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Trump Tower stands along 5th Avenue in Manhattan.

Manhattans Fifth Avenue packs a world of intrigue into a few blocks. Trump Tower at 57th Street was the launch pad for Donald Trumps run to the White House. Four blocks south, 666 Fifth Ave. is a white elephant that has pushed owner Jared Kushner, Trumps son-and-law and adviser, into a well-scrutinized hunt for rich investors.

Then theres the nearly decade-long legal melodrama over a 36-story building across the street from Kushners tower. U.S. prosecutors are in the home stretch of an attempt to seize 650 Fifth Ave. and related assets from a charity that owns it, alleging the organization is a front for Irans government and that it violated economic sanctions against Iran since 1995.

In a trial entering its fourth week in Manhattan federal court, prosecutors say the buildings primary owner, the Alavi Foundation, has illegally funneled millions of dollars to Iran under cover of its charitable activities. They hope to recapture more than $500 million with the proceeds going to victims of Iranian-sponsored terrorism.

Alavis lawyers maintain that the foundation is independent of Irans government and spends its money on schools, health care and higher education, as well as promoting Persian culture and supporting interfaith studies.

Prosecutors first moved in 2008 to seize 650 Fifth Ave. Five years later, U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest granted the governments request, but she was slapped down by appellate judgeslast year who sent the case back to her for trial. The case has unfolded as the U.S. relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran has gone from axis of evil territory during the administration of President George W. Bush, through a period of dtente under President Barack Obama, and back to a state of hostility under Trump.

The likelihood of getting a jury sympathetic to Iran in New York is pretty slim, said Barbara Slavin, acting director of the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council. Assuming this case goes against the foundation, it will be yet another brick in the wall that this administration is trying to rebuild with Iran.

The trial may prove be a further irritant to U.S.-Iranian relations as prosecutors dredge up the acts of current Iranian officials. Prosecutors are expected to argue that a $4 million legal settlement paid by Alavi in 2004 was hush money designed to keep a former charity official from revealing the true nature of the organization.

That payment was allegedly ordered by Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was then Irans UN ambassador in New York. Zarif was the lead negotiator who worked with John Kerry,Obamas Secretary of State, on the 2015 agreement limiting Irans nuclear capabilities in return for lifting of some economic sanctions.

The trial will cap a range of investigations that have already cost European banks more than $18 billion in fines, penalties and forfeitures. When Alavi was originally investigated by the office of then-Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, a young attorney determined that many of Wall Streets largest European-based banks removed the names of Iranian clients from transactions. This allowed the banks to wire money in and out of the U.S. through correspondent bank accounts in violation of U.S. sanctions, prosecutors said.

The District Attorneys office used that evidence to launch cases against such banks as Lloyds Banking Group Plc, Credit Suisse Group Plc, Barclays Plc, Standard Chartered and others, culminating in an $8.9 billion settlement with BNP Paribas SA in 2014.

The Alavi Foundation has assembled a legal team that is top-flight as well as top-priced, from the firms Debevoise & Plimpton and Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler. The Debevoise team features Matthew Fishbein, Sean Hecker and John Gleeson, a former federal judge who oversaw the Justice Departments $1.9 billion deferred prosecution agreement with HSBC in 2012, a settlement that involved violations of Iran sanctions.

Another set of lawyers in the courtroom is representing the victims of terrorist attacks sponsored by Iran. If the government prevails, victims of the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon and other attacks tied to Iran stand to benefit from a share of the forfeiture proceeds.

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To convince the jury that Alavi is controlled by political leadership in Tehran, prosecutors have laid out the history of the foundation, which serves as a time capsule of American-Iranian relations during the past 40 years. Elements of spy-thriller intrigue include government agents who recovered relevant records from a trash bin at a Yonkers, New York, strip mall and hidden in the attic of a Mineola, New York, townhouse.

