AT SITE

The Fisher Decision: The National Association of Scholars Responds

On June 23, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a four-to-three decision in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin. The majority opinion, written by Justice Kennedy, gave the victory in the case to the University of Texas. The decision allows the university to continue to grant strong preference in admissions to minority students based on their race.

The National Association of Scholars deeply regrets the Court’s final decision in this case, which has endured more than eight years of litigation. Along with many others, we had hoped the Court would at last hold the University of Texas to the standard of “strict scrutiny” for its use of racial classifications. Instead, Justice Kennedy’s opinion cobbles together rationalizations, excuses, averted glances, circumventions, and just-so stories that add up to permitting the University of Texas to persist in racial discrimination among applicants.

Racial Favoritism

Kennedy’s twenty-page opinion, also signed by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor, ends the case in which Abigail Fisher claimed that she was unjustly refused admission to the University. Her complaint centered on the University’s practice of using racial preferences among its criteria for selecting students among those who were not automatically admitted under Texas’s so-called “Top Ten Percent Plan.” That plan grants students graduating in the top ten percent of each Texas high school class automatic admission to the state’s public universities. Fisher, who is white, finished high school just outside the top ten percent of her class. She then applied for regular admission. The University, however, used a system of racial favoritism to select among students in this category.

The U.S. Supreme Court has now certified that this system of favoritism passes muster with the Court’s previous rulings on when race can and cannot be used in distributing public benefits. The Court’s “strict scrutiny” rule generally restricts the use of racial classifications to cases where there is a “compelling public interest” and where no less intrusive measure exists to achieve that interest.

The Make-Believe University

But there is no compelling public interest for the use of racial classifications or racial preferences in admissions at the University of Texas. And other means of increasing the numbers of black and Hispanic enrollees are easily at hand. Because these facts are plain, Justice Kennedy and his majority colleagues enrolled themselves in a make-believe university where:

The university employs racial preferences not for the sake of increasing black and Hispanic enrollment but to obtain “the educational benefits that flow from student body diversity.”
The university does not employ numerical quotas, but seeks to maximize “diversity.”
The university does not have “elusory or amorphous” goals in its racial preference policy, but has “articulated concrete and precise goals,” these being:
Ending stereotypes
Promoting “cross-racial understanding”
Preparing students for “an increasingly diverse workforce and society”
Cultivating leaders with “legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry”
The university adopted so-called “holistic review” not to evade accountability for using race in admissions but because none of the “alternatives was a workable means of attaining the University’s educational goals.”

Outside the make-believe of the Supreme Court’s sorry record of jurisprudence on race in college admissions, these claims are sheer nonsense. The University of Texas uses race in college admissions simply for the advantages that racial politics provides.

Antisemitism Is Flourishing on California Campuses : Shani Shalmoon

For nearly a decade, incidents of antisemitism have been on the rise in the University of California system and numerous other colleges in the Golden State. Some say that California colleges make more headlines about incidents of antisemitism than for academic or athletic achievements. The most recent academic year was no exception.

According to the antisemitism watchdog group AMCHA Initiative, 69 antisemitic incidents occurred on 20 different California campuses during the recent academic year. UC Berkley led the way with eight instances, followed by UC Irvine and UC Santa Cruz with seven each.

“When it comes to antisemitism, California schools continue to top the list, both in number and severity. To those of us closely monitoring the rise of campus antisemitism over the past few years, this comes as no surprise since many California schools were ground zero for the campus anti-Zionism movement,” explained AMCHA Director Tammi Rossman-Benjamin. “Examination after examination demonstrate a direct connection between anti-Zionist activities on campus and acts of anti-Jewish hostility. The problem is not going away. In fact, it’s picking up steam and must be addressed immediately.”

AMCHA tracks all reported incidents of antisemitism on college campuses throughout the US. To be classified as antisemitic, an incident must meet the definition established by the US State Department.

In 2015, 464 antisemitic incidents on campus were reported across the country. The first half of 2016 has seen 254 occurrences. At the current pace, 2016 will see an increase of nearly 10 percent in antisemitism on college campuses nationwide.

A 2015 study performed by AMCHA of antisemitic activity on campuses across the country revealed that four of the five most active anti-Jewish campuses are part of the UC system. The same study showed that “99 percent of schools with one or more active anti-Zionist groups had one or more incidents of anti-Semitic activity, whereas only 16 percent of schools with no active anti-Zionist student group had experienced anti-Semitic activity.”

THE GLAZOV GANG THE BRIGITTE GABRIEL MOMENT: WHAT IS REALLY DRIVING THE TERRORISTS

This special edition of The Glazov Gang presents The Brigitte Gabriel Moment with Brigitte Gabriel, the founder of ACT for America.

Brigitte discusses What is Really Driving the Terrorists, unveiling what really inspired Omar Mateen — and why Obama and the media don’t want you to know it.

Don’t miss it!