It began as the Pahlavi Foundation in the 1970s, created on behalf of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, a staunch American ally. Funded by $42 million in loans from Tehran-based Bank Melli in 1975, the foundation erected a tower at the corner of 52nd St. and Fifth Avenue, kitty-corner from St. Patricks Cathedral and near Rockefeller Center.

After the shah was deposed in 1979, Irans next supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, created the Mostazafan Foundation in Tehran, which took control of assets and businesses seized from the Shah and his allies.

The charity struggled financially in its early years. It was sitting on a valuable asset, but because it needed office rent to make payments on its mortgage, the foundation owed more than $1 million in taxes each year, ensuring years of red ink.

The Iranian government, which essentially controlled Bank Melli, approved the creation of a company, Assa Corp., which would eventually be given 40 percent of the building as a way of removing the mortgage. The restructuring created the 650 Fifth Avenue Partnership, which owned and operated the building.

Assa was a front company for the government of Iran, Assistant U.S. Attorney Martin Bell said in his opening statement, noting that in 1995, President Bill Clinton imposed wide-ranging sanctions against Iran. When the law changed and providing services to the government of Iran became illegal, the 650 Fifth Avenue Partnership kept on sending rental income to Bank Melli Iran, Bell said.

Prosecutors showed dozens of documents to the jury suggesting that from 1980 onward, the foundation was largely controlled or guided by Irans ambassador to the United Nations in New York.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Lockard, who has been on this case since its inception, read from a letter writtenin 1991 by anAlavi director affirming that he would step down from his position in line with a directive from the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, who succeeded Khomeini in 1989.

Under the worst and most sensitive of political conditions between America and Iran, we have succeeded in fully protecting and expanding the foundations interests, which in truth belongs to the people of Iran, the director wrote. We were also able to successfully carry out cultural and Islamic activities in the country of the Great Satan.

The jury is expected to get the case later this week. If the government prevails, it would be in the position to sell Alavis 60 percent stake of the building. That job would presumably fall to U.S. marshals, a branch of the Justice Department that reports to the owner of the other Fifth Avenue tower a few blocks away, President Trump.

The case is 650 Fifth Avenue and related properties, 08-cv-10934, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

Read more from the original source:
Fifth Avenue Highrise Trial Pulls Iran Standoff Into Trump Era - Bloomberg

Zumba exercises classes have been effectively banned in Iran after the countrys authorities declared that the dance contravenes Islamic ideology.

In light of activities such as Zumba, performing rhythmic movements or dancing in any form is not legal in any shape or title and the prohibition of movements such as this is requested, Ali Majdara, the head of Irans General Sports Federation, wrote in a public letter to the ministry of youth affairs earlier this month.

The federation went on to urge the development of athletics for everyone in the framework of supreme Islamic ideology.

Iranian station crudely Photoshop clothes on Charlize Theron at Oscars

Mr Majdaras position means that Zumba has in effect already been banned, with classes in locations around the country already cancelled. Similar announcements have led to the curtailment of other sports - especially those for women - in the past.

The energetic Colombian dance style has become popular in recent years, with gyms and sport centres around the world offering instruction.

In Iran, where women still face opposition from the Islamic Republics Revolutionary Guard over dress codes and activities which the religious authorities fear may encourage revealing clothing or mixing of the sexes, it had been taught under names such as body rhythm or advanced aerobics.

Dancing is technically illegal, but in recent years, instructors and gyms had become bolder, openly advertising classes as Zumba lessons.

The move was met with fury by female fitness enthusiasts across the country, many of whom took to social media to vent their frustrations.

Iran officials banned Zumba classes. Why? because it encourages ppl to dance and this is against 'our' cultural norms!, one person tweeted.

Iran bans Zumba from all gyms because it's un-Islamic. When regime meddles in every aspect of personal life, another post read.

Several gyms told media outlets they planned to continue the classes under different names because of its popularity - and the possible dents in profits.

Zohre Safavizadeh, a Zumba student, told the Los Angeles Times the ban is being viewed as a reaction to the greater freedoms promised by Irans moderate President Hassan Rouhani, who was reelected in May.

The hardliners want to undo what was promised by President Rouhani, she said, and thus We as women are deprived small happiness.

Go here to read the rest:
Iran bans Zumba classes for being 'un-Islamic' - The Independent

BEIRUT Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei lashed out on Sunday at U.S. President Donald Trump's administration and what he characterized as its hostility to the Islamic Republic.

"This inexperienced group has not recognized the people and leaders of Iran," he said, according to the website for state TV. "When they get hit in the mouth, at that time they'll know what's going on."

Khamenei and other senior Iranian officials have ramped up their criticism of the United States in recent weeks after Trump went on an official visit last month to Saudi Arabia, Iran's main regional rival.

During that visit, Trump singled out Iran as a key source of funding and support for militant groups. He has also criticized the nuclear deal between Iran and six major powers, including the United States, that led to the lifting of most sanctions against Iran, in return for curbs on its nuclear programme. Trump has said Washington would review the deal but stopped short of pledging to scrap it.

Iran and the United States cut diplomatic ties shortly after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution and enmity to Washington has long been a rallying point for hardline supporters of Khamenei in Iran.

Khamenei has accused the United States and its regional ally Saudi Arabia of funding hardline Sunni militants, including Islamic State, which carried out its first attack in Iran earlier this month, killing 17 people.

Riyadh has denied involvement in the suicide bombings and gun attacks on Iran's parliament and the mausoleum of the Islamic Republic's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Khamenei said in his speech on Sunday that any efforts to destabilize the Islamic Republic would not succeed.

"In the past 38 years, when has there been a time when you haven't wanted to change the Islamic system?" Khamenei said, according to Fars News. "Your head has hit the rock each time and always will."

(Reporting by Babak Dehghanpisheh; Editing by Peter Cooney)

PARIS President Emmanuel Macron's government on Monday promised to reshape France's political landscape as final results showed he had won the commanding parliamentary majority he wanted to push through far-reaching pro-growth reforms.

LONDON London police said 79 people were dead or missing presumed dead after a devastating tower block blaze last week.

Read more here:
Iran's supreme leader criticizes US policies toward Tehran - Reuters

BEIRUT Iran fired missiles on Sunday into eastern Syria, aiming at the bases of militant groups it holds responsible for attacks in Tehran which left 18 dead last week, Iran's Tasnim news agency reported.

Iranian Revolutionary Guards launched the mid-range ground-to-ground missiles from western Iran into the Deir al Zour region of eastern Syria, killing a "large number" of terrorists and destroying their equipment and weapons, it said.

The missiles targeted the "headquarters and gathering centers of Takfiri terrorists supporting and building car bombs", it said.

Reuters could not independently verify the report.

Military leaders and officials in Iran, a predominantly Shi'ite country, often refer to Sunni Muslim radicals as Takfiris.

The Revolutionary Guards are fighting in Syria against militant groups who oppose President Bashar al-Assad.

The attack last week, which included shootings and at least one suicide bombing, was on Iran's parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic.

"The spilling of any pure blood will not go unanswered," the Revolutionary Guards said in the statement quoted by Tasnim.

Islamic State issued a statement claiming responsibility for the Tehran attack.

Senior Iranian officials, however, have pointed a finger at Saudi Arabia, Iran's Sunni regional rival.

(Editing by Andrew Roche)

MOSUL, Iraq Iraqi forces began storming the Islamic State-held Old City of Mosul on Sunday, in an assault they hope will be the last in the eight-month-old campaign to seize the militants' stronghold.

SUWALKI GAP, Polish-Lithuanian border U.S. and British troops have carried out the first large-scale NATO defensive drill on the border between Poland and Lithuania, rehearsing for a possible scenario in which Russia might try to sever the Baltic states from the rest of the Western alliance.

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Iran fires missiles at militant groups in eastern Syria - Reuters

Several neighboring Arab states have cut or reduced their ties with the Arabian Gulf state of Qatar, ostensibly in retaliation for Qatars support for terrorist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. For most Americans, any collaboration with terrorists is immoral and dangerous. Thus, many Americans may support the actions of Saudi Arabia and others in ostracizing the oil-rich nation. Such a rush to judgement, however, fails to take into the account the strategic realities that Qataris have to face, and the U.S. decisions that make those strategic calculations even more difficult.

With a population of only 2.2 million, a land area the size of Connecticut, and a small military force, Qatar is barely 100 miles from Iran, the enemy of oil-producing states throughout the region, and a budding nuclear power. (By comparison, Iran has a population of 83 million, land area the size of Alaska, and one of the most powerful militaries in the world.) Geographically, Qatar is perhaps the most vulnerable of all the Arab Gulf states, jutting as it does into the Gulf like a piece of ripe fruit.

While on a fact-finding trip to Oman just after the JCPOA was completed, I learned that the U.S. Navys 5th Fleet was moving refueling and resupply depots from the United Arab Emirates to Oman, to reduce the need for Navy ships to enter the Arabian Gulf. Economy was given as the reason for the move, but for Qatar, situated farther up the Gulf, the American move means fewer U.S. ships in the Gulf, for shorter periods of time. In context, this could seem like the first step in abandoning the Gulf altogether. While it is true that the U.S. maintains a presence at the al-Udeid air base, it is also true that Qatars isolation will make resupply and support of that base more expensive.

Nor did President Trumps election offer any reassurance. A major plank in President Trumps platform has been further retrenchment of the United States from its overseas commitments. With the U.S. president casting doubt on the continued usefulness of NATO, mutual defense arrangements with Gulf States look particularly vulnerable. Add the failure of the current administration to renounce the JCPOA, as promised, and the shadow of danger looming across the uncomfortably narrow Gulf keeps growing.

In short, Qatari leaders almost certainly believe that they have little choice but to hedge their bets and try to seem as cooperative as possible to Irans leaders. Qataris do not have to look far to see an example of such a posture. Omani officials eagerly describe their foreign policy as enemy to none, friend to all. They elaborate by noting that they are largely incapable of defending themselves against a serious attack, and add, almost in a whisper, that they cannot depend upon anyone rushing to their aid.

If anything, Qatar is more exposed than Oman. It is smaller, has fewer people, far greater oil wealth, and it is on the wrong side of the Strait of Hormuz. Under the circumstances, accommodating the Iranian regime by assisting its clients is a harsh but necessary survival strategy, probably designed to convince the mullahs that other Gulf States would make better targets.

Given the inescapable nature of Qatars vulnerability, diplomatic isolation is unlikely to change Qatari policy. A resurgent U.S. presence in the region, however, would change everything, and permit Qatar to cut off its support for terrorist groups. During his recent trip to Saudi Arabia, Trump set the stage for such resurgence by highlighting the emerging anti-Iran partnership that includes both the Saudis and the Israelis.

His administration should build on this visit with regular visits to the region by high-ranking officials, a clear commitment to the al-Udeid base, and by negotiating mutual defense arrangements with any state in the region that perceives a threat from Iran. Even without an open break with the JCPOA, a beefed-up U.S. presence in the Gulf would let the world know that no nation will have to confront Iran all by itself.

Given the vagaries of American interest, even in the most strategically important parts of the world, reassurance for states like Qatar will not come easily. President Trump must make it clear that the U.S. will remain a vigilant Gulf state partner, until regime change in Iran makes such vigilance unnecessary.

Edward Lynch, Ph.D., is chair of political science at Hollins Universityin Roanoke, Virginia.He served in the White House Office of Public Liaison during the Reagan administration.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

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We can't let Qatar face Iran alone - The Hill (blog